Granados v. State, 73,525.

• Decision Date: 08 May 2002
• Docket Number: No. 73,525.,73,525.
• Parties: Carlos GRANADOS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

85 S.W.3d 217

Carlos GRANADOS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.

No. 73,525.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

May 8, 2002.

Rehearing Denied August 21, 2002.

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David A. Schulman, Austin, for Appellant.

Ken Anderson, DA, Georgetown, Matthew Paul, State's Atty., Austin, for State.

OPINION

KELLER, P.J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which WOMACK, KEASLER, HERVEY, HOLCOMB, and COCHRAN joined.

A Williamson County jury convicted appellant of capital murder.¹ Pursuant to the jury's answers to the special issues set forth in Article 37.071, Sections 2(b) and 2(e) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the trial judge sentenced appellant to death.² Direct appeal to this Court is automatic.³ We will affirm.

I.

The facts of this crime are particularly relevant to appellant's fifth point of error, which challenges the admission of evidence obtained at the crime scene, and his fourth point of error, which challenges the admissibility of certain statements by a police officer introduced at a hearing on appellant's motion to suppress the crime scene evidence.

A.

Katherine Jiminez testified at trial and described appellant's actions in detail. She indicated that she first met appellant in 1993. The two became friends, spent time together socially, and dated for a short time. They parted ways soon thereafter, but remained in friendly contact. Katherine then married Anthony Jiminez in April of 1994, and on June 13, 1995, she gave birth to a son, Anthony. Katherine and her husband eventually separated, and in late 1997, she re-established a relationship with appellant, who then lived in New York. In January of 1998, Katherine moved into an apartment of her own in Georgetown. In March, appellant visited her from New York. After another visit in July of 1998, appellant decided to return to Texas. Katherine and appellant agreed that they would live together until appellant got on his feet. In late August, he began living with Katherine and three-year-old Anthony in Katherine's apartment.

Less than a month later, on Sunday, September 13, 1998, Katherine, appellant, and Anthony returned to Katherine's apartment after having lunch at appellant's brother's house. Katherine and appellant were both supposed to go to work that evening. Katherine planned to drop Anthony off at her mother's house, where he would remain until Katherine could pick him up the next morning. Appellant wanted Katherine to join him in a nap that afternoon, but she refused, because she still needed to finish chores around the apartment and because she did not want to take a nap while Anthony was awake. Meanwhile, Anthony was in the living room watching television. Appellant, angry that Katherine would not take a nap with him, knocked a plate of food from her hand. The two then retreated to the bedroom where they began arguing. At that point, Katherine told appellant, "I don't even want to talk to you anymore. I don't want to look at you. I don't want you to be around me .... I don't want you here. Just get your things and leave." Appellant said, "You want me to leave?" and Katherine said, "Yeah, I want you to leave."

A brief cooling off period ensued, and the two began talking again. During this time, Katherine's sister Elizabeth called, but appellant said Katherine was busy and hung up the telephone. Katherine told appellant to "get his stuff and leave." Katherine then repeated that she wanted him to leave. Appellant left the room, and when he came back asked again, "You want me to leave?" and she said that she did. Angered, appellant said, "Fuck it. Fuck it," and attacked Katherine with a knife. He stabbed her repeatedly and slashed her throat. Then, apparently, the knife broke. Katherine struggled and attempted to placate appellant by telling him that she loved him. Eventually, appellant began crying, afraid that he would go to jail. Katherine said that she would contrive a false story about her injuries if appellant would simply leave.

Katherine tried unsuccessfully to telephone the police and to escape, but appellant caught her and dragged her to the kitchen. He stabbed her again repeatedly, and she feigned death. Appellant left the kitchen, and Katherine heard Anthony scream, "I don't want to die. Don't kill me. I don't want to die." Stabbed in the chest, Anthony died within moments.

Later, Katherine heard her sister and her nephew outside the apartment. Afraid appellant would finally kill her if she screamed for help, however, she remained silent. Appellant stayed active throughout the night. He came to the kitchen where Katherine lay and showed her that he had slashed his wrists, stating, "Look, I'm going to die with you." Later, he telephoned his father. Several hours later, believing that her death was imminent, Katherine dragged her body toward her son, wanting to die by his side.

Meanwhile, Katherine's family became worried that they had not heard from her, that she had not arrived for work, and that she had not left Anthony with her mother at the regularly scheduled time. Elizabeth Ojeda, one of Katherine's sisters, testified that, after she called Katherine's apartment, left messages on her answering machine, visited the apartment, and received no response to her knock, Ojeda telephoned the apartment manager and Georgetown Police. Early Monday morning, two officers visited the apartment on a welfare concern call. Corporal Gregory Brunson testified that he noticed both Katherine's and appellant's vehicles in the parking lot of the apartment complex. He also confirmed information about who was paying utilities at Apartment 3206, Katherine's apartment. Corporal Brunson and Officer Vasquez approached the apartment door and knocked, but received no response and heard no noise inside the apartment. Corporal Brunson did not see any lights and could not see inside the apartment windows when looking from the north side of the building. Officer Vasquez telephoned the apartment but received no answer. Upon a request from the officers, the apartment manager arrived with a key but was unable to enter the apartment because of an interior dead-bolt. At this point, seeing no other means of opening the door, Corporal Brunson telephoned the fire department for assistance. Three firefighters arrived with what Corporal Brunson described as a doorjamb spreader, which is used to open deadbolted doors. After approximately five minutes, the firefighters opened the apartment door.

Upon entering the apartment, one of the firefighters exclaimed that appellant had a knife. Corporal Brunson drew his revolver, approached the door, and saw appellant, whose right hand was initially hidden. In response to Corporal Brunson's orders, appellant raised his right hand, in which he held a large kitchen knife covered in blood. After ordering appellant out of the apartment, Corporal Brunson repeatedly asked appellant to release the knife. Appellant eventually did so and Corporal Brunson handcuffed him. Inside the apartment, Corporal Brunson saw Anthony's body, Katherine's bloody arms protruding from beyond a chair, and blood stains covering the carpet and walls near the kitchen. Once the officers determined that no one else was in the apartment, they allowed medical personnel to enter and begin treating Katherine, who said to Corporal Brunson, "He killed my baby, and I have been waiting for you to come."

B.

Appellant's fifth point of error challenges the admissibility of evidence that the officers obtained after the firefighters opened the apartment door. According to appellant, the officers conducted an unreasonable search of the apartment because they had no probable cause to believe that a crime had been committed and their search was not justified under any exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. The State counters by arguing that the emergency doctrine justified the search and that, even if the search itself was unreasonable, Katherine's own testimony provided an independent source for the evidence, apart from the tainted search.

First, we must determine whether appellant has standing to contest the search. An accused has standing to contest a search under the Fourth Amendment only if he had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the place that government officials or agents invaded.⁴ A defendant, who bears the burden of demonstrating a legitimate expectation of privacy, can do so by establishing that he had a subjective expectation of privacy in the place invaded that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.⁵ Several factors are relevant to determining whether a given claim of privacy is objectively reasonable: (1) whether the accused had a property or possessory interest in the place invaded; (2) whether he was legitimately in the place invaded; (3) whether he had complete dominion or control and the right to exclude others; (4) whether, prior to the intrusion, he took normal precautions customarily taken by those seeking privacy; (5) whether he put the place to some private use; and (6) whether his claim of privacy is consistent with historical notions of privacy.⁶ This list of factors is not exhaustive, however, and none is dispositive of a particular assertion of privacy; rather, we examine the circumstances surrounding the search in their totality.⁷

The United States Supreme Court in Minnesota v. Olson recognized that an overnight guest has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his host's home.⁸ There can be little question that, prior to the events of September 13, 1998, appellant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the apartment pursuant to Olson after he began spending the night. He had kept his belongings there for two or three weeks, he established telephone service in his own name there,⁹ and he had freedom to move about the premises. Although appellant makes no claim that he was a legal resident of the apartment (he merely states that he had been "staying...