Matamoros v. State

• Citation: 901 S.W.2d 470
• Decision Date: 14 June 1995
• Docket Number: No. 71580,71580
• Parties: John Reyes MATAMOROS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas. Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

Page 470

901 S.W.2d 470

John Reyes MATAMOROS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 71580.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas,

En Banc.

June 14, 1995.

Connie B. Williams, Houston, for appellant.

John B. Holmes, Jr., Dist. Atty., and Kimberly Aperauch Stelter and Steve Baldassano, Asst. Dist. Attys., Houston, Robert Huttash, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

Before the court en banc.

OPINION

KELLER, Judge.

At a trial held in November 1992, a jury found appellant guilty of the capital murder of Eddie Goebel. ¹ The jury answered the punishment issues affirmatively, and appellant was sentenced to death. Direct appeal to this Court is automatic under Article 37.071(h). ² Appellant raises twelve points of error on appeal. We affirm.

1. Sufficiency of the evidence

a. Underlying offense

Appellant was indicted for committing murder, "while in the course of committing and attempting to commit the burglary of a habitation" and "while in the course of committing and attempting to commit ... robbery." Appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to establish that he was the person who murdered Goebel. Instead, in points of error one and two, he argues that the State failed in its burden to establish the underlying felonies of burglary and robbery alleged in the indictment. A review of the facts is therefore in order.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence shows the following: Appellant and Eddie Goebel were neighbors. On the evening of July 18, 1990, as Goebel was approaching his home, appellant yelled at Goebel from a nearby balcony, saying that Appellant wanted money Goebel allegedly owed him "or else." Goebel continued on into his house without responding to appellant.

The next morning, after the time at which Goebel normally went to work, a neighbor noticed that Goebel's truck was still parked in front of his house. Seeing that the truck was still there at noon, and thinking that something might have happened to Goebel, she knocked on his bedroom window. No one replied.

At six p.m. on the same day, the police received a call from Larry Matamoros, appellant's younger brother, reporting a homicide. On the basis of the call, police went to Goebel's house. They found the front door locked and the back door open.

Upon entering the home, police discovered bloodstains on the floor and found Goebel dead in his bed. Blood splattered on the walls indicated that he was in bed at the time he was killed. He had twenty stab wounds and five cutting wounds, one of which was a five inch cut under his neck. The victim also had defensive wounds. The extent of his injuries indicated that he could not have walked around the house after being injured. Goebel was wearing only briefs and an undershirt, and although he always wore his glasses, they were found on the nightstand next to the bed. His wallet and keys were found on the dresser across the room and he was not wearing his watch. Further, although Goebel could not speak intelligibly without his false teeth, the teeth were not in his mouth when he was found.

Evidence is sufficient when, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, a rational jury could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). This court's duty is not to reweigh the evidence from reading a cold record but to "position itself as a final, due process safeguard ensuring only the rationality of the factfinder." Moreno v. State, 755 S.W.2d 866, 867 (Tex.Crim.App.1988).

In a capital murder prosecution the evidence need only be sufficient to establish one of the underlying felonies in the indictment. Gunter v. State, 858 S.W.2d 430, 439-440 (Tex.Crim.App.1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 921, 114 S.Ct. 318, 126 L.Ed.2d 265 (1993) (burglary, robbery, kidnapping; evidence sufficient to show kidnapping). Pinkerton v. State, 660 S.W.2d 58, 62 (Tex.Crim.App.1983) (burglary and robbery; evidence sufficient to show burglary). Therefore, if the evidence in this case establishes burglary, we need not examine whether there was sufficient evidence to show robbery.

The jury was instructed that a person commits the offense of burglary "if, without the effective consent of the owner, he: ... enters a habitation and commits or attempts to commit a felony or theft." In a capital murder prosecution, the requirement that a felony be committed is satisfied by the actual murder of the victim. Fearance v. State, 771 S.W.2d 486, 492-493 & 492 n. 1 (Tex.Crim.App.1988), cert. denied, 492 U.S. 927, 109 S.Ct. 3266, 106 L.Ed.2d 611 (1989). That requirement was met in this case. As to the absence of consent, the evidence is sufficient to establish that Goebel was sleeping in his bed when appellant entered the house without his victim's knowledge or consent and that appellant surprised and killed him. Points of error one and two are overruled.

b. Future dangerousness

In point of error eight, appellant claims that the evidence is insufficient to support a "yes" answer to the punishment issue on future dangerousness. ³ To determine whether an affirmative answer to this issue is supported by the evidence, we must examine all of the evidence before the jury in the light most favorable to its finding and determine whether, based on that evidence, any rational jury could have found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the answer to the second punishment issue was "yes." Narvaiz v. State, 840 S.W.2d 415, 425 (Tex.Crim.App.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 975, 113 S.Ct. 1422, 122 L.Ed.2d 791 (1993).

Appellant complains that the State presented no psychological evidence and that the only evidence of prior conduct involved minor skirmishes which did not seriously injure anyone. Psychological evidence is not a precondition for a "yes" answer on future dangerousness; evidence of a pattern of violent extraneous offenses can suffice. Narvaiz, 840 S.W.2d at 424-425. Moreover, we disagree with appellant's characterization of his prior conduct as "minor."

In the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence shows that appellant has a prior record of serious as well as minor transgressions. The State presented evidence that appellant violently resisted arrest several times, on one occasion assaulted a police officer, and once stole a clipboard out of a police car. The officer who arrested appellant for the clipboard incident gave his opinion that appellant was violent and had no respect for the law. Some of these incidents led to appellant's guilty pleas to the offenses of assault and resisting arrest.

Far more telling, though, is an incident involving appellant and the woman who reported the clipboard incident. This woman testified that after she reported the theft, appellant broke into her home by kicking the door in and knocked her to the floor in the process. He then urinated on her. He attempted to sexually assault her, despite the fact that she was seven months pregnant at the time. The woman's four-year-old daughter was present and witnessed all that transpired. After failing in his attempt to sexually assault the woman, appellant attempted to sexually assault the child. Based upon this incident, appellant pled guilty to the offense of burglary of a habitation with the intent to commit sexual assault.

Further, we have held that a prison record exhibiting violence is evidence that may be considered by a capital jury in support of a determination that the defendant poses a future danger to society, both inside and outside prison. Chambers v. State, 866 S.W.2d 9, 17 (Tex.Crim.App.1993), cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1100, 114 S.Ct. 1871, 128 L.Ed.2d 491 (1994). Sterling v. State, 830 S.W.2d 114, 120 (Tex.Crim.App.), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1035, 113 S.Ct. 816, 121 L.Ed.2d 688 (1992). Appellant's prison record was violent. Taking the stand during punishment phase of the trial, he admitted to being a member of the "Mexican Mafia" and testified that a character test of the organization involved beating up fellow inmates for no reason. Appellant assaulted one inmate after making a false allegation that the person owed him money. He beat another inmate and punctured his eardrum. He threatened to kill still another prison inmate and that inmate's girlfriend.

Finally, appellant sexually assaulted his own two daughters. These assaults formed the basis of charges pending at the time appellant was convicted of the present offense.

In the offense at bar, appellant entered the victim's house at night and stabbed him to death as he lay in his bed. The attack was brutal, as appellant stabbed the victim at least twenty times in various places including the face, neck, chest, and arm. Appellant's history of violence includes attacking and threatening prison inmates, sexual assault of his own children, and assaulting a police officer. His attack on the pregnant woman and her daughter clearly reveals a temperament that is dangerously aberrant. Considering the evidence as a whole, we conclude that it is sufficient to support an affirmative answer to the future dangerousness issue. Point of error eight is overruled.

2. Opening statement

In point of error three, appellant complains about a remark made by the prosecutor during his opening statement. The prosecutor said,

I expect, further, all this will show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is, in fact, guilty of capital murder. In addition, I expect the evidence will show that the defendant, himself, admitted the offense.

Appellant moved for a mistrial at the close of the State's case-in-chief. He argued then, and argues now on appeal, that the State failed to prove that appellant admitted the offense and, thus, he was entitled to a mistrial. He contends that the testimony showed that, at most, he admitted to killing an old man but never admitted to the offense of capital murder.

It is not error for a prosecutor to tell the jury in opening...