Soria v. State

• Decision Date: 11 September 1996
• Docket Number: No. 69,679,69,679
• Citation: 933 S.W.2d 46
• Parties: Juan SORIA, Appellant, v. STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 46

933 S.W.2d 46

Juan SORIA, Appellant, v. STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 69,679.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

Sept. 11, 1996.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 6, 1996.

John C. Beatty, Allan K. Butcher, Fort Worth, for appellant.

David M. Curl , David K. Chapman, Assistant District Attorneys, Fort Worth, Matthew Paul, State's Attorney, Austin, for appellee.

OPINION ON STATE'S MOTION FOR REHEARING

MALONEY, Judge.

Appellant was convicted of capital murder, the jury answered the special issues in the affirmative and the trial court assessed the death penalty. On original submission we affirmed appellant's conviction but reformed his sentence to life imprisonment based upon our holding that the evidence was insufficient to support an affirmative finding to the second special issue. Soria v. State, No. 69,679 slip op. at 6 (Tex.Crim.App. June 8, 1994)(op. on original submission)(per curiam)(unpublished). The State filed a motion for rehearing, contending the evidence was legally sufficient to support the finding on the second special issue. We granted the State's motion to reconsider this issue. The State's motion for rehearing is sustained.

I.

The State's primary contention on rehearing is that we failed to view the evidence in a light most favorable to the verdict as required by Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), and its progeny. The State points to evidence that appears to have been considered by the Court but was not favorable to the verdict and to evidence that was not mentioned in the opinion but was favorable to the verdict.

At this point, we pause to revisit the applicable standard to be applied by a reviewing court in assessing legal sufficiency of the evidence. We have long applied the standard set forth in Jackson, supra, when assessing claims that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict. We recently reiterated our limited role under Jackson:

[A]s an appellate court, our task is to consider all of the record evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict and to determine whether, based on that evidence and those inferences, a rational jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt [the elements of the offense or the special issue under consideration]. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). Thus, our review is a very limited one. We do not act as a thirteenth juror re-evaluating the weight and credibility of the evidence. Rather, we act only "as a final, due process safeguard ensuring ... the rationality of the factfinder." Moreno v. State, 755 S.W.2d 866, 867 (Tex.Crim.App.1988).

Chambers v. State, 903 S.W.2d 21, 24-25 (Tex.Crim.App.1995)(quoting Wilkerson v. State, 881 S.W.2d 321, 324 (Tex.Crim.App.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 671, 130 L.Ed.2d 604 (1994)). We have specifically declined to weigh the evidence or balance the defense's evidence against the State's evidence. Burns v. State, 761 S.W.2d 353, 356 n. 4 (Tex.Crim.App.1988)("we have abandoned any pretense of this Court balancing mitigating and aggravating evidence"); see also Wilkerson, 881 S.W.2d at 328-44 (Baird, J., dissenting)(urging Court to balance aggravating and mitigating evidence in reviewing sufficiency claims in capital cases).

Following is a review of the evidence viewed in a light most favorable to the verdict. Two to three weeks before the offense appellant began to plan the abduction of Allen Bolden, a life guard at the Fort Worth Boys' Club which appellant and his friends frequented. Appellant planned to ask Bolden for a ride and once in the car, abduct him, kill him, and drive the car to Del Rio or Mexico to sell. Appellant discussed this plan with several of his friends who agreed to go along with it. During the weeks before the offense appellant considered the details of his plan, including how he would kill Bolden. He concluded at one point that a shotgun would be too loud. Approximately three weeks after appellant had first mentioned the plan to his friends, appellant and his cohort Mike Lagunas approached Bolden as he was leaving work and asked him for a ride. ¹ Bolden agreed. Once in the car Lagunas put an inoperable .22 caliber gun to Bolden's head and appellant told Bolden to drive to a remote location under a bridge. Upon arrival at the location, appellant told Bolden to get out of the car and Lagunas struck him in the head with a rock, causing him to fall to the ground. Appellant then stabbed Bolden twice in the back of the head or neck with a knife, resulting in his death. Appellant and Lagunas left the scene in Bolden's car and picked up two of their friends. Appellant told them, "We did it, man, we did it" and described stabbing Bolden. Appellant was driving. They bought some beer and continued driving around for a while. Appellant suggested that the two recent passengers (who were 14 and 15 years old at the time) use the inoperable gun to rob an ice cream truck in order to supply them with money for their trip to Del Rio. The two complied and gave the money to appellant. Later that evening appellant and three others drove to Del Rio. Appellant was stopped for speeding by a highway patrolman outside of Del Rio two days later. Appellant gave a false name and address to the patrolman who, upon learning that the car was stolen, took appellant to the county jail. Appellant was interviewed the next day by an Arlington police officer to whom he confessed.

Evidence was offered at punishment that appellant had participated in an attempted burglary of a church two months before the offense. A police officer testified that appellant's reputation for being a peaceable and law abiding citizen was bad. In addition, appellant assaulted another inmate in jail with a broom; a razor blade was confiscated from appellant's jail cell. Also found in appellant's cell was a self-portrait depicting appellant holding a bloody knife. A copy of this drawing is attached as an Appendix to this opinion. Dr. Richard Coons, a psychiatrist who testified for the State, described the drawing as reflecting appellant's image of himself:

... it represents his self-image. That is how he sees himself. He has got it labeled "Soria" with presumably blood dripping off the blade. He has got "Juan" written across the knuckles on this right hand, JS written on his forearm. He has got a knife dripping blood off of it. TDC is written down. He is in jail. He has got this angry, muscled, aggressive look. This is the way he sees himself. This is the way he wants to be. This is the way he sees himself.

Now, here is a man that is awaiting trial for capital murder. And here is how he sees himself.

That is his self-image.

Coons further testified on the basis of a hypothetical tracking the facts of the case that in his opinion there was a probability that the hypothetical defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society. ² He pointed to the following facts as significant in support of this opinion--despite the hypothetical defendant's young age he had already committed a number of deviant acts, he had remained in school only through the ninth grade and had failed to maintain employment, he had planned the offense over a period of several weeks, the planning and acting out of a murder simply to steal the victim's property indicates a lack of conscience, ³ and the hypothetical defendant's actions after the offense in driving around in the victim's car and buying beer demonstrated a lack of remorse.

We hold the evidence is sufficient to support the jury's affirmative finding. Appellant's planning of the murder weeks in advance and recruiting others to assist him, and appellant's only apparent motive for the killing being his desire to steal the victim's car in order to sell it for cash, weigh heavily in favor of the jury's verdict. Appellant was known to Bolden as a patron of the club where Bolden worked and appellant capitalized on that familiarity and Bolden's general good will in asking him for a ride. In addition, appellant had acquired a bad reputation in the community in a short period of time, his self-portrait depicted an aggressive, hostile person holding a bloody knife which a psychiatrist testified reflected his self-image and the psychiatric testimony on the basis of a hypothetical tracking the facts of the instant case that the hypothetical defendant would commit criminal acts of violence, together support the jury's verdict. ⁴ See, e.g., Flores v. State, 871 S.W.2d 714 (Tex.Crim.App.1993)(evidence sufficient on second issue where abduction of victim was committed with some forethought and deliberation, victim was stabbed repeatedly in chest, defendant went to sleep after offense, defendant attempted to blame others for offense, and state offered psychiatric testimony that defendant would be continuing threat based on hypothetical tracking facts of case), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 313, 130 L.Ed.2d 276 (1994); Armstrong v. State, 718 S.W.2d 686, 695 (Tex.Crim.App.1985)(evidence sufficient to support second issue where evidence showed premeditated planning of robbery and murder, victim shot at close range as he sat on crate without struggling or fighting, victim and defendant knew one another, defendant assaulted other inmates in jail, defendant's reputation in community was bad). Appellant's first point of error is overruled and our disposition of this point of error on original submission is withdrawn.

II.

Our opinion on original submission addressed and disposed of all of appellant's points of error related to the guilt/innocence phase of trial. We adhere to our disposition of those points of error. Because we sustained appellant's first point of error on original submission and reformed his death sentence to a life sentence, we did not reach the remainder of appellant's points of error pertaining to the punishment...