Robles v. State, No. AP-74,726 (TX 4/26/2006)
| Decision Date | 26 April 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. AP-74,726.,AP-74,726. |
| Parties | MARTIN ROBLES, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF TEXAS. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
KELLER, P.J., concurred.
OPINION
The appellant and his codefendant, Joe David Padron, illegally entered a home while the occupants were asleep and shot and killed Jesus Gonzalez and John Commisky. For this conduct, a Nueces County jury convicted the appellant of two counts of capital murder.1 Pursuant to the jury's answers to the special issues set forth in Code of Criminal Procedure Article 37.071, sections 2(b) and 2(e), the trial court sentenced the appellant to death.2 Direct appeal to this Court is automatic.3 The appellant raises nine points of error. We shall affirm.
II. Jury Selection
In his first point of error, the appellant claims that the trial court erred in denying him a full and fair voir dire examination by restricting relevant inquiry concerning the facts of the case. Juror questionnaires asked jurors to state any questions they had. Venire Member Julian Sanchez asked, "Why two lives?" During Sanchez's voir dire, defense counsel referred to that question in the following exchange:
[Defense counsel]: What did you need to know, sir?
[Sanchez]: I just — Why was [sic] two lives taken?
On appeal, the appellant contends that the trial court's instruction prevented him from discussing with Sanchez and the remaining venire members what the evidence was expected to show and from exploring their biases and prejudices.
The appellant has not preserved this issue for review. Although there was some initial disagreement between defense counsel and the prosecutor about what could be asked, defense counsel ultimately asked the trial court to state its instruction on the issue. After hearing the trial court's instruction, defense counsel said "okay" and "very well." He did not state an objection for the record and did not request a running objection with respect to other venire members.4 Point of error one is overruled.
In his second point of error, the appellant claims that the trial court erred in granting the State's challenge for cause to venire member Angela Cox, in violation of his rights under the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The appellant contends that Cox was wrongly disqualified on the basis of her views about the death penalty.5
Cox stated repeatedly that she would answer the special issues in such a way as to result in a death sentence only in cases involving a child victim or a victim who had been tortured; in all other circumstances, including those alleged in the appellant's indictment, Cox stated that she would always answer the issues in such a way that a life sentence would be imposed. Cox was unwavering in her position, restating at the close of her voir dire that she would vote to impose the death penalty only in these circumstances: "Just children and torture." The State's challenge for cause on these grounds was granted.
In Rocha v. State,6 we upheld the trial court's granting of the State's challenge for cause against a venire member who stated that she could never consider the death penalty for a murder committed in the course of a robbery. We explained that a venire member is challengeable for cause if she could never vote to impose the death penalty for a statutorily classified capital murder offense because the person does not accept that offense as a valid criterion for imposing a sentence of death.7
In this case, Cox said that she could never consider the death penalty in any case that did not involve child victims or victims of torture. She would never answer the punishment issues in such a way as to result in the death penalty for a murder committed in the course of a robbery that did not involve these types of victims. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting the State's challenge for cause. Point of error two is overruled.
II. Evidentiary Issues
In his third point of error, the appellant claims that the trial court erred by allowing hearsay testimony from Robert Lara. Lara testified about statements made to him by Joe David Padron, in which Padron implicated himself and the appellant in the murders. The testimony was admitted as statements against penal interest. The appellant argues that the statements were not against Padron's penal interest and were not corroborated by circumstances indicating trustworthiness as required by Rule of Evidence 803(24).8
In a hearing outside the presence of the jury, Lara testified that he and Padron were assigned to the same cell block designated for members of the Raza Unida gang. Lara stated that, when Padron was first brought into the cell block, he did not know Lara and asked one of the other gang members in the cell block if Lara could be trusted. Once assured that Lara was trustworthy, Padron began telling everyone that he did not understand how he had been caught so quickly and that he suspected the appellant had "snitched." Lara later had a private conversation with Padron in which Padron told him about committing the instant offense with the appellant.
Padron said that the appellant picked him up in a truck or Bronco and told him that they were "going to take care of business." When they arrived at the house where the murders were to take place, they took the chain off the fence and went in through a side or back door at the kitchen. They saw someone who they thought was a woman asleep on the couch, and they continued looking until they found a room where there were two people lying in a bed. Padron stated that he was the one with the high-caliber rifle. He said that he and the appellant just started shooting.
Lara's testimony before the jury was substantively the same as the testimony he gave during the hearing, but he also testified that Padron had told him about some of the events leading up to the murders, including a stabbing of two gang members and a drive-by shooting at a gang member's house. Lara testified that, according to Padron, the appellant said that the drive-by shooting was the "last straw" and that "enough was enough."
The appellant objected to the admission of Lara's testimony as hearsay and argued that it was not admissible as statements against Padron's penal interest because Padron would not have anticipated any penal consequences from bragging to a fellow gang member about his participation in a homicide. The appellant makes the same arguments on appeal.
Texas Rule of Evidence 803(24) provides that a hearsay statement against the declarant's penal interest may be admissible if corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the statement's trustworthiness. A trial court's ruling on the admissibility of a hearsay statement pursuant to a hearsay exception is a matter of discretion and reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard.9
Padron's statements were clearly against his penal interest. His statements that he and the appellant shot the victims inculpated himself in a capital murder. The concern that statements of a co-defendant that inculpate the defendant might be an effort at blame-shifting does not apply here because the statements inculpate Padron and the appellant equally.10
We are not persuaded by the appellant's argument that the statements were not against Padron's penal interest because Padron was merely bragging to other gang members, which would have actually elevated his status within the gang. The statements implicated Padron in a very serious...
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