Angel Rivera III v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 27, 2020
Docket05-19-00002-CR
StatusPublished

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Bluebook
Angel Rivera III v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2020).

Opinion

Affirm; Opinion Filed January 27, 2020

In The Court of Appeals Fifth District of Texas at Dallas No. 05-19-00002-CR

ANGEL RIVERA III, Appellant V. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 282nd Judicial District Court Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. F16-71649-S

MEMORANDUM OPINION Before Justices Myers, Osborne, and Nowell Opinion by Justice Myers A jury convicted appellant Angel Rivera III of sexual assault of a child and assessed

punishment at eight years’ imprisonment. In four issues, he alleges the trial court improperly

limited his cross-examination of the complainant, that his Fifth Amendment rights were violated,

and that the trial court erred by overruling his hearsay objections to testimony from the

complainant’s mother. We affirm.

DISCUSSION

I. Limits on Cross-Examination

In his first and second issues, appellant contends the trial court improperly refused him

permission to explore, during his cross-examination of the complaining witness, two prior

statements that were allegedly inconsistent with her trial testimony. The State argues appellant’s issues were not preserved or that, alternatively, he failed to lay the proper predicate.

The record shows the complainant played basketball on her school team and that appellant

was a private athletics coach hired by the complainant’s family to improve her athletic skills. The

indictment alleged that on or about August 29, 2016, appellant intentionally and knowingly caused

the penetration of the complainant’s female sexual organ with his finger, and that the complainant

was then a child younger than seventeen years of age.

The first alleged prior inconsistent statement concerned whether the complainant removed

her leggings during a sports massage that appellant gave her on August 24, 2016, and the second

focused on whether she removed her shorts during the instant sexual assault on August 29, 2016.

These statements form the basis for appellant’s first two issues. Appellant argues that, outside the

jury’s presence, he made clear there were two prior inconsistent statements he wanted to explore

with the witness, and that, despite his explanation of the inconsistencies, the trial court denied him

permission to lay the predicate for impeachment of the witness.

The discussion between the court and the parties began with defense counsel inquiring

about an alleged inconsistency between the complainant’s trial testimony in which she stated that

appellant, upon being “snapchatted” a photo of the complainant in a robe, told her to “[o]pen the

robe,” and a September 1, 2016 affidavit the complainant provided to the police (State’s exhibit

49), according to which appellant said, “Looks like you’re in a robe, yummy.” The line of

questioning began like this:

Q. [DEFENSE COUNSEL:] And you told this Jury that, at one time during this whole situation, you said that you Snapchatted a photograph of yourself in a robe to the defendant and you said that he immediately Snapchatted back to you, open it up?

A. [THE COMPLAINANT:] Open the robe.

Q. Open the robe. And you’re pretty sure that’s exactly what he said?
A. 100 percent sure.

–2– Defense counsel also cross-examined the complainant as follows:

Q. [DEFENSE COUNSEL:] . . . . I’m going to show you a document that’s labeled to be an affidavit.

A. [THE COMPLAINANT:] Yes.

Q. And I’m going to ask you, if you would, in regards to the portions that I have highlighted there in pink, if you would just go through and read that to yourself. You can’t read it out loud, but just to refresh your memory about what you–– whether or not you actually ever told the police that. Now again, I’m not allowed to read from these documents because they’re not evidentiary. I’ll ask you again, is it not, in fact, correct that you never made that statement before you came into this courtroom today?

A. I did make that statement before I came in this courtroom today.
Q. Who did you make it to?
A. The police in my affidavit which you just showed me.

Q. You’re saying that, in that affidavit, you’re saying the defendant told you to open the robe?

A. Yes. Looks like you’re in a robe, yummy.

Q. Where does open the robe come from, Ma’am? You’re quoting that as a direct statement. You’ve told the Jury now three times that 100 percent sure––

A. I am 100 percent sure that––I wrote that affidavit over two years ago.

Q. Well, I understand, but when you’re in here telling this Jury now things that you’re saying are 100 percent true, and I just showed you that, that was in fact not true, and now you’re saying, well it says something else, but I think that’s what it means, you understand that words have meaning in a courtroom?

A. Yes, I do. I understand.

Q. And you understand that when you sat there and talked and interviewed with this prosecutor on three separate times, that your stories changed to the prosecutor with significant details on three separate occasions and that they’ve been forced by the rules of evidence to turn over those discrepancies to me? Did you know that every time you told her something that––

A. Yes. I’m aware that evidence has to be handed over. I’m aware of that.

Q. And that, when you sit down and meet with her and you tell her something that’s different––

[STATE:]: Your Honor, I’m going to object. The defendant needs––the Defense –3– needs to show her what he is talking about before he just blurts out that her story has been changed.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I just did, Your Honor.

[THE STATE]: You showed her a police report.

THE COURT: Attorneys approach. [Court reporter], this will be on the record.

The trial court and the parties then held a conference about defense counsel’s cross-

examination of the complainant. The conference initially took place outside the jury’s hearing,

but the court eventually excused the jury. During the hearing that followed, defense counsel read

to the court the following “Brady notice” regarding the two prior inconsistent statements made by

the complainant.

I made my work products available to the defense from interviews conducted with [the complainant] on 5-9-18, 9-14-18, 9-24-18. I emailed the defense lawyer, to Phillip Hayes, who was the attorney at the time. I informed him of inconsistent statements made by confronting witness regarding whether she had bottoms, leggings, or shorts during massages that defendant gave her. During my interviews on 5-9––and I think it’s [a] typo. It says 5-9-15 but I believe it’s meant to be 5-9- 18 and 9-14-18 from [the complainant] says she was wearing leggings during the first massage and she was wearing shorts during the second massage. During my interview with [the complainant] on 9-24-18, I showed her a witness statement that she wrote on September of 2016 where she admitted that she took off her leggings for the first massage, took her shorts for the second massage, then stated she had forgotten about taking her clothes off, but remembered after viewing her statement.

The discussion between the court and counsel continued, and defense counsel made the following

argument regarding the two inconsistent statements:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: In her testimony to the Jury, Your Honor, she testified that she pulled her leggings down past her knees. In those notes, she says she took them off.

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