Jacques v. State, No. 08-02-00491-CR (TX 8/12/2004)
| Decision Date | 12 August 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 08-02-00491-CR,08-02-00491-CR |
| Parties | MICHAEL JACQUES, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Appeal from 168th District Court of El Paso County, Texas, (TC# 20020D03178).
Before Panel No. 4, BARAJAS, C.J., LARSEN, and McCLURE, JJ.
Michael Jacques appeals his conviction for capital murder. Appellant pled not guilty, was convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison. We affirm.
On the evening of Friday, March 10, 2000, 18-year-old Sophia Martinez left her house in her red 2000 Grand Am GTS around 10:15 p.m. on her way to a nightclub in El Paso. The next morning, her sister Mary Ann went to wake her for work but Sophia was not in her room. Mary Ann thought that Sophia had gotten up early and already left the house. When she received a call around 10:30 or 11 a.m. advising her that Sophia had not shown up for work, Mary Ann began making calls and trying to locate her sister. The New Mexico State Police then called to report that her sister's car had been found but Sophia was missing. Her body was found the next day.
Officer Leticia Olivas of the El Paso Police Department was one of the crime scene technicians assigned to the murder case. On March 12, she went to the desert area off Junction 404 and O'Hara Road in New Mexico to recover Sophia's car. By the time she arrived, the car had been towed but she documented and photographed the area. She observed tire impressions leading into and out of the area and tennis shoe impressions leading toward the highway.1 Olivas then went to the New Mexico State Troopers' garage in Las Cruces where the vehicle was stored. She took interior and exterior pictures of the car. There were blood stains on the seats, the interior door panels, the steering wheel, the driver's seat belt, and the rearview mirror. The passenger side window was shattered and broken out. From there, Olivas headed to northeast El Paso where Sophia's body had been located. She had been shot five times in the head and face. One wound was on the right side of the back of her head, one through the center of her right eye, one through her right cheek next to her nose, and one to her left cheek. Sophia also received a grazing wound through her left eyebrow area. The medical examiner recovered four bullets and concluded that Sophia died as a result of brain injury from multiple gunshots. A fifth bullet was found in the vicinity where the body was discovered. Sophia's body also tested positive for sperm which was later matched to William Berkley, Appellant's co-defendant. A toxicology report was negative for drugs and alcohol.
During their investigation, police found an ATM receipt in Sophia's car and obtained the video surveillance tapes from the Government Employees Credit Union (GECU) on Viscount, where Sophia banked. The video showed that at 10:22:35 p.m. on March 10, Sophia approached the ATM and withdrew $20. At 10:24:05 p.m., an individual later identified as Berkley approached the passenger side of Sophia's car with his arms extended. He pointed a pistol at Sophia at 10:24:09 p.m. and the passenger side window shattered. Berkley then moved around to the driver's side and got into the backseat. A bleeding Sophia withdrew $200 from her account at 10:25:15 p.m. The video showed only one perpetrator; no other cars followed Sophia's car as it left the bank.
Sophia's murder generated a great deal of public interest and was featured on Crime Stoppers and America's Most Wanted. A reward was offered for information in the case. On September 30, 2000, Heather Jacques,2 Appellant's wife, contacted the FBI with information about Sophia's death.3 Police then contacted Appellant, who was in the El Paso County jail on an unrelated charge, and questioned him concerning Sophia's murder. Appellant ultimately gave two written statements.
According to these statements, Appellant was visiting Heather at the hospital on March 10 when his friend William Berkley arrived. Heather had been hospitalized for a kidney infection, although the record is unclear as to the actual date of her admission.4 Heather needed some personal items and Appellant and Berkley went to the couple's apartment, which at that time was number 34 at the Amberwood Apartments. The men returned to the hospital and Berkley left, but he came back around 7 p.m. Appellant told Berkley that he needed money to pay his court costs and Berkley said he would take care of it. He asked whether Appellant wanted to break into a house. They began discussing different ways of getting the money and Berkley finally suggested a hold-up at an ATM. Before leaving the hospital, Berkley stole some surgical gloves and KY jelly.
The men then drove back to the Amberwood Apartments to visit Berkley's friend, Amanda Cepolski, who lived in apartment no. 134. Berkley talked to Amanda for ten to fifteen minutes before returning to the car. He showed Appellant a black .22 caliber revolver, a black pullover sweater, and a black beanie cap. They began driving around looking for possible hold-up locations. They considered the GECU in northeast El Paso, but Berkley thought the area was too well lit with too much traffic. They went to a grocery store on Fairbanks Street but didn't like that scenario either. Finally, they targeted the GECU on Viscount. Here, the lighting was poor and they parked by a rock wall fence close to the street running behind the bank. From this vantage point, Appellant could clearly see the ATMs. Berkley got out to hide in the bushes and wait for a car, and Appellant moved over to the driver's seat. Berkley donned the black sweater, beanie cap, and surgical gloves, and took the gun with him. Appellant also put on a pair of gloves.
Cars were coming and going at the ATM booths. When Appellant saw a new model car pull up, he flashed the headlights. Berkley emerged from the bushes and approached the car. Appellant couldn't see what Berkley did until he walked around to the driver's side. The car took off, and when Berkley didn't return, Appellant realized he had left in the red car. Appellant drove back to the hospital around 10:45 or 11 p.m. and told his wife that Berkley had just robbed someone at an ATM. Around 2 or 2:30 a.m., a nurse came into the hospital room and told Appellant that a friend was waiting downstairs.
Appellant went downstairs and met Berkley. Sophia's car was in the parking lot and the right front passenger side window was shattered. Berkley told Appellant that he had tried to open the passenger door but it was locked. He tried to break the window with the butt of the gun but it wouldn't break. He fired a shot, but the window only shattered. When he went around to the driver's side, he saw that the driver had been shot in the face. Berkley told her to open the automatic locks, and he got in the backseat. As Sophia tried to drive off, Berkley put the gun to her head and told her to withdraw $200. He then instructed her to drive to a secluded desert area that Appellant and Berkley called "the spot." When they arrived, Berkley told her to get out of the car. He shot her in the face twice, and she fell to the ground. Berkley then emptied the gun into her while she was lying on the ground.
Berkley had come back to the hospital because he needed Appellant's help in getting rid of the car. Appellant told his wife he had to leave again. Berkley drove Sophia's car while Appellant followed in Berkley's car. They drove out to the junction of Chaparral and O'Hara Road and turned westbound on O'Hara. Berkley passed through a cattle fence and ended up on a dirt mound. It was very dark and difficult to see, so much so that Appellant passed by Berkley without seeing him. He turned around and kept driving, finally coming upon Berkley walking along the road. Appellant picked him up.
A few days later, Appellant and his wife were having a barbecue at their apartment. Berkley stopped by and had Sophia's driver's license and car keys with him. Berkley put the license on the grill to burn, and Appellant took the keys and threw them on the roof of the apartment complex.
Appellant also provided information about the gun. The last time he had seen it was in May 2000. It was located at Berkley's father's house in the night stand by the bed. And as it turned out, Appellant's court costs of approximately $200—the underlying reason for the robbery—were paid in $20 denominations after the murder.
Based on this information, the police executed a search warrant at Berkley's father's home and recovered a .22 caliber eight-shot revolver in the nightstand of the master bedroom. They also recovered Sophia's keys from the roof of one of the buildings at the Amberwood complex and located metal fragments in apartment no. 34, Appellant's former apartment. At trial, Sally Grew, a FBI firearms and tool marks examiner, testified that she was not able to determine for sure whether the recovered bullets were fired from the revolver, but it was possible. As for the metal fragments, Grew was not able to determine much of anything. Visually the bullets appeared similar because they had a brassy-colored coating, and some of the bullet fragments also had brassy colored coating on them. Diana Grant, FBI forensic examiner specializing in bullet lead analysis, testified that she found four of the bullets and the metal fragments to be analytically indistinguishable and chemically similar. They were likely to have originated from the same source of molten lead, although that didn't necessarily mean that the bullets came from the same box of ammunition. The fifth bullet was analytically distinguishable, but possessed only a subtle difference.
Douglas Richard Bosanko, who owned a wrecker and locksmith business, testified at trial that on March 10, he was called out on a business call at Graham's Nightclub on the westside of El Paso....
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