Apolinar v. State

106 S.W.3d 407, 2003 Tex. App. LEXIS 4370, 2003 WL 21197238
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 22, 2003
Docket01-02-00659-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by93 cases

This text of 106 S.W.3d 407 (Apolinar 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
Apolinar v. State, 106 S.W.3d 407, 2003 Tex. App. LEXIS 4370, 2003 WL 21197238 (Tex. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinions

OPINION

TIM TAFT, Justice.

A jury convicted appellant, Alex Apoli-nar, of aggravated robbery and assessed punishment at 35 years in prison and a $10,000 fíne. See Tex. Pen.Code Ann. §§ 29.03(a)-(b), 12.32 (Vernon 2003). We determine (1) whether the evidence was factually sufficient to show that appellant was the perpetrator; (2) whether the admission of extraneous-offense evidence at the punishment phase, if error, was harmful; (3) whether appellant carried his burden of showing that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to a voir dire statement by the trial court; (4) whether the trial court erred in admitting a hearsay statement under the excited-utterance exception; (5) whether the trial court erred in overruling appellant’s objection under Rule of Evidence 4031 to testimony referring to extraneous bad acts; and (6) whether appellant preserved his complaint about an alleged Brady2 violation. We affirm.

Facts

Seventy-one-year-old Pelagio Jimenez was beaten, stabbed in the abdomen, and robbed of cash on August 17, 2001, a Friday. Jimenez was able to disarm his attackers and to stab one in the chest and the other in the arm. A witness to the attack, Albert Thompson, called police right away.

The first officers arrived within two or three minutes of Thompson’s call. They found Jimenez on the ground, lying in a pool of blood and going into shock. The only information that Jimenez could relate was cuchillo (“knife”) and dos (“two”), which he said when asked for the number of attackers.3

Thompson told the officers that two Hispanic men had attacked Jimenez and had then fled in different directions. An unnamed witness also told the officers that Jimenez had stabbed at least one of his assailants. The officers immediately began searching the area for suspects, and within three to five minutes after their arrival, they found two Hispanic men, both bleeding, who were walking down a nearby street that was within walking distance of the crime scene. The two men were appellant and Victor Badillo.4 Despite being wounded, neither man asked the officers for help, and when appellant first saw the officers, he started to walk away. The men stopped upon the officers’ command.

Appellant had a one-inch stab wound on his forearm. Badillo had several stab [412]*412wounds, one in his chest. When questioned about their wounds, appellant and Badillo told the officers that they had been attacked and stabbed by several African-American men in an area near where Jimenez was attacked. However, the officers found the alibi unconvincing and suspicious because appellant and Badillo could not give details of the alleged attack, their stories conflicted, appellant could not say what had been stolen from him, and the officers believed it was unlikely that two such attacks would happen close in time and place. The officers did not arrest appellant and Badillo, but instead called an ambulance for them.

The officers did not thoroughly search appellant that night because he was not under arrest. They searched the scenes of the crime and the detention, but found neither money nor a knife. The next day, the police found a knife at the crime scene. The knife had no blood on it, but an officer testified that the blade was consistent with the wounds that both appellant and Jimenez had suffered.

Jimenez had surgery the night of the attack. The hospital notified his daughter, Juliet Ralph. Jimenez was unable to speak coherently to his daughter until four days later, when he told her about the attack and mentioned that he had stabbed one of his attackers in the chest and the other in the arms.

A week later, on August 28, a police officer showed Jimenez a photographic array, from which Jimenez, through his daughter’s interpreting, positively identified appellant.5 Jimenez also told the officer that he had stabbed one of his attackers in the chest and the other in the side or the back. The next day, the police obtained a warrant and arrested appellant, who at that time had neither a knife nor money on his person.

A. Factual Sufficiency of the Evidence

In issue one, appellant claims that the evidence is factually insufficient to show that he was the attacker.

In a factual-sufficiency review, we examine all of the evidence neutrally and ask whether proof of guilt is so obviously weak as to undermine confidence in the jury’s determination or so greatly outweighed by contrary proof as to indicate that a manifest injustice has occurred. See Zuliani v. State, 97 S.W.3d 589, 593-94 (Tex.Crim.App.2003). We must avoid substituting our judgment for that of the factfinder. Johnson v. State, 23 S.W.3d 1, 7 (Tex.Crim.App.2000). The factfinder is the sole judge of the weight and credibility of witness testimony. Id. In our review, we must consider the most important evidence that the appellant claims undermines the jury’s verdict. Sims v. State, 99 S.W.3d 600, 603 (Tex.Crim.App., 2003).

Appellant argues that the evidence identifying him as an assailant was factually insufficient because Jimenez’s in-court identification of appellant was weak;6 the eyewitness testimony conflicted or was not believable;7 appellant’s alibi was allegedly not investigated; no physical evidence connected appellant to the attack; and Jimenez’s claim that he stabbed his attackers [413]*413was not believable because Jimenez was old and feeble and because neither Jimenez nor the assailants had injuries to their hands that were consistent with having struggled over a knife.

First, the credibility and the weight to be given any witness’s testimony was for the jury to assess. See Johnson, 23 S.W.3d at 7. Second, Jimenez did identify appellant three times at trial, even if Jimenez also appeared confused or had trouble seeing. An officer also testified that Jimenez was “very coherent” when he identified appellant from the array only 11 days after the attack, and Juliet testified that Jimenez seemed “certain” in identifying appellant from the array and was “alert” that day. Third, we note that the eyewitness testimony was fairly consistent in describing both the fact of the attack and appellant’s and Badillo’s general appearance. Fourth, the record shows that police did visit appellant to investigate the alleged attack on him, but appellant could give few details. In any event, several officers thought that appellant’s and Badil-lo’s alibis were suspicious and unbelievable. Fifth, the fact that the police found no evidence on appellant at any time or at the crime scene the night of the attack is not dispositive: police did not search appellant thoroughly the night of the attack, he was not arrested until 12 days later, and police found a knife, with a blade consistent with appellant’s wound, the very next day. The fact that the knife had no blood on it went to the weight of that evidence, which was for the jury to assess. See id. Sixth, although appellant had no wounds on his hands, two officers testified that appellant’s arm wound was consistent with his having taken a defensive posture during the assault.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
106 S.W.3d 407, 2003 Tex. App. LEXIS 4370, 2003 WL 21197238, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/apolinar-v-state-texapp-2003.