Opinion
No. 11-13-00369-CR
01-07-2016
PEDRO ROCHA, JR., Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 35th District Court Brown County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. CR21831
MEMORANDUM OPINION
The jury convicted Pedro Rocha, Jr. of the capital murder of Ronald "Ronnie" Philen. Because this is a capital case and because the State waived the death penalty, the trial court sentenced Appellant to confinement for life without parole. We affirm.
When this murder took place, Ronnie and his brother, Randall Craig Philen, had lived together for more than five years; they had often smoked marihuana. They also fought at times. Randall was originally convicted of Ronnie's murder. However, after new evidence developed, a motion for new trial was filed in his case. The record does not provide further information on those proceedings.
Although the record in this case does not provide further information on Randall's case, we note that his conviction for murder, as well as another conviction, was previously before our court. Philen v. State, Nos. 11-11-00362-CR & 11-11-00363-CR, 2012 WL 1495208, at *1 (Tex. App.--Eastland April 30, 2012, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication). Randall filed a motion to dismiss his appeals because the trial court had granted the motion for new trial on both convictions and, at the State's request, had dismissed the murder case against Randall. As a result, we issued a memorandum opinion that dismissed Randall's appeals. Id. --------
Until a few months before he was murdered, Ronnie worked for the Brownwood Independent School District in the food service department; he had worked there for approximately twenty years before he lost his job. A few months after he lost his job, and shortly before the night that he was murdered, Ronnie had purchased approximately forty-four pounds of marihuana and had stored it in his bedroom closet. Accomplices testified that, on the night that Ronnie was murdered, Appellant and three other people broke into Ronnie's house to steal the marihuana.
The evidence shows that, after Appellant and the others entered the house, they kicked in the center panel of the door to Ronnie's bedroom. Randall was in the house asleep, but when he heard the noise, he woke up and ran to Ronnie's bedroom. Ronnie suffered from grand mal seizures for most of his life, and Randall thought that Ronnie had suffered a seizure. As Randall was running toward Ronnie's bedroom, an armed man stopped him and ordered him to lie on the kitchen floor. Randall feared for his life as well as his brother's life.
Randall testified that, as some of the intruders held him on the floor in the kitchen, he heard approximately five gunshots in Ronnie's bedroom. He also heard the noise as the other intruders were beating his brother. Randall heard one of the men call another by the name "Alex," but he could not otherwise identify the intruders. At some point in time after he heard the gunshots, the men left. Randall then went to check on Ronnie. When Randall got to Ronnie's bedroom, he found Ronnie curled up on the floor in a pool of blood.
Randall called the police and waited at the end of his driveway for the emergency responders to arrive. When the police arrived, Randall had difficulty explaining what had happened to Ronnie and where his body was located. However, when he was able to direct the police into the house, responders found Ronnie's body in the bedroom. Ronnie had suffered multiple gunshot wounds consistent with a .22 caliber weapon; he was dead.
The police did not originally believe Randall's version of the events surrounding Ronnie's murder. Randall was tried and convicted of his brother's murder. However, sometime after Randall's conviction, police received a tip that led them to five people who were believed to be involved with the murder: Alex Lucky Gil Jr., Appellant, Efrain "Chachi" Castillo III, Stephen Navarro, and Matthew Navarro. Subsequent investigation showed that Stephen Navarro was not involved.
In his first issue, Appellant complains that the evidence was insufficient to corroborate the testimony of the two accomplice witnesses who testified that Appellant was a party to the offense. Appellant's argument is based on his claim that the State failed to prove that the fingerprints left on the center panel of the door belonged to Appellant. Appellant claims that Meghan Blackburn, a forensic scientist in the latent print section of the Texas Department of Public Safety crime laboratory, testified that the prints matched a Pedro Rocha Jr. in the DPS database, but did not testify that they matched the sets of Appellant's fingerprints admitted at trial.
At trial, the State introduced a fingerprint card that contained Pedro Rocha Jr.'s fingerprints. The card was related to a prior offense. At the trial court's instruction, the State redacted the offense information from the card. During the trial, at the request of the State, Investigator Vance Hill with the Brown County Sheriff's Department fingerprinted Appellant, and the trial court also admitted those prints into evidence. Investigator Hill testified that the prints on the fingerprint card from the prior offense matched the prints he took of Appellant during the trial. Detective Larry Owings, formerly with the Brownwood Police Department, testified that he recovered fingerprints from the center panel of the door to Ronnie's bedroom. Detective Owings testified that the fingerprints he found were left in such a manner as to indicate that they were left on the center panel after it had been kicked out of the doorframe. Before Randall's trial, officers were unable to identify the fingerprints that had been left on the center panel.
The names of the five people who were believed to be involved in the offense were given to Blackburn. Blackburn was able to use fingerprints in the DPS database to obtain a match of the fingerprints that law enforcement officers had found on the center panel of Ronnie's bedroom door. Those prints matched those of a Pedro Rocha Jr. and Alex Lucky Gil Jr.
Appellant basically contends that evidence that the prints from the door panel matched those of some unidentified person named Pedro Rocha Jr., whose name appeared in the database, does not prove that the prints were Appellant's prints. He maintains that, although the State linked him to the fingerprint card from the prior offense by use of testimony from the person who took those prints and by use of the in-court fingerprints made by Investigator Hill, there is nothing to link him to the prints on the door panel. Blackburn testified that the prints matched a Pedro Rocha Jr., whose name appeared in the DPS database, but Appellant argues that there was no testimony that those fingerprints were specifically his prints. Therefore, Appellant contends, the fingerprint evidence does not corroborate the accomplice witness testimony.
A conviction may not be based upon the testimony of an accomplice in the absence of corroborating evidence that tends to connect the accused with the offense. TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 38.14 (West 2005); Reed v. State, 744 S.W.2d 112 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988). To determine the sufficiency of the corroboration, we must examine the testimony of the non-accomplice witnesses and other evidence and determine if there is inculpatory evidence "tending to connect" Appellant to the crime. Reed, 744 S.W.2d at 125; Freeman v. State, 359 S.W.3d 646, 647 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012) ("A weak connection still 'tends to connect' a defendant to an offense, and therefore it fulfills the requirement of the accomplice-witness statute." (footnote omitted)). An accomplice witness need not be corroborated in all his testimony, and the corroboration need not directly link the accused to the crime or be sufficient in itself to establish guilt. Reed, 744 S.W.2d at 126. When there are conflicting views of the non-accomplice evidence—one that tends to connect the accused to the offense and one that does not—we must defer to the factfinder's resolution of the evidence. Smith v. State, 332 S.W.3d 425, 442 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011).
Although Appellant claims that the fingerprints on the door were not linked directly to him, the record shows otherwise. Two sets of Appellant's fingerprints were introduced at trial: the fingerprints Investigator Hill took from Appellant during trial, and the fingerprint card from Appellant's prior offense. The officer that booked Appellant for his prior offense, Christina Clark, testified that the fingerprints on the fingerprint card were entered into the DPS database. Blackburn testified that the fingerprints on the door panel matched the fingerprints for Pedro Rocha Jr. in the DPS database. Finally, Investigator Hill testified that the fingerprints he took of Appellant during trial matched the fingerprints on the fingerprint card that was entered into the DPS database. Consequently, the fingerprint evidence did directly link Appellant to the crime.
Additionally, in this case, there was more than the fingerprint evidence that tended to connect Appellant to the offense. Randall testified that four or five Hispanic males entered the house that night. Although he could not see the men, Randall testified that the gun used to keep him on the floor was likely a .22 caliber shotgun.
Joseph Bates, Alex Lucky Gil Jr.'s brother-in-law, testified that, about a month prior to Ronnie's murder, Joseph stole four firearms from a neighbor's house. Shortly after Joseph stole the firearms, he traded them to Appellant for marihuana. Joseph testified that he stole "a .22 revolver, hand pistol; and a solid wood shotgun with a lot of carvings in it; and two .22 rifle -- rifles." Joseph's testimony indicates that Appellant, and those close to him, had access to the caliber weapon used to kill Ronnie and to threaten Randall. Joseph further testified that, on the morning of the offense, Gil and Castillo showed up at Joseph's apartment and looked "like they had just seen a ghost." Joseph explained that, after his wife, Alicia Bates, learned of Ronnie's death, she asked Gil and Castillo if they were involved. Gil and Castillo admitted their involvement and explained Appellant's involvement as well.
Alicia testified at trial. Not only is Alicia Joseph's wife, she is Gil's sister and Appellant's cousin. She testified that Gil and Castillo showed up at her home early in the morning on the date of Ronnie's death. She described the two as appearing as if they had done something wrong. She spoke to Gil about what had happened, but at first, he told her the two had been in a bad fight. Later in the day, Appellant went to the Bateses' house and confirmed that he was also involved in the fight to which Gil and Castillo had referred.
Sometime after the date of the offense, Alicia learned that Ronnie had been murdered; she again asked her brother about the incident. This time, Gil told her what happened and told her that Castillo, Matthew Navarro, and Appellant were with him and were all involved in the robbery and murder. We find that, in our examination of the non-accomplice evidence, there is sufficient inculpatory evidence tending to connect Appellant to the crime. We overrule Appellant's first issue.
In Appellant's second issue, he complains that the trial court erred when it admitted the redacted version of the fingerprint card from Appellant's prior offense because it amounted to proof of an extraneous offense. We review a trial court's decision to admit or exclude evidence under an abuse of discretion standard. Montgomery v. State, 810 S.W.2d 372, 391 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991) (op. on reh'g). We will reverse a trial court's ruling only if it is outside the "zone of reasonable disagreement." Id.
At trial, Appellant's counsel objected to the fingerprint card from Appellant's prior offense. Appellant's objection was that the fingerprint card provided inadmissible evidence of an extraneous offense. See TEX. R. EVID. 404(b)(1) ("Evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to prove a person's character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character."). The fingerprint card included information about Appellant's prior offense, such as offense type, date of offense, and degree of offense. In response to Appellant's objection, the trial court ordered the State to redact the extraneous offense information from the fingerprint card. The State redacted the information that related to Appellant's prior offense. When the trial court ordered the redactions, Appellant's counsel objected again. The attorneys and the trial court continued to discuss the admissibility of the evidence. The trial court, in an effort to make it clear as to whether Appellant objected to the redacted version, again asked Appellant's counsel whether there was an objection to the redacted version of the evidence. Appellant's counsel answered: "As to the redaction, based upon the Court's order, no, there is no objection." Consequently, Appellant failed to preserve his argument that the trial court erred when it admitted the fingerprint card. See TEX. R. APP. P. 33.1.
Even if Appellant did preserve this issue, the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted the redacted fingerprint card. Fingerprint cards are a means of identification, as well as proof that a person has an established fingerprint record, and are not evidence that the person has been previously convicted of an offense. Stephenson v. State, 494 S.W.2d 900, 907 (Tex. Crim App. 1973); Mahan v. State, No. 14-96-00407-CR, 1998 WL 30168, at *1 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Jan. 29, 1998, no pet.) (not designated for publication) ("It is well-established that evidence of a fingerprint record is not proof of a prior offense."). The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted the redacted fingerprint card. We overrule Appellant's second issue.
In Appellant's third issue, he argues that the trial court erred when it excluded testimony that concerned Gil's desire to recant his statement. Again, we review a trial court's decision to admit or exclude evidence under an abuse of discretion standard. Montgomery, 810 S.W.2d at 391. We will reverse a trial court's ruling only if it is outside the "zone of reasonable disagreement." Id.
As far as his own separate case is concerned, Gil provided a statement to the police prior to his own trial. Appellant sought to have Gil testify to the jury that he desired to recant the statement that he had provided to police. The trial court declined to admit the testimony, but did permit both sides to develop Gil's testimony outside the presence of the jury. Gil's testimony was not that he wished to recant his statement. Rather, the record is clear that Gil filed a motion to suppress his statement to police in his own trial. In response to whether Gil decided to recant his statement, Gil testified that he had had a hearing on the matter. The hearing was on his motion to suppress his statement to the police. His motion was denied, and he did not know that he could appeal the denial of his motion to suppress.
The trial court, under Texas Rule of Evidence 403, found that the probative value of Gil's testimony was outweighed by the prejudicial nature of the testimony. TEX. R. EVID. 403 ("The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence."). Further, the court found that the testimony would lead to confusion of the issues before the jury.
A motion to suppress a statement and a wish to recant a statement are not the same. A defendant uses a motion to suppress to exclude evidence that "should not be admitted at trial for a constitutional, statutory, evidentiary or procedural reason." State v. Medrano, 67 S.W.3d 892, 901 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002). The desire to recant a statement is not a ground to suppress a statement. See id.; TEX. R. EVID. 613. Although ambiguous, Gil's testimony outside the presence of the jury did not clearly indicate that he desired to recant his statement. We cannot find that Gil's ambiguous testimony would not have confused the issues, caused unfair prejudice, or misled the jury. See TEX. R. EVID. 403. Appellant cites to no case authority on this issue, and we have found none. We hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded Gil's testimony. We overrule Appellant's third issue.
We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
JIM R. WRIGHT
CHIEF JUSTICE January 7, 2016 Do not publish. See TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b). Panel consists of: Wright, C.J.,
Willson, J., and Bailey, J.