Sanchez v. State

• Decision Date: 15 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 13-03-698-CR.,13-03-698-CR.
• Citation: Sanchez v. State, 221 S.W.3d 769 (Tex. App. 2007)
• Parties: Orlando SANCHEZ, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

221 S.W.3d 769

Orlando SANCHEZ, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 13-03-698-CR.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Corpus Christi-Edinburg.

March 15, 2007.

Rehearing Overruled April 26, 2007.

Mark Alexander, McAllen, for appellant.

Theodore C. Hake, Asst. Crim. Dist. Atty., Edinburg, for appellee.

Before Chief Justice VALDEZ and Justices YAÑEZ and BAIRD.¹

OPINION

Opinion by Justice BAIRD.

Appellant was charged by indictment with the offense of murder. A jury convicted appellant of that offense and the trial judge assessed punishment at sixty-eight years confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Institutional Division. Appellant raises four points of error. We sustain the fourth point and reverse the judgment of the trial court.

I. Sufficiency Challenges.

The first and second points of error challenge the legal and factual sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury's verdict.

A. Standards of Appellate Review.

Legal sufficiency is the constitutional minimum required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to sustain a criminal conviction. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 315-16, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). The appellate standard for reviewing a legal sufficiency challenge is whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 320, 99 S.Ct. 2781. The evidence is examined in the light most favorable to the fact-finder. Id. A successful legal sufficiency challenge will result in the rendition of an acquittal by the reviewing court. Tibbs v. Florida, 457 U.S. 31, 41-42, 102 S.Ct. 2211, 72 L.Ed.2d 652 (1982).

In a factual sufficiency review, the appellate court views all of the evidence in a neutral light and ask whether a jury was rationally justified in finding guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Watson v. State, 204 S.W.3d 404, 412 (Tex.Crim.App., 2006). To reverse a case on a factual sufficiency challenge, the court must be able to say, with some objective basis in the record, that the great weight and preponderance of evidence contradicts the jury's verdict. Id. at 414. In other words, an appellate court cannot conclude a conviction is "clearly wrong" or "manifestly unjust" simply because its judges would have voted to acquit. Id. In examining a factual sufficiency challenge, the court must defer to the fact-finder's credibility determinations. Swearingen v. State, 101 S.W.3d 89, 97 (Tex.Crim.App.2003).

B. Factual Summary.

Appellant and the decedent had been engaged, but their engagement ended without the couple getting married. The two began seeing each other again. The decedent was telephoned by appellant, who said he needed a ride because his vehicle was not working. The decedent left her home to assist appellant.

A resident in a Weslaco motel heard a woman screaming in a nearby room. That resident contacted peace officers and informed them of the screams. Those officers entered a motel room and saw both appellant and the decedent laying on the floor. A stun gun was on the floor near appellant. The windows to the room were painted shut, there was only one door entering the room, and that door had been barricaded by a heavy piece of furniture.

The decedent was pronounced dead at the scene. Appellant was transported to a nearby hospital and arrested for the murder of the decedent a short time later.

The indictment alleged the offense of murder in four separate paragraphs that appellant: (1) intentionally or knowingly choked the decedent by hand; (2) intentionally or knowingly caused the death by manner and means unknown to the grand jury; (3) intending to cause serious bodily injury, committed an act clearly dangerous to human life, to wit: placed a stun gun to the decedent; and, (4) intending to cause serious bodily injury, committed an act clearly dangerous to human life, to wit: by manner and means unknown to the grand jury. These paragraphs allege two of the three ways of committing murder in Texas. Under the penal code, "a person commits an offense if he (1) intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual, or (2) intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual." Tex. Pen.Code Ann. § 19.02(b)(1) & (2) (Vernon 2003).

Dr. Fulgencio Salinas, the laboratory director at Edinburg Regional Medical Center, performed the autopsy of the decedent and testified in court. He described bruising, scratches and lacerations to the decedent's body. Some of those injuries were consistent with a stun gun being triggered after contact with the decedent's skin. Dr. Salinas opined that the cause of death was asphyxia, meaning a lack of oxygen to the brain. Dr. Salinas concluded that the asphyxia was caused either by choking or being stunned by the stun gun. Specifically, he stated that bruising to the decedent's neck could have been caused by either a male hand squeezing the neck or use of the stun gun.²

C. Argument and Analysis.

Appellant contends the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to prove (1) the specific intent to cause death; (2) the cause of death was by choking with appellant's hands; (3) the intent to cause serious bodily injury; and, (4) the stun gun was the cause of death. These arguments are directed toward the first and third paragraphs of the indictment, both of which were submitted to the jury.

When alternate theories of committing the same offense are submitted to the jury and the jury returns a general verdict, the conviction will be upheld if the evidence is sufficient to support a finding of guilt under any one of the theories submitted. Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 56-58, 112 S.Ct. 466, 116 L.Ed.2d 371 (1991) ("a general verdict [is] valid so long as it is legally supportable on one of the submitted grounds-even though that gives no assurance that a valid ground, rather than an invalid one, is actually the basis for the jury's action"); Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 420, 90 S.Ct. 642, 24 L.Ed.2d 610 (1970) ("[When] a jury returns a guilty verdict on an indictment charging several acts in the conjunctive . . . the verdict stands if the evidence is sufficient with respect to any one of the acts charged"); Rabbani v. State, 847 S.W.2d 555, 558 (Tex.Crim.App.1992); Kitchens v. State, 823 S.W.2d 256, 258 (Tex.Crim.App.1991); Adams v. State, 180 S.W.3d 386, 417 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi 2005, no pet.). Therefore, if we find the evidence legally and factually sufficient to support a conviction for the offense alleged in the first paragraph of the indictment, our inquiry is complete.

In homicide prosecutions, the defendant's state of mind is a question of fact that must be determined by the jury. Smith v. State, 965 S.W.2d 509 (Tex.Crim. App.1998). The intent to kill cannot be presumed as a matter of law, but may be inferred from any facts in evidence which prove the intent to kill, such as the use of a deadly weapon. Hall v. State, 418 S.W.2d 810, 812 (Tex.Crim.App.1967). The question is whether a rational trier of fact could have found the intent to kill from the following facts: (1) appellant lured the decedent from her house under the guise that he needed transportation; (2) the two then traveled to a motel and entered a room registered in appellant's name; (3) once there, a heavy piece of furniture was placed in front of the door to block the room's only entrance; (4) a stun gun box was found in appellant's truck and the gun from that box was found in the motel room and used on the decedent; (5) a resident at the motel heard a female scream, "You're going to kill me;" and, (6) the decedent sustained many instances of trauma to her body. When these facts are examined in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, we find the evidence legally sufficient to prove the intent to kill.

We next consider whether the evidence was sufficient to prove the cause of death was by choking with appellant's hands. When Dr. Salinas's testimony that the decedent's death from asphyxia resulted from strangulation, which could have been caused by a male hand squeezing the decedent's neck, is viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, we find the evidence legally sufficient to support a rational finding that the decedent died from being choked by appellant's hands.

Further, when all of the evidence is viewed in a neutral light, we find that the jury was rationally justified in finding both the intent and causation elements beyond a reasonable doubt. Watson, 204 S.W.3d at 412. In other words, we find no evidence in the record from which we can derive an objective basis that contradicts the jury's verdict. Id. at 414.

Accordingly, we hold the evidence is both legally and factually sufficient to prove appellant had the specific intent to cause the decedent's death and that she met her death by choking at the hands of appellant. Having found the evidence sufficient to support the allegations in the first paragraph of the indictment, we need not address appellant's arguments challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to support the allegations in the third paragraph. The first and second points of error are overruled.

II. The Jury Charge.

The fourth point of error contends the trial judge erred in submitting to the jury the allegations in the second and fourth paragraphs of the indictment. Those paragraphs alleged the manner and means of causing the decedent's death was unknown to the grand jury. At the conclusion of the State's case-in-chief, appellant moved for an instructed verdict of acquittal on these paragraphs, contending there was no evidence to support the allegation that the cause of death was unknown to the grand jury. The trial judge denied those motions. Appellant then objected to the charge authorizing the jury to convict on those allegations. The trial judge overruled the objections, submitted those allegations, and the jury returned a...