State v. Terraza

• Decision Date: 15 September 1999
• Parties: (Tex.Crim.App. 1999) THE STATE OF TEXAS, v. GABRIELA TERRAZAS, Appellee NO. 1191-98
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 720

4 S.W.3d 720 (Tex.Crim.App. 1999)

THE STATE OF TEXAS, v. GABRIELA TERRAZAS, Appellee

NO. 1191-98

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS

September 15, 1999.

ON APPELLEE'S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW FROM THE EIGHTH COURT OF APPEALS EL PASO COUNTY

McCormick, P.J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which Mansfield, Keller, Holland and Keasler, JJ, joined; Price, J., filed a dissenting opinion joined by Meyers and Johnson, JJ.; Womack, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which Johnson, J., joined.

McCormick, Presiding Judge

Before the court En banc.

O P I N I O N

Appellee was indicted for tampering with a governmental record by making false entries in an application for government benefits. After a hearing, the trial court entered an order suppressing appellee's statement taken by Oscar Rodriguez, an investigator for the Texas Department of Human Services, because the statement was involuntarily made. The State appealed the order. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the cause for trial, holding there was no reasonable view of the record that supported the trial court's granting of the motion to suppress. State v. Terrazas, 970 S.W.2d 157 (Tex. App.-El Paso 1998). We granted appellee's ground for review in which she argues that the Court of Appeals failed to afford proper deference to the trial court's credibility determinations.

Rodriguez testified at the hearing on the motion to suppress. According to Rodriguez, appellee's ex-husband informed the Department of Human Services that their children were living with him for nine months in 1993. Rodriguez investigated the complaint and contacted appellee in January 1995. Rodriguez told her that he was reviewing her Aid to Families with Dependent Children case and food stamp case and that she needed to come to his office to clear up some problems. At the office, Rodriguez advised her that there were allegations about the custody of her children and where her children had been residing. He testified that he advised her of her rights. Rodriguez informed appellee that he had information that her children were not living with her and she was receiving government benefits, which was a violation of policy. Rodriguez testified as follows:

"DEFENSE COUNSEL: Okay. Now, as far as on the voluntary statement here, what is claimed to be her voluntary statement -

"RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir.

"Q: - as far as - is there anything more that you would like to say in your statement, the written-in information, as well as did you fail to report any changes between applications and interviews, if so what changes. Now, as far as the contents of those, did you tell her what to put in there?

"A: No, I don't tell her what to put in there. I answer the questions, but I don't tell them what to put on there.

"Q: What do you mean you answer the questions?

"A: Well, if they ask me a question, you know, what do I do here, or on dates or whatever, but I don't exactly tell them what to put on there.

"Q: Well, how on earth would they know what to put in there, then?

"A: Well, I tell them, this is what the allegations are, and this is what has to go on the voluntarily [sic] statement. Verbatim, I do not.

"Q: Okay. But you basically say, this is what has to be put in there, right?

"A: That's correct.

"Q: So you pretty much kind of explain to her what she is supposed to put in there, right?

"A: That's correct."

Rodriguez testified that benefit recipients must report changes in circumstances within ten days, such as the fact that children are not residing in the home. He said that appellee was being prosecuted for failing to report the fact that her children were not residing with her.

On cross-examination by the prosecuting attorney, Rodriguez testified that he did not promise appellee anything in return for the statement, he did not threaten her, and she had the opportunity to read the statement and make changes. Appellee's statement included the following:

"I did not report that my kid where living with there father for the month of June thr. Sept. 93. In Nov. 93 Martin return to live with his father. In Aug. 94 Martin came to live with me until Nov. 94. . . . I did not report thise information within 10 days. I should have reported this information. I used my food stamp card for Dec. 94." [sic throughout]

Rodriguez testified that appellee provided that information, wrote the statement, and signed it. The trial court asked Rodriguez about what happened:

"THE COURT: What part of that stuff is the stuff that you told her had to be in there?

"RODRIGUEZ: I'm sorry, Your Honor?

"THE COURT: I thought your previous testimony was that some of the stuff that was in there was stuff that you told her had to be in there. What of that information did you tell her had to be in there?

"A: Well, the allegations that -

"THE COURT: Well, just read the part of the statement that you told her had to be in there.

"A: I did not report this information within ten days.

"THE COURT: Okay.

The prosecuting attorney continued the cross-examination:

"PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: Sir, did you ask her questions about where her children were residing during these dates between March 17th of 1993 and the taking of this statement on January 25th of 1995?

"RODRIGUEZ: Yes, I did.

"Q: And this was after you warned her of her rights?

"A: That's correct.

"Q: Okay. All those rights that are on the warning form, the advisement of waiver of rights form which is form 4801?

"A: That's correct.

"Q: Did she advise you that her children were, in fact, with the father of the children through those months that are stated here, of June through September, 1993, and November of 1993?

"A: Yes, she did.

"Q: Okay. And then in stating on there those things that the judge has just asked you, you said that had to be on the statement, correct?

"A: Yes.

"Q: That was in response to a question, did you fail to report any changes -

"A: She failed to report within the ten days.

"Q: Okay. And then it was - that was what you were referring to that had to be on here?

"A: Yes.

"Q: Okay. Did she advise you that that was, in fact, correct?

"A: Yes, she did."

At the end of the hearing, the judge stated he was suppressing appellee's written statement because it was involuntary.

After setting out the law regarding voluntariness of statements, the Court of Appeals stated:

"[Appellee] suggests that Rodriguez told [her] what to put in her statement and this constituted official overreaching or coerciveness. At the hearing, the trial court showed some interest in this contention. However, the evidence indicates that [appellee] agreed at the time that these contentions were true. If a confession relates what is told to a peace officer, the confession is still voluntary albeit it is not in the exact words of the defendant.

In the present case, we are unable to find any reasonable view of the record that supports the court's granting of the motion to suppress. As Rodriguez was the only witness to relate the events surrounding the taking of the statement, we are unable to find any element of coercion that overrode [appellee's] exercise of free will. Accordingly, it was an abuse of discretion to grant [appellee's] motion to suppress the statement." Terrazas, 970 S.W.2d at 162.

Substantive constitutional law prohibits the government from using an involuntary confession against an accused with the test for voluntariness being whether the confession is the product "of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker." Schnecklock v. Bustamante, 412 U.S. 218, 225, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973); Alvarado v. State, 912 S.W.2d 199, 211 (Tex.Cr.App. 1995) (statement is involuntary "only if there was official, coercive conduct of such a nature that any statement obtained thereby was unlikely to have been the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker"). Whether the confession is true or false is irrelevant to a voluntariness determination because it is the methods used to extract an involuntary confession that offend constitutional principles. See Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477, 92 S.Ct. 619, 624 fn 12, 625 fn 13, 30 L.Ed.2d 618 (1972).

Our current statutory law set out in Article 38.22, Section 6, V.A.C.C.P., for litigating pretrial the voluntariness of a confession can be traced back to the United States Supreme Court's decision in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 1780-88, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). Jackson invalidated on Fourteenth Amendment due process grounds the "New York rule" for litigating the voluntariness of a confession. See Jackson, 84 S.Ct. at 1777-91; State v. Ibarra, 953 S.W.2d 242, 252-53 (Tex.Cr.App. 1997) (McCormick, P.J., dissenting).

Texas apparently followed the "New York rule" which authorized a trial court to suppress a confession on voluntariness grounds only if the undisputed facts showed its involuntariness; otherwise, usually when disputed fact issues on the voluntariness question existed, a trial court had no discretion but to submit the voluntariness question to the jury. Jackson, 84 S.Ct. at 1780-88; Lego, 92 S.Ct. at 622-23; Ibarra, 953 S.W.2d at 252 (McCormick, P.J., dissenting) ("New York rule" provided that if there existed a factual dispute on the voluntariness of a confession, trial court had no discretion but to submit the issue to the jury); see also Prince v. State, 231 S.W.2d 419, 420 (Tex.Cr.App. 1950) (trial court could suppress confession only if "undisputed facts in criminal case show that confession was not and could not have been voluntarily made"). The rationale of Jackson was that juries could not be trusted to decide voluntariness questions fairly and accurately. See Jackson, 84 S.Ct. at 1777-91; Ibarra, 953 S.W.2d at 252 (McCormick, P.J., dissenting).

Soon after the Supreme Court decided Jackson, this Court decided Lopez v. State in which the Supreme Court had granted certiorari and then remanded to this Court in light...