Medina v. State, No. 06-03-00143-CR (Tex. App. 4/9/2004)
| Decision Date | 09 April 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-03-00143-CR,06-03-00143-CR |
| Parties | JAIME MEDINA, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
On Appeal from the Criminal District Court, 4 Dallas County, Texas, Trial Court No. F-0153002-VK.
Before MORRISS, C.J., ROSS and CARTER, JJ.
A jury found Jaime Medina guilty of murder. Based on the jury's punishment recommendation, the trial court sentenced Medina to thirty-five years' imprisonment. On appeal, Medina challenges the evidence as factually insufficient to support his conviction and contends he received ineffective assistance of counsel. We affirm.
Several of the witnesses at trial were related to either Medina or the victim. Javier Gonzalez was shot and died in the living room of the home of Sebastian Pinales and Mary Lua.1 Pinales and Lua lived in one half of a duplex located on Hudson Street in Dallas, Texas. Rosemary Coronado and her husband, Pinales's parents, lived in the other half of the duplex.
Pinales was murdered before the trial of the case now on appeal. Lua, however, was at home during Gonzalez' murder, although she was in her bedroom at the time of the shooting. Chase Tuley, however, was in the living room with Gonzalez, Pinales, and Medina at the time Gonzalez was murdered. As for Coronado and her husband, they were inside their half of the duplex when they heard gunfire erupt from next door. They left their home to investigate what was happening next door.
In his first point of error, Medina contends the evidence is factually insufficient to support his conviction. Medina argues that testimony of the State's witnesses contains too many internal and external inconsistencies, and the State's decision to parade the victim's relatives in front of the jury invoked sympathy for the victim, which prompted the jury to blame Medina for Gonzalez' death, rather than acquit Medina for lack of inculpatory evidence.
A factual sufficiency review dictates that we review the evidence in a neutral light, favoring neither party. Johnson v. State, 23 S.W.3d 1, 7 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000); see also Clewis v. State, 922 S.W.2d 126, 134 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996). In determining the factual sufficiency of the evidence to establish the elements of the offense, we may set aside the verdict only if it is so contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence as to be clearly wrong and unjust. Johnson, 23 S.W.3d at 7; Clewis, 922 S.W.2d at 129. Additionally, we must be mindful of the jury's role in determining witness credibility and what weight should be given to evidence or testimony that conflicts with other evidence or testimony. Cain v. State, 958 S.W.2d 404, 408-09 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997).
The indictment charged Medina with intentionally and knowingly murdering Gonzalez by shooting Gonzalez with a gun. See TEX. PEN. CODE ANN. § 19.02(b)(1) (Vernon 2004). The indictment alternatively alleged Medina murdered Gonzalez by committing an act clearly dangerous to human life (shooting Gonzalez with a gun), thereby causing Gonzalez' death. See TEX. PEN. CODE ANN. § 19.02(b)(2) (Vernon 2004).
The forensic evidence admitted at trial showed Gonzalez was shot five times, including once to the lower back. This latter shot severed Gonzalez' aorta, resulting in his death.2 Police also analyzed "hand wipings"3 from Pinales, who had died before trial. Laboratory tests of those samples showed positive results for the presence of two of the three elements commonly associated with gunpowder residue.4 These samples did not, however, register sufficient quantities of the third element for the analyst to confirm the presence of primer gunshot residue on Pinales' hands. The laboratory analyst opined that the hands of someone who had not fired a gun, but later handled a weapon that had been fired, might test positive for gunpowder residue because powder that was deposited on the gun during its firing could be transferred to the hands of anyone who later handled that weapon. Thus, neither the absence nor presence of minor amounts of all three metals would, by itself, be sufficient to prove that the tested individual had actually fired the weapon.5
When the police arrived at the scene of the shooting, several people said they did not see who shot Gonzalez. At trial, however, those witnesses changed their stories and gave testimony that inculpated Medina as the shooter. One such person was Lua. According to Dallas Police Officer Chauncey McBride, Lua initially told police she did not know who had shot Gonzalez. Lua also told police that Pinales was not near Gonzalez at the time he was murdered. But at trial, Lua admitted to the jury she had lied to police. Pinales was in the room with Gonzalez when he was killed. After Lua heard the gunshots, she went to the front room. She had, in fact, seen Medina, with a gun in his hand, standing over the slain Gonzalez and digging through Gonzalez' pockets.
Coronado also told the police she did not know anything about the shooting. At trial, however, she testified she heard the first few shots and ran next door because she was worried about the occupants. Coronado then told the jury she saw Medina fire two or three more shots at Gonzalez.
As we stated earlier, Tuley was with Medina, Gonzalez, and Pinales at Pinales' home on the night of the shooting. Tuley testified he saw Medina pick up a gun from a table and point it at Gonzalez. Tuley, being frightened, then hid behind a couch and heard five shots. When Tuley came out from his hiding place, Gonzalez was dead on the floor and Medina had fled the scene.
On direct examination, Tuley admitted he was currently serving a prison sentence for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He also said he and Pinales had been "[d]rinking and getting high" during much of the day before the shooting. In fact, according to Tuley's testimony, he had drifted in and out of a drug-induced state of unconsciousness during most of the evening.
This case turns on whether the jury believed Lua's and Coronado's earlier statements to police that they saw nothing, or instead chose to believe their testimony at trial, where they confessed their earlier lies but submitted that their trial testimony was truthful. Additionally, the jury was free to accept or reject the testimony of Tuley, a convicted felon, that he saw Medina with a gun in his hand, standing over the slain Gonzalez. As stated earlier, it is the jury who determines whether a witness' testimony is credible and what weight, if any, should be accorded to that testimony. Cain, 958 S.W.2d at 408-09. It is not the role of an appellate court, while reviewing a cold record without the benefit of observing a witness' demeanor, to supplant a jury's reconciliation of conflicts within the evidence with the court's own opinions. The evidence in this case, though conflicting, is factually sufficient. We overrule Medina's first point of error.
In his second point of error, Medina contends his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel in three areas: (a) counsel permitted the State and the trial court to improperly commit veniremembers during voir dire, (b) counsel failed to object to improper impeachment and irrelevant victim impact evidence, and (c) counsel failed to request that all bench conferences be recorded.
The standard for testing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel is set out in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), and adopted for Texas constitutional claims in Hernandez v. State, 726 S.W.2d 53, 57 (Tex. Crim. App. 1986). To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance, an appellant must, by a preponderance of the evidence, prove: (1) trial counsel's performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, and (2) counsel's deficient representation prejudiced appellant's defense. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688; Bone v. State, 77 S.W.3d 828, 833 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002). To meet this burden, an appellant must show that the attorney's representation fell below the standard of prevailing professional norms and that there is a reasonable probability that, but for the attorney's deficiency, the result of the trial would have been different. Tong v. State, 25 S.W.3d 707, 712 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000). In other words, the appellant must prove counsel's representation so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 686. If, however, "there is at least the possibility that the conduct could have been legitimate trial strategy," then we must "defer to counsel's decisions and deny relief on an ineffective assistance claim on direct appeal." Murphy v. State, 112 S.W.3d 592, 601 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003).
Medina contends counsel provided ineffective assistance because he failed to object to certain voir dire questions asked by the State and the trial court, which Medina now contends were improper"commitment" questions. We will consider each allegedly improper question in the order it was briefed by the parties.
First, the prosecutor asked juror number forty-two:
Say that we put on all of our evidence. All of our evidence is circumstantial evidence.
Can you convict based on that? You believe everything beyond a reasonable doubt. We have proved all the elements of the offense. Did we prove anything?
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has previously affirmed a trial court's challenge for cause when a veniremember said he or she could not convict a defendant of capital murder solely based on circumstantial evidence with no eyewitnesses. Barnard v. State, 730 S.W.2d 703, 712-14 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987).
More recently, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals referenced this issue in Standefer v. State, 59 S.W.3d 177 (Tex. Crim. App....
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