Alfredo Torres v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 1, 2012
Docket13-10-00375-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Alfredo Torres v. State (Alfredo Torres v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alfredo Torres v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

NUMBER 13-10-00375-CR

COURT OF APPEALS

THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS

CORPUS CHRISTI - EDINBURG

ALFREDO TORRES, Appellant,

v.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.

On appeal from the 206th District Court of Hidalgo County, Texas.

MEMORANDUM OPINION Before Justices Rodriguez, Vela, and Perkes Memorandum Opinion by Justice Perkes

Appellant, Alfredo Torres, appeals his murder conviction, 1 contending that the

evidence is insufficient to support his conviction. By three other issues, appellant argues

that the trial court erred in admitting: (1) extraneous-offense evidence;2 (2) hearsay

1 See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 19.02(b)(1) (West 2011). 2 See TEX. R. EVID. 404(b). testimony from a non-conspirator; 3 and (3) an uncorroborated statement against

interest.4 We affirm as modified.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND5

Around 9:30 p.m., Mario Diaz was driving home with his wife, Modesta Diaz, and

Modesta’s mother, Elena G. Ayala. Elena sat in the back seat on the passenger side.

As they were driving, a dark, “bluish or green” S.U.V. came up behind them. The

S.U.V. “looked like . . . a Jimmy or like a Jeep . . . .” After trailing them for about two

minutes, the S.U.V. drove up on their left side as if it were going to pass them. But, after

it slowly passed them, the S.U.V. continued to drive on the left side of the road instead of

moving into the right lane. Mario worried that the driver was drunk, so he decelerated to

create distance between the two vehicles. As the two vehicles approached an

intersection, the S.U.V. cut into the right lane and stopped; the S.U.V. “was across

completely in front” and blocking the road. Mario stopped his vehicle and “blew the horn

thinking that they were going to make a turn.” A slender, young man in blue jeans and a

white t-shirt exited the back passenger seat of the S.U.V. with his face covered with

something similar to “a white cloth.” He was holding a small, “metallic” handgun. Mario

told his wife to duck, put the car in reverse, and reversed away from the intersection.

Mario saw the young man raise the gun, hold it sideways, “aim it at us,” and shoot.

3 See TEX. R. EVID. 801(e)(2)(E). 4 See TEX. R. EVID. 803(24). 5 Because this is a memorandum opinion and the parties are familiar with the facts, we will not recite them here except as necessary to advise the parties of the Court's decision and the basic reasons for it. See TEX. R. APP. P. 47.4.

2 Modesta heard the gunshot. She looked up and saw that they were driving

backwards. Elena asked her, “[W]hat was that daughter?” Modesta, not wanting Elena

to be scared, told her that she heard a firecracker. Elena responded, “[N]o, daughter, it

was a shot. It hit me.” Modesta turned around saw that Elena was bleeding.

Modesta called 9-1-1. An ambulance met them at a convenience store further

down the road. Elena was placed in an ambulance and taken away. She died before

reaching the hospital. The Hidalgo County’s chief forensic pathologist determined that

Elena died from a gunshot wound. The Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department began an

investigation and took statements from Mario and Modesta. In their statements, Mario

and Modesta attested that two people were involved: a driver and the young man who

shot Elena.

Upon investigating the crime scene, the sheriff’s department discovered that the

Arguindegui Oil Company, which was located on the street and near the intersection

where the crime occurred, had a surveillance camera pointed at its gate. Based on the

camera’s orientation, it captured part of the road where the crime occurred. The sheriff’s

office obtained a copy of the video footage from the company’s terminal manager that had

been taken around the time of the 9-1-1 dispatch. The footage was grainy because the

low-resolution camera could not capture clear images in the dark, and headlights

“washed out” details. The sheriff’s office sent a copy of the footage to Charles Eugene

Henderson Jr., a DPS Senior Forensic Video Specialist. Henderson attempted to

enhance the video with various software but was only able to determine that a “S.U.V.

type of vehicle, like a—a Jeep” was the first vehicle to approach the intersection. Max

3 Cantu, the lead investigator, testified that the sheriff’s department “learned through the

investigation that we were looking for a . . . late 90’s to 2000 model Jeep Cherokee,

grayish or green in color.”

At the crime scene, investigators found a “.40 . . . Smith & Wesson” cartridge case.

Crime-scene investigator Eduardo Aleman uncovered a bullet lodged in the plastic

molding in the back, passenger door of the Diaz car. He also found a bullet hole in the

back left door, and he concluded that the bullet entered through that door before

traversing the car’s cabin and lodging in the back right door.

An anonymous caller informed the sheriff’s department that a man named Ricardo

Lopez provided the weapon used to commit the homicide. Homicide investigator

Fernando Tanguma went to Lopez’s house. Investigator Tanguma observed that

Lopez’s car was a Chrysler 300, the same model of car driven by Mario and Modesta

Diaz. Lopez consented to a search, and showed Investigator Tanguma where the gun

was located. Investigator Tanguma retrieved a “silver,” .40 caliber Smith & Wesson

semi-automatic handgun from underneath the house, which was wrapped in newspaper.

The gun was slightly rusted. Aleman decided that a fingerprint analysis would produce

no results. He swabbed the gun for DNA, but he did not find any DNA on it. Likewise,

he did not get any prints or DNA from the cartridge case.

Richard Hitchcox, a DPS forensic firearm and tool marks examiner, performed

tests with the gun, and concluded that the gun fired the cartridge case that was recovered

at the crime scene. He was unable to assume the same conclusion for the actual bullet;

he explained that the bullet had “class characteristics” that were consistent with the

4 handgun, but, due to the bullet’s condition,6 he could not conclusively establish sufficient

individual characteristics to “effect an identification.”

Lopez’s build did not match the “thin[,] built individual” described by Mario and

Modesta. Investigator Tanguma asked Lopez to help find suspects, but Lopez told

Investigator Tanguma that “he had nothing to say.” However, Lopez’s wife, Alejandra,

offered to help him find other potential suspects in the case. She directed Investigator

Tanguma to potential suspects’ houses, including the house where Ramirez resided.

Investigators later discovered that Ramirez’s mother owned a light green Jeep Cherokee,

which Ramirez sometimes drove. Alejandra also pointed to the house where appellant

resided.

Investigator Cantu learned that appellant, Ramirez, and Lopez were friends.

When Lopez was subsequently charged in his own criminal trial, Investigator Cantu

obtained information that led him to three informants: Juan Rocha Morales, Jesus

Rocha Morales, and Jesus Wilfredo Rodriguez. Investigator Cantu testified as follows:

[I]t was learned that the motive was for some wheels for a co-defendant, wheels off of a Chrysler 300 which the co-defendant also, it was learned that he also owned a Chrysler 300. And . . . through the investigation and all the witnesses that we spoke with, it was learned that indeed was what they were trying to get was some wheels for—Ricardo Garza Lopez.

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