McCurley v. State, 02-21-00122-CR
| Docket Number | 02-21-00122-CR |
| Decision Date | 31 August 2022 |
| Parties | Glen Samuel MCCURLEY, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: STEVEN R. MIEARS GRAPEVINE, TEXAS.
ATTORNEYS FOR STATE: SHAREN WILSON, CRIMINAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY; JOSEPH W. SPENCE, CHIEF OF POST CONVICTION; FREDERICKA SARGENT, KIMBERLY D'AVIGNON, EMILY DIXON, ASSISTANT CRIMINAL DISTRICT ATTORNEYS FOR TARRANT COUNTY FORT WORTH, TEXAS
Before Kerr, Bassel, and Walker, JJ.
Opinion by Justice Walker
After two days of jury trial proceedings, Appellant Glen Samuel McCurley entered an open plea of guilty to capital murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. McCurley appeals,1 arguing in five issues that the trial court erred in denying his motions to suppress (1) portions of the State's DNA evidence linking him to the murder and (2) the custodial statement he made to law enforcement. We will affirm.
On the night of February 17, 1974, Carla Walker and her boyfriend were in a car in the parking lot of a Fort Worth bowling alley when someone yanked open the car's door, pulled Carla out, and pistol-whipped her boyfriend. Carla was kidnapped, and her body was found in a culvert three days later. An autopsy determined that she had been strangled to death and that she had likely been sexually assaulted.
The initial investigators followed up on hundreds of leads. During the investigation, a magazine from a Ruger pistol was recovered from the bowling alley parking lot. Law enforcement identified McCurley as one of a number of people in the Fort Worth area who owned such a pistol. When McCurley was interviewed, he said that his pistol had been stolen before Carla's murder. However, despite that, he had purchased a new magazine for the pistol after Carla's murder, and it appears that law enforcement was aware of that fact. Nonetheless, McCurley was given a polygraph test and released. After that, the case went cold.
In 2019, the case was reopened. From the original case file, the new investigators compiled a list of potential suspects that needed to be re-investigated; this list included McCurley. Various items recovered from the crime scene were sent to the Serological Research Institute (SERI) for DNA testing. SERI developed a single-source DNA profile belonging to an unknown male from genetic material taken from Carla's bra. After no matching profiles were found in the FBI's national DNA database, the single-source DNA profile developed by SERI was sent to Othram, a laboratory in Houston that uses a new type of DNA-analysis technology called forensic-grade genomic sequencing (FGGS). Othram used the FGGS technology to provide detectives with the surname of the unknown male who had left his DNA on Carla's bra: McCurley.
Detectives learned that McCurley still lived in Fort Worth. One night, police officers conducted a "trash run" at McCurley's house from which they took five bags of discarded trash from his front curb. They sent items from the trash to SERI for testing. From material found on a drinking straw, SERI developed a DNA profile that matched the single-source DNA profile from the material found on Carla's bra. Detectives then visited McCurley at his house, and he voluntarily provided them with a DNA sample. That DNA also matched the DNA found on Carla's bra.
McCurley was arrested and admitted to detectives that he had killed Carla. He told detectives where to locate the Ruger pistol, which officers found hidden in the ceiling in McCurley's house while executing a search warrant.
McCurley was charged with capital murder and pleaded not guilty. By multiple motions, he moved to suppress the DNA evidence and his custodial statement to detectives. Regarding the DNA evidence, McCurley challenged (1) the legality of searching the DNA that was found after the search of his discarded trash without a warrant; (2) the admissibility and use of the DNA testing results produced by Othram, because the lab was not accredited by the Texas Commission of Forensic Science (TCFS) and its employees were not licensed by TCFS; and (3) the admissibility and use of the single-source DNA profile that SERI had developed, because one of the SERI lab employees involved in the testing process was not licensed by TCFS. Additionally, McCurley argued that his custodial statement was inadmissible because it was induced by a detective's promise that McCurley would not receive the death penalty if he confessed. After two suppression hearings, the trial court denied McCurley's motions. At the hearings, the trial court dictated its findings of fact and conclusions of law to the court reporter.2
Two days into the jury trial, McCurley changed his plea to guilty. The trial court found McCurley guilty and sentenced him to life in prison. McCurley appeals the trial court's denial of his motions to suppress.
Because McCurley pleaded guilty after the denial of his motions to suppress, we must first conduct a preliminary two-pronged analysis to determine whether he is permitted to appeal the trial court's suppression rulings. See Gonzales v. State , 966 S.W.2d 521, 524 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998). We must (1) identify the "fruits" that the trial court refused to suppress and (2) determine if these fruits have "somehow been used" by the State. Id. As to the first prong, it must be clear from the record what fruits are the subject of appellant's complaint. Id. As to the second prong, the State can be said to have "used" the fruits if they would have in any way inculpated the appellant. Id. at 523 ; Jackson v. State , 77 S.W.3d 921, 925 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2002, no pet.).
It is clear from the record that the fruits McCurley sought to be suppressed were evidence related to the DNA testing and analysis performed by Othram lab; evidence related to SERI's testing and analysis of the single-source DNA obtained from Carla's bra; DNA evidence obtained from McCurley's discarded trash; and McCurley's custodial statement. See Gonzales , 966 S.W.2d at 524. It is also clear that these fruits were used by the State because they would have in some way inculpated McCurley. See id. Accordingly, we will address the merits of McCurley's appeal.
We apply a bifurcated standard of review to a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress evidence. State v. Martinez , 570 S.W.3d 278, 281 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019). Because the trial judge is the sole trier of fact and judge of the witnesses’ credibility and the weight to be given their testimony, Wiede v. State , 214 S.W.3d 17, 24–25 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007), we defer almost totally to a trial court's rulings on questions of historical fact and application-of-law-to-fact questions that turn on evaluating credibility and demeanor, but we review de novo application-of-law-to-fact questions that do not turn on credibility and demeanor, Martinez , 570 S.W.3d at 281.
When the trial court makes explicit fact findings, we determine whether the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling, supports those findings. Johnson v. State , 414 S.W.3d 184, 192 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). We then review the trial court's legal ruling de novo unless its explicit fact findings that are supported by the record are also dispositive of the legal ruling. State v. Kelly , 204 S.W.3d 808, 818 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006).
In five issues, McCurley complains that the trial court erred in denying his motions to suppress because (1) Othram's DNA evidence was inadmissible because Othram is not accredited by TCFS, nor has it obtained a waiver of accreditation, (2) certain of Othram's DNA evidence was inadmissible because it was analyzed by Othram employees who were not licensed by TCFS, (3) SERI's single-source DNA evidence obtained from Carla's bra was inadmissible because a portion of the lab work was completed by a SERI employee who was not licensed by TCFS, (4) the DNA profile developed from McCurley's abandoned trash was acquired without a proper warrant in violation of his Fourth Amendment privacy rights, and (5) McCurley's custodial statement was improperly induced by a promise from detectives that McCurley would not receive the death penalty if he confessed.
To aid in our analysis, we will take McCurley's issues out of order. We will first address McCurley's fifth issue—that the trial court erred when it failed to suppress his custodial statement because it was improperly induced by a promise from detectives that McCurley would not receive the death penalty if he confessed to Carla's murder. We will overrule McCurley's fifth issue because the evidence supported the trial court's finding that the detectives did not make a promise to McCurley to induce his statement.
Upon McCurley's arrest, he was interviewed by Detectives Wagner and Bennett of the Fort Worth Police Department. A videorecording of the interview captured the following conversation between McCurley and the Detectives:
Detective Bennett: This is about your credibility, Mr. McCurley. And just as Detective Wagner mentioned, it's the why. We just need to know why. And we know that you want to get this off your chest. You do want to talk about this. It's been too long. It's been too many years. Her family deserves answers. Just need you to tell us. Let her family have the peace you would want.
McCurley: Then I go to the electric chair.
Detective Wagner: You're not going to go to the electric chair.
Detective Bennett: There's no electric chair.
McCurley: Or get hung or whatever.
Detective Wagner: No, you're 77 years old. They're not going to do that to you.
Detective Bennett: No.
McCurley: Yeah, that's what y'all say now.
Detective Wagner: They're not going to do that to you. I promise you. They will not do that to you.
...
Detective Bennett: Her...
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