Avila, Gary Felix v. State

• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas
• Decided: August 8, 2002
• Docket: 01-01-00926-CR
• Status: Published

Opinion

In The

Court of Appeals

For The

First District of Texas

____________

NO. 01-01-00926-CR

GARY FELIX AVILA, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 337th District Court

Harris County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 877,577

O P I N I O N

Appellant was charged by indictment with felony driving while intoxicated (DWI). The court assessed punishment at 4 years in prison.

BACKGROUND

On November 5, 2000, Officer Mungia of the Humble Police department received a call from his dispatcher. The dispatcher informed Officer Mungia that a civilian witness had called the police because appellant was driving his car while intoxicated. Officer Mungia drove to where the witness was, and, upon arriving, the witness pointed out appellant. Appellant was stopped at an intersection, and Officer Mungia ran a check on appellant's license plates. Officer Mungia discovered that appellant's registration was expired, and, when the lights at the intersection turned green, Officer Mungia turned on his siren and pulled appellant over.

Once appellant was pulled over, Officer Mungia approached appellant's car. Officer Mungia noticed that appellant's breath smelled of alcohol, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had slurred speech. When appellant stepped out of his car, appellant swayed and was unable to stand up straight. At this point, a Harris County Constable stopped by the scene to see if Officer Mungia needed help. The constable called another deputy who was with the Harris County Selected Traffic Enforcement Program for DWI and asked him to come to the scene and administer field sobriety tests to appellant.

Appellant admitted to having drunk six beers and to having taken NyQuil and Theraflu. The deputy administered a field sobriety test, and appellant failed the test.

DISCUSSION

In his only point of error, appellant states that he was denied effective assistance of counsel by his trial counsel's failure to object to hearsay about "erratic driving facts by the arresting officer."

Appellant contends that "Officer's Mungia's testimony recounting alleged observations of the mystery driver were hearsay." However, in his brief, appellant has completely failed to direct us to any inadmissible hearsay testimony to which his trial counsel could have made an objection. Accordingly, we overrule appellant's only point of error.

We affirm.

Sam Nuchia

Justice

Panel consists of Justices Schneider and Justices Nuchia and Radack .

Do not publish. Tex. R. App. P. 47.