Vasquez v. State

• Decision Date: 06 February 2002
• Docket Number: No. 73729.,73729.
• Citation: 67 S.W.3d 229
• Parties: Manuel VASQUEZ, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

67 S.W.3d 229

Manuel VASQUEZ, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.

No. 73729.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

February 6, 2002.

Wendellyn K. Rush, Seguin, for Appellant.

Enrico B. Valdez, Asst. DA, San Antonio, Matthew Paul, State's Attorney, Austin, for State.

OPINION

KELLER, P.J., delivered the opinion of the Court which MEYERS, PRICE, WOMACK, KEASLER, HOLCOMB, and COCHRAN, JJ., joined.

Appellant was convicted in November 1999 of the capital murder of Juanita Ybarra.¹ Pursuant to the jury's answers to the special issues set forth in Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 37.071, §§ 2(b) and 2(e), the trial judge sentenced appellant to death.² Direct appeal to this Court is automatic.³ Appellant raises four points of error. We will affirm.

A. BACKGROUND

1. Johnny Joe Cruz

The jury charge correctly identified Johnny Joe Cruz as an accomplice as a matter of law. Although initially charged with capital murder, Cruz pled guilty, pursuant to a plea bargain, to aggravated robbery in exchange for a seven year prison sentence. The terms of the bargain called for him to testify truthfully at appellant's trial. Sentencing in Cruz's case was delayed until after his testimony in appellant's prosecution.

According to Cruz, appellant was a member of the Mexican Mafia. Two days before the incident giving rise to the present prosecution, Oligario Lujan and appellant told Cruz that Juanita Ybarra "had to go down" because she failed to pay the "dime," a ten percent tax on the sale of illegal drugs collected by the Mexican Mafia. The "hit" had been ordered by Rene Munoz, a ranking member of the Mexican Mafia. Cruz testified that "had to go down" were "street words" that meant that Ybarra had to be killed. Cruz also testified that the plan included robbing Ybarra as a means of collecting the ten percent owed.

Appellant had rented room 20 of the New Laredo Motel. On the evening of March 18, 1998, Cruz and many others in room 20 were partying, smoking marijuana, drinking beer, injecting heroin, and snorting cocaine. At around 5:30 to 6:30 the next morning appellant asked Michelle Rodriguez for her car keys. Appellant, Cruz, and Lujan then headed toward room 15, where Ybarra was staying. They carried bandannas to cover their faces and socks to cover their hands to prevent fingerprints. Lujan knocked on the door to room 15 while appellant and Cruz ducked into adjacent room 16, the door to which was open, and began putting on socks and bandannas.

Moses Bazan, Ybarra's boyfriend, opened the door to room 15, leaving the chain locked. The three conspirators forced their way through the door and the chain broke loose. Cruz and Lujan wrestled Bazan to the floor while appellant held Ybarra to the ground. During this struggle, Bazan broke a window, but he soon lost consciousness. Appellant then asked for a telephone cord, and Lujan gave him one. Using the cord, appellant strangled Ybarra. Bazan regained consciousness and resumed struggling. Lujan fought with Bazan while Cruz began gathering valuables, including cameras and jewelry, and stuffing them into a pillowcase. Appellant threw Lujan a kitchen knife, and Lujan moved to stab Bazan but missed and hit the floor, bending the knife. During the struggle, Bazan kicked a hole in the wall to adjacent room 16. At that point, appellant joined the fight against Bazan and hit Bazan on the head with a gun. Bazan lost consciousness again, and appellant and Lujan began gathering valuables into pillowcases. Soon they heard police sirens, and they left the room and drove Rodriguez's car to George Martinez's house.

Because the three were covered in blood, they changed clothes at Martinez's house. Appellant had been wearing blue warmups during the crime. The three men then went to the Mayfield Motel, where they watched the news and used some drugs. After a couple of hours, they returned to Martinez's house. A little while later, Cruz left in Rodriguez's car without his companions but with several other people. Cruz picked up some food at the store and then went to his mother's house.

According to Cruz, he was arrested later that afternoon. However, a police officer later testified that Cruz was arrested the following day, March 20. In closing argument, the prosecutor conceded that Cruz's testimony in this regard was inaccurate.⁴

On cross-examination, Cruz admitted that he lied to the police in his initial statements. He had falsely identified Lujan as Ybarra's killer because he was afraid that appellant might place a hit on him. He also had falsely stated that Lujan had bragged about the killing. And he had made several false statements regarding his role in the offense and what happened afterwards.

2. Moses Bazan

Moses Bazan survived the attack and testified at trial. According to Bazan, he and Ybarra occupied room 15 of the New Laredo Motel on March 18 and 19, 1998. Bazan testified that Ybarra was scared and nervous that week and did not want to be alone. On the evening of the 18th, Bazan encountered Cruz, Lujan, and appellant in the parking lot at various points in time. At 9:00 p.m. Bazan used some cocaine. Ybarra drank a couple of beers and went to bed. Bazan went to bed after midnight.

At around 3:00 a.m., Lujan knocked on the door, identified himself, and told the occupants of the room to open the door. Bazan opened the door and three or four men pushed the door open and burst into the room. They had their faces covered by cloth,⁵ but Bazan was able to identify three of them when the cloths were later removed. Although Bazan offered to give the intruders his wallet, they began slugging him. Appellant moved towards Ybarra, placed his hands upon her, and tried to choke her. Cruz and Lujan tied Bazan's legs and hands. Bazan was hit and kicked during the struggle and some ribs on his left side were broken. Cruz stabbed Bazan in the head with a knife and placed an extension cord around Bazan's neck while Lujan attempted to choke Bazan with his hands. At some point, Lujan took the knife from Cruz and began stabbing Bazan or possibly hitting Bazan with a gun. Ybarra bit appellant on the hand, and appellant yelled, "She's biting me!" Bazan then saw and heard appellant strike Ybarra. Cruz went to assist appellant. Ybarra yelled for help as appellant struck her over ten times. Bazan also yelled for help while he was fighting with Cruz and Lujan. During the struggle, Bazan broke a window and punched a hole in the wall to adjacent room 16. Cruz went back and forth between Bazan and Ybarra. While Cruz was attempting to strangle him with an extension cord, Bazan saw appellant punching Ybarra and heard her final cry before she died.⁶

During the robbery, Bazan saw the conspirators gathering valuables. At some point, after being stabbed numerous times, Bazan decided to play dead and rolled his eyes back into his head so that only the whites were showing. He heard a conversation in which someone said they should cut Bazan into pieces and throw him into the lake. However, the men were having difficulty moving Bazan, and one of them said "Let's get out of here. We've been here too long." Bazan lost consciousness at least twice during the robbery, once at the very end. He subsequently awoke at 7:00 or 8:00 a.m., untied himself, went to the motel manager's office, and asked the manager to call 911.

On cross-examination, Bazan testified that there was a fourth robber. He also testified, however, that he had previously expressed some uncertainty to the police on whether there was a fourth person. On redirect, he testified that he had never identified a fourth person as one of the robbers but he was sure of the three he had identified.

3. Detective Arnulfo Chavarria

Detective Chavarria testified as an expert on the Mexican Mafia. He talked about their practice of collecting the "dime," a ten percent tax on illegal drugs, and he identified the tattoo on appellant's chest as signifying appellant's membership in the organization.

4. Amalia Garcia

Amalia Garcia testified that she was present in room 20 on March 18th. She saw appellant, Cruz, and Lujan leave with bandannas and motel towels. Before they left, she heard one of them say "Let's go get her" or "Let's go get" someone, and she saw appellant ask Michelle Rodriguez for her car keys. On the morning of the 19th, Garcia was taken to the police station and questioned. When asked who rented the motel room, she made up some names because she did not want others to know she had told the police anything. Later that day, she went to George Martinez's house, where she saw appellant and also saw towel rags full of blood.

5. Michelle Rodriguez

In the State's case-in-chief, Michelle Rodriguez testified that appellant had rented room 20. She also testified that appellant borrowed her car keys on March 18th and that the car had not been returned by the time the police came to the motel room on the 19th. When appellant borrowed the keys, he was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. In the defense's case-in-chief, she testified that appellant drove with her to the hospital on the evening of March 19, 1998. A hospital record showed that they were there at 6:56 p.m. She also testified that, when she arrived at Martinez's house on the afternoon of the 19th, her car was there, but she did not see appellant, who arrived later. She also did not see any blood or injuries on appellant. She lent her car to Cruz on the 20th, and she signed a consent to search form for her car on the 21st, after Cruz had been arrested.

6. Police officers and medical testimony

According to several San Antonio police officers, the police were called at around 8:30 a.m. concerning the incident in question. There were socks tied around Bazan's legs, a shirt around his ankles, and a clothesline wire around his neck. DNA testing was conducted on clothes found in the trunk of Rodriguez's car. Bazan could not be excluded as a contributor to a bloody shirt and jacket found there. Appellant...