Bueno v. State

677 S.W.2d 261, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 6165
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 6, 1984
Docket13-83-422-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 677 S.W.2d 261 (Bueno 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
Bueno v. State, 677 S.W.2d 261, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 6165 (Tex. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

*263 OPINION

KENNEDY, Justice.

Appellant was convicted of possession of heroin and his punishment, enhanced by two prior felony convictions, was set by the court at confinement for fifty years. We affirm.

Appellant was taken into custody by officers of the Corpus Christi Police Department in a motel room pursuant to an arrest warrant. When arrested he was only partially dressed and he asked permission to finish dressing. Before he was allowed to do this the officer searched the clothing he was about to put on and found therein two balloons containing what proved to be heroin.

The appeal raises eleven grounds of error. We will first discuss grounds four and five since they challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to (4) link appellant to the contraband and (5) show a proper chain of custody. When such a challenge is made to the sufficiency of the evidence we will examine the evidence in the light most favorable to sustain the jury’s verdict. Penagraph v. State, 623 S.W.2d 341 (Tex.Crim.App.1981).

When arrested at the motel, appellant was alone and was clad only in underwear. He requested that he be allowed to dress and pointed to a pair of pants on the table and a shirt in a closet which one officer described as being “very close together.” They were the only pants and shirt in the room. Before permitting appel-. lant to put on the clothes, the officers searched them “for our own safety and for the arrest” and discovered the contraband in the shirt pocket. We hold the foregoing to be sufficient to link appellant to the contraband. Ground of error number four is overruled.

Appellant’s objection to the chain of custody of the contraband is also without merit. One of the arresting officers testified to having marked the paper eon-taming the blue balloons seized from appellant (which mark he identified) and delivering the package to the Department of Public Safety laboratory. Department of Public Safety chemist James F. Waller testified to having received the balloons and having analyzed the contents thereof, as evidenced by his initials on the paper holding the balloons. 1 Appellant points out that there is evidence that the persons who received the balloons at the laboratory and the person who analyzed the contents thereof and testified to his analysis were not the same person. Even if this be the case, appellant can take scant comfort from such an objection in view of Medellin v. State, 617 S.W.2d 229 (Tex.Crim.App.1981) which holds that once the chain of custody is completed to inside the laboratory any further objection goes to the weight of the testimony rather than to its admissibility. This ground of error is also overruled.

Appellant alleges in ground of error two and three that he was entitled to a dismissal of the indictment herein by reason of prosecutorial vendictiveness. This is a theory recognized in law by which the state is forbidden to prosecute a defendant more severely than originally intended as punishment for his having exercised a constitutional or statutory right, such as a right to appeal a conviction. It has its roots in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969).

The pertinent facts are these. Appellant was arrested pursuant to a warrant based upon an indictment for an offense totally unrelated to the offense which is the case before us. At his arrest he was found to be in possession of heroin but the heroin case was not filed immediately. He was booked in jail and released on bond within twenty-four hours. At the trial for the offense for which he was originally arrested he was acquitted. Immediately the prosecutor announced that he was going to file the heroin charge, which he did.

*264 The leading case on this point is Black-ledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 94 S.Ct. 2098, 40 L.Ed.2d 628 (1974). In that case a defendant was convicted of a misdemeanor in a state court. When he claimed his right to a trial de novo in a higher court the misdemeanor case was dismissed and a felony-indictment was obtained arising out of the same set of facts. The United States Supreme Court held that “a person convicted of an offense is entitled to pursue his statutory right to a trial de novo without apprehension that the state will retaliate by substituting a more serious charge for the original one ....”

Our facts are different. Here the activities giving rise to the two indictments were completely different. Appellant did not assert any right; he merely won the first case (or, more properly, the state lost it). The case of Hardwick v. Doolittle, 558 F.2d 292 (5th Cir.1977) recognized a “broad ambit to prosecutorial discretion, most of which is not subject to judicial control,” citing United States v. Cox, 342 F.2d 167 (5th Cir.) (En Banc), cert. denied 381 U.S. 935, 85 S.Ct. 1767, 14 L.Ed.2d 700 (1965). We see little, if any, distinction in an instance where the state elects to withhold the prosecution of one charge pending their success or failure in another, unrelated charge and one where the state offers to plea bargain a dismissal for a guilty plea. As we all know, the latter is a daily occurrence. However much the prosecutors’ feathers may have been ruffled by the not guilty verdict there is no showing of the type of prosecutorial vindictiveness denounced in Blackledge. These two grounds of error are overruled.

Grounds of error six and seven will be considered as one. Together, they complain of the trial court’s failure to adequately apply the law to the facts. Specifically, appellant argues that the court should have gone beyond the use of the word “possess” and should have stated to the jury that they must acquit if they found that appellant did not know of the existence of the heroin in his shirt pocket. This matter was raised in the trial court by means of a requested special instruction.

The charging part complained of is as follows, in pertinent part:

Now, if you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that on or about the 22nd day of June, 1982 in Nueces County, Texas, the Defendant, Oscar Bueno, did then and there intentionally or knowingly possess a controlled substance in Penalty Group 1, to wit: Heroin in an amount less than 28 grams as alleged in the indictment, then you will find the Defendant guilty as charged.
Unless you so find beyond a reasonable doubt, or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you will acquit the Defendant.

In numbered paragraph one of the charge is found this language:

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Bluebook (online)
677 S.W.2d 261, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 6165, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bueno-v-state-texapp-1984.