No. 04-07-00095-CR
Delivered and Filed: February 13, 2008. DO NOT PUBLISH.
Appealed from the 187th Judicial District Court, Bexar County, Texas, Trial Court No. 2006-CR-1401, Honorable Raymond Angelini, Judge Presiding. Affirmed.
Sitting: ALMA L. LÓPEZ, Chief Justice, PHYLIS J. SPEEDLIN, Justice, STEVEN C. HILBIG, Justice.
Opinion by: ALMA L. LÓPEZ, Chief Justice.
The sole issue presented in this appeal by Edward Villa from his murder conviction is that the trial court erred in denying his fundamental due process right to introduce evidence of an alternative perpetrator. We affirm the trial court's judgment.
Background
On December 1, 2005, Villa met the victim, Erica Dotson, when Erica approached him and his friend, Bonifacio Ytuarte, outside an apartment complex. Dotson was barefoot, beat up, scared, hurt, and crying. Ytuarte and Villa gave Dotson a ride to another friend's apartment where she showered and changed. They later returned to Ytuarte's apartment where Dotson spent the night. The next day, on December 2, 2005, Ytuarte took Dotson to the store where she made a phone call. Ytuarte later left his apartment between 10:15 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., instructing Dotson to lock the door behind him. Villa admitted that he later arrived at Ytuarte's apartment after midnight, and he and Dotson ingested or injected cocaine and heroin. Early in the morning on December 3, 2005, Villa broke into another apartment covered in blood, stating that he was dying and the Mexican Mafia was after him. Villa also said, "She's dead." When the officers arrived at the scene, they witnessed Villa hallucinating about dead people in the room. Villa told one of the officers to draw her weapon and shoot the other officer. Villa also told the officers that there was a dead person in the apartment behind the house. After Villa was placed in an ambulance, he asked how the woman was. The only injury Villa sustained was an injury through the webbing of his hand. The EMS technician stated that the amount of blood covering Villa could not have resulted from his cut. While investigating Villa's statement about the dead person in the apartment behind the house, the officers discovered Dotson's body in Ytuarte's apartment. Dotson had sustained fourteen incised wounds and five stab wounds. The officers kicked the locked door open and observed that a back window had been broken outward. A broken knife blade was found close to Dotson's body. A broken knife handle and broken glass were found close to the window. A trail of blood led from Ytuarte's apartment to the apartment Villa had broken into. A black purse was located close to Dotson's body containing her driver's license and various pieces of paper with phone numbers, including a note stating, "Lupe, 921-1440, works from 6 a.m. through 6 p.m., Wednesday nights pool." Lupe Gomez's aunt testified that the phone number belonged to her and that was her number when Gomez would visit her home. Dr. David R. Senn, a forensic odontologist, testified that Dotson had five visible bite marks on her left arm. Based on a profile he created with impressions of Villa's teeth, Dr. Senn opined with reasonable medical certainty that Villa made bite marks number three and four. Bite marks one and five were insufficient to make a comparison, and Villa could not be excluded as making bite mark number two. In addition, DNA evidence revealed that Dotson and Villa could not be excluded as the contributors of the DNA from: (1) the broken knife handle with Villa as the major contributor; (2) the broken-off knife blade with Dotson as the major contributor; (3) one broken glass fragment with Villa as the major contributor; and (4) cuttings from Villa's shorts. In addition, Villa was not excluded as the contributor of the DNA from: (1) another broken glass fragment; (2) a paper towel found in his shorts; and (3) Dotson's fingernail clippings. Although DNA testing on one of the bite marks revealed a second male profile in addition to Villa, the testimony established that the second profile could have been the result of DNA transferred to the bite mark from the law enforcement personnel on the scene. Villa testified that after he took the drug Dotson offered him, his eyes started burning. As he was walking through the bedroom, he was attacked by an individual that he identified as Lupe Gomez. After fighting with Gomez and being struck with a knife, he jumped out of the window and ran to the other apartment for protection. Discussion
Villa contends on appeal that the trial court violated his due process right to introduce additional evidence to establish that Gomez committed the murder, including evidence that: (1) Gomez was on parole at the time of the offense and was not wearing an ankle monitor; (2) Gomez was on parole for a 1995 murder in which he stabbed a victim over 40 times with a knife, including a lethal stab wound to the jugular vein in the victim's neck; and (3) Gomez had been indicted for a 2006 burglary offense involving a knife. Erroneous evidentiary rulings rarely rise to the level of denying the fundamental constitutional rights to present a meaningful defense. Wiley v. State, 74 S.W.3d 399, 405 (Tex.Crim.App. 2002). The two distinct scenarios in which rulings excluding evidence might rise to the level of a constitutional violation are: (1) a state evidentiary rule which categorically and arbitrarily prohibits the defendant from offering otherwise relevant, reliable evidence which is vital to his defense; and (2) a trial court's clearly erroneous ruling excluding otherwise relevant, reliable evidence which forms such a vital portion of the case that exclusion effectively precludes the defendant from presenting a defense. Id. In this second scenario, the rule itself is appropriate, but the trial court erroneously applies the rule to exclude admissible evidence to such an extent that it effectively prevents the defendant from presenting his defensive theory. Id. In Wiley, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals discussed whether the trial court's application of Rule 403 rose to the level of denying the appellant's fundamental constitutional right to present a meaningful defense. 74 S.W.3d at 405-06. Under Rule 403 of the Texas Rules of Evidence, a trial court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice or confusion of the issues. Tex. R. Evid. 403. The Wiley court noted that in weighing probative value against Rule 403 counterfactors, courts must be sensitive to the special problems presented by "alternative perpetrator" evidence. 74 S.W.3d at 406. "Although a defendant obviously has a right to attempt to establish his innocence by showing that someone else committed the crime, he must still show that his proffered evidence regarding the alleged alternative perpetrator is sufficient, on its own or in combination with other evidence in the record, to show a nexus between the crime charged and the alleged `alternative perpetrator.'" Id. "Although it is unclear exactly how much evidence is necessary to sufficiently prove a nexus between the offense and allegedly guilty third party, Texas jurisprudence is clear that evidence of third party guilt is inadmissible if it is mere speculation that another person may have committed the offense." Id. In this case, Villa sought to establish the necessary nexus with his testimony that Gomez attacked him and evidence that Dotson was in possession of the phone number of Gomez's aunt. Although Villa's testimony that Gomez attacked him is some evidence linking Gomez to the offense, the remaining evidence that Villa sought to have introduced to support his defensive theory was marginally relevant. Basically, Villa sought to introduce evidence that Gomez had committed a similar crime in 1995 for which he was on parole and had also been indicted for a burglary offense in which he used a knife in 2006. This evidence does not tend to connect Gomez to the murder of Dotson, and therefore it does not demonstrate the required nexus. See Dickson v. State, No. 14-06-00612-CR, 2007 WL 4442041, at *5 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] Dec. 20, 2007, no pet. h.). Even if we assume the evidence had some marginal relevance, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the evidence under Rule 403. The probative value of the testimony was slight and presented "a great threat of `confusion of the issues' because it would have forced the State to attempt to disprove the nebulous allegation that perhaps [Gomez] committed the murder." See Wiley, 74 S.W.3d at 407. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the evidence under Rule 403. Conclusion
The trial court's judgment is affirmed.