De La Paz v. State

279 S.W.3d 336, 2009 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 426, 2009 WL 774846
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 25, 2009
DocketPD-0292-08, PD-0295-08
StatusPublished
Cited by1,185 cases

This text of 279 S.W.3d 336 (De La Paz v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
De La Paz v. State, 279 S.W.3d 336, 2009 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 426, 2009 WL 774846 (Tex. 2009).

Opinion

OPINION

COCHRAN, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court,

in which MEYERS, PRICE, WOMACK, JOHNSON, KEASLER, HERVEY, and HOLCOMB, JJ., joined.

Appellant, a former Dallas Police Department Narcotics detective, was convicted of (1) tampering with physical evidence for knowingly making false statements in a police report, and (2) aggravated perjury for making the same false statements under oath. The court of appeals reversed the convictions, holding that the trial court’s admission of extraneous-offense evidence violated Rule of Evidence 404(b) and was harmful. 1 We granted review to address the application of Rule 404(b) in this context. 2 We find that the extraneous offenses were admissible to prove a fact of consequence-appellant’s knowledge that his statements were false when he made them.

I.

A. The State’s Case: The Arrest of Jose Vega

The events that led to appellant’s conviction arose out of the wrongful arrest of Jose Vega. Roberto Gonzalez, who had already been convicted for his part in Vega’s wrongful arrest, testified that he and appellant’s confidential informant, Daniel Al-onso, manufactured fake drugs 3 and then planted them in a Cadillac parked at the garage where Jose Vega worked. The next day, he and Alonso met appellant and another officer at a 7-11 to arrange a “buy-bust” deal. Appellant did not search either of them or their car. Gonzalez and Alonso then drove to the garage. Appellant, and his partner, Eddie Herrera, followed in appellant’s red Chevy truck to do “moving surveillance.”

According to Gonzalez, Alonso got out of the car alone and walked into the garage bay where Vega was working under a van. Shortly thereafter, Alonso walked out of the bay, over to the garage restroom, and then back to the car. A surveillance video *339 tape, set up across from the garage, also captured the events: Alonso got out of his car, walked into the bay, and then turned left out of sight for about twenty seconds. He then walked out and around to an outside bathroom. Alonso then came back to his car and, with Gonzalez in the passenger seat, drove off. The tape also showed appellant and his partner driving by twice.

Back at the 7-11, Alonso delivered two of the fake kilos to appellant. Appellant paid Alonso for his work, and Alonso in turn paid Gonzalez $300. Appellant called in a report that Alonso had just purchased two kilos of cocaine from Vega and that there was more in the Cadillac parked outside the garage. This report was called in to “a direct entry clerk” to obtain a warrant. Uniformed officers appeared and arrested Vega, and then, in a search pursuant to the warrant, police found the rest of the “cocaine” in the Cadillac.

In both a supplemental police report 4 and under oath at a previous trial, 5 appellant testified that, as he and his partner drove by the garage, he observed Alonso come into contact with Vega inside the garage bay. No one else witnessed that contact. Vega testified that he was working under a van the entire time; he never even knew Alonso was in the garage. Gonzalez testified that Vega was under a van the entire time. Herrera testified that, although he saw Alonso walk into the bay, he lost sight of him as they drove away. The video operator, Detective Led-better, testified he did not see (nor did the video show) Alonso come into contact with anyone. He said he could not see into the bay from his camera angle: “There’s just no angle that you could get there that you could see straight into that bay.”

Herrera testified that, after Vega’s arrest came under scrutiny, appellant asked him to lie to Public Integrity and to stick to the story in the police report-that they actually saw the contact between Alonso and Vega inside the bay. After he was shown the surveillance video, Herrera knew “that there was no way they were going to believe that.” Nevertheless, out of loyalty to his partner and friend, Herrera perjured himself when he testified before the grand jury. By the time of trial, he was cooperating with the State and hoping that his felony charges would be dismissed. On cross-examination, defense counsel intimated that Herrera was also cooperating because he wanted his old police job back.

B. Appellant’s Defense

Appellant’s defense was that his statements were true because he saw the contact between Alonso and Vega. Therefore, he had no intent to deceive, as is required for aggravated perjury, and he made no false police report, as is required for tampering with physical evidence.

Appellant put on evidence of an out-of-court experiment: photographs taken from the street into the garage bay to show that it was possible for him to have seen Vega and Alonso making contact. These photographs were taken by a defense investiga *340 tor, and they show the investigator’s father standing approximately three feet inside the garage bay. Appellant testified that he saw Alonso and Vega making contact as they stood about three or four feet inside the garage bay.

Q. Tell the jury — when you started looking back, tell the jury what you’re seeing going on.
A. As I’m driving, I’m making sure there’s not a car coming towards me. And then as I’m getting up there, I turn back around for a brief second, and then that’s when I see Daniel Alonso walk right inside the bay of the garage.
Q. Okay. And how far did you see him go inside the garage?
A. It was — he just made the turn and came in maybe about three or four feet. It was maybe real close in there. He wasn’t all the way to the back. He was right there at the front of the bay.
Q. Okay. And when you saw him at that location, did you see anything else?
A. Yes, I did. I saw a Hispanic male wearing a blue work shirt and he looked-dark hair and a mustache. That’s all I saw.
Q. Okay. And how long did you have this vision of Daniel Alonso and this other person?
A. I just had it for a brief-a brief moment. As soon as I saw him come in contact, then I went back around.

Appellant said that he wrote the statement about Alonso and Vega coming into contact in his report for his “recollection when I go to testify in court.” He said that his purpose was to tell the truth, and that he “was not trying to influence anything.” He also denied telling Herrera to “stick with” his story.

On cross-examination appellant said that, although it turned out that Alonso had set Vega up with fake “cocaine,” he did not make a false statement in the police report or testify falsely because he did see Alonso come into contact with Vega in the garage bay. Appellant said that the photos his investigator took of his father standing in the bay “show that you could see someone inside there.” Appellant accused Vega and Herrera of lying.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Kellen Warren Tramel v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2025
Earl David Worden v. the State of Texas
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2025
Xavier Mandell Taylor v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Jimmie Ray Johnson v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Armando Iglesias v. State
564 S.W.3d 461 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018)
Jeremy Nathaniel Miller v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Myron Jamal Nash v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Timoteo Jesus Garza, Jr. v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Jesus Jose Lacer v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Curtis Villareal v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Craig Sanders v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Adam Sosa, Jr. v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Johnny Lee Davis v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Jose Alberto Castillo v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Maricela Hinojosa v. State
554 S.W.3d 795 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018)
Dustin West v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Jose Manuel Brito v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
Cedric Levone James v. State
555 S.W.3d 254 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018)
James Dalton Smith v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
279 S.W.3d 336, 2009 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 426, 2009 WL 774846, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/de-la-paz-v-state-texcrimapp-2009.