Hoyos v. State

• Decision Date: 18 November 1998
• Docket Number: No. 0050-98,0050-98
• Citation: 982 S.W.2d 419
• Parties: Humberto Almazo HOYOS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 419

982 S.W.2d 419

Humberto Almazo HOYOS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.

No. 0050-98

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas,

En Banc.

Nov. 18, 1998.

Judith Martin Prince, Houston, for appellant.

Carol M. Cameron, Asst. Dist. Atty., Houston, Matthew Paul, State's Atty., Austin, for State.

Before the court en banc.

OPINION

KELLER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which McCORMICK, P.J., and MEYERS, MANSFIELD, PRICE, HOLLAND and WOMACK, JJ., joined.

The issue in the present case is whether the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment was violated when the trial court excluded evidence regarding the anticipated filing by the complainant against a third party of a civil lawsuit for damages arising from the crime being prosecuted. ¹ Appellant contends that the anticipated civil claim was relevant to show the complainant's bias as a witness. While we agree that a complainant's civil claim against a third party may be relevant, under the proper circumstances, to show the complainant's bias, we hold that appellant failed to demonstrate at trial the relevance of the proffered testimony.

I.

The complainant, a fifty-eight year old woman, lived in an apartment. On November 17, 1994, four men forced entry into the apartment and assaulted various family members. One of the men demanded money, hit the complainant with a revolver several times, threatened to kill her, and shot her once in the thigh. Appellant was later arrested and tried for aggravated robbery. The complainant identified appellant as one of the robbers, and he was convicted and sentenced.

During trial, appellant attempted to introduce evidence that the complainant had hired an attorney to file a civil lawsuit against her apartment complex for failing to maintain effective security. The trial court expressed doubt concerning the admissibility of the proffered evidence because appellant would not be named in the lawsuit. The trial court opined that the lawsuit might nevertheless be relevant if appellant were contesting the occurrence of the crime itself, but the court remarked that appellant was contesting only the complainant's identification of him as one of the perpetrators. Under those circumstances, the trial court reasoned, the outcome of appellant's criminal trial was irrelevant to the outcome of the civil lawsuit: the identity of the perpetrator of the crime had no bearing upon whether the apartment complex failed to maintain adequate security to prevent the crime (whoever the perpetrator may have been). Hence, the lawsuit gave the complainant no incentive to testify at the criminal trial that appellant was among the perpetrators.

The trial court, however, deferred its decision on the issue for one day in order to give appellant and the State the opportunity to present authorities. The trial court further commented that there is "[n]o reason to show me authority if she was going to file suit against the person on trial. I agree under those circumstances it's probably a legitimate inquiry." After brief argument the next day, the trial court excluded the evidence "based upon the record thus far." During the discussions on these two days, appellant never contended that the complainant would or might name him as a party to the civil lawsuit, and appellant never contended that he was contesting whether the complainant was in fact robbed and assaulted. In fact, appellant articulated no reason for believing the civil lawsuit would cause the complaining witness to be biased in her testimony in the criminal case. Appellant's position apparently was that bias could be inferred from the mere fact that the complainant contemplated a civil lawsuit based upon the events giving rise to the criminal prosecution. Appellant made no further attempts to offer the evidence at trial. During a hearing on his motion for new trial, appellant elicited some evidence that he contends shows that the civil lawsuit was relevant to proving the complainant's bias. ²

Relying, among other things, upon this Court's decisions in Shelby v. State, 819 S.W.2d 544 (Tex.Crim.App.1991) and Cox v. State, 523 S.W.2d 695 (Tex.Crim.App.1975), the Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction for essentially the same reasons articulated by the trial court. Relying in part upon Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974) and upon our decisions in Shelby, Carroll v. State, 916 S.W.2d 494 (Tex.Crim.App.1996), and Blake v. State, 365 S.W.2d 795 (Tex.Crim.App.1963), appellant contends that the courts below erred in finding the evidence to be irrelevant to show bias.

II.

Without question, a witness' bias is a relevant issue at trial, and the Confrontation Clause gives a criminal defendant the right to explore potential biases of an accusing witness through cross-examination. Davis, 415 U.S. at 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105. "A defendant is entitled to pursue all avenues of cross-examination reasonably calculated to expose a motive, bias, or interest for the witness to testify." Carroll, 916 S.W.2d at 497. We have held that "[t]he fact that a witness has brought a civil suit against the defendant growing out of the same incident is admissible as tending to show interest and bias." Cox, 523 S.W.2d at 700 (emphasis added). The question remains whether, and under what circumstances, evidence of a complainant's civil suit against a third party is relevant to show bias.

Appellant relies upon Shelby and Blake for the proposition that any lawsuit by a complainant based upon the same occurrence as the alleged offense is relevant to show bias. His reliance upon those cases is misplaced. Blake is clearly distinguishable because the defendant in that case was a party to the civil lawsuit. 365 S.W.2d at 796. Shelby requires a little more discussion.

In Shelby, the defendant was on trial for sexually assaulting a child under the age of fourteen. 819 S.W.2d at 548. The child told his mother that the defendant--who was employed by the apartment complex in which they lived to clean its swimming pools--had pulled complainant's clothes off, touched his private parts, and penetrated his anus with a finger. Id. The State offered the mother's testimony as an outcry witness but offered no independent medical evidence to corroborate the child's story. Id. ³ The defendant attempted to introduce evidence of a pending lawsuit for damages by the complainant's mother against the apartment complex, but the trial court excluded the evidence. Id. at 545. In a previous, unpublished opinion, we had held that the trial court's action improperly limited the scope of appellant's cross-examination. After discussing our previous opinion, we proceeded to conduct a harm analysis.

Aside from being concerned with the appropriate harm analysis rather than with whether a Confrontation Clause error occurred, we find Shelby distinguishable in a couple of respects. First, the record in Shelby showed that the defendant was employed by the apartment complex. Because of that employment relationship, identifying the perpetrator as the defendant may have given rise to theories of liability that would not exist if the assailant were not affiliated with the apartment complex and may have increased the likelihood of success in the civil litigation. No evidence in the record shows any such similar relationship between appellant and the apartment complex in the present case.

Second, given the nature of the crime and the lack of physical evidence, one can reasonably conclude from a reading of Shelby that the occurrence of the sexual assault was a contested issue at trial. Because the complainant's mother would have needed to establish that a sexual assault had occurred to prevail in the civil lawsuit, the outcome of the criminal action was likely to have an effect on the pending civil case. The present case, by contrast, contained both impressive physical evidence (gunshot to the thigh) and the absence of any attempt to deny the occurrence of the crime--even in the face of comments by the trial judge during arguments that highlighted the issue.

In summary, the record before the trial court at the time the evidence was excluded contains no indication that (1) appellant was a contemplated party to the anticipated lawsuit, (2) a relationship existed between appellant and the apartment complex, (3) a fact issue existed concerning the occurrence of the crime, or (4) there was any other reason to believe that the lawsuit might cause the complainant to be biased in her testimony at the criminal trial. The reasoning of the trial court and the Court of Appeals is correct. Conviction of appellant for the crime would not further complainant's objectives in the civil lawsuit. The success of the civil lawsuit depends upon proving that a crime occurred as a result of the apartment complex's negligence. Neither the occurrence of the crime nor the apartment complex's negligence were issues in the criminal prosecution. The issue in the criminal case was the identity of the perpetrator--an issue of no consequence to the civil litigation. Absent one of the four factors listed above, the lawsuit did not give rise to an inference of bias.

As for appellant's citation to evidence elicited during the motion for new trial hearing, that evidence does not impact the validity of the trial court's ruling at trial. In determining the validity of a trial court's decision to exclude evidence, we examine the record as it appeared at the time of the trial court's ruling. Currie v. State, 692 S.W.2d 95, 97-98 (Tex.Crim.App.1985). Because the record at the time of the ruling did not show the relevance of the anticipated lawsuit, the trial court did not err in excluding the evidence.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

OVERSTREET, J., dissents.

BAIRD, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

Although we granted three grounds for review, the majority addresses only the first ground for review which asks whether the Court of Appeals...