De Vaughn v. State

239 S.W.3d 351, 2007 WL 2608530
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 19, 2007
Docket04-06-00581-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 239 S.W.3d 351 (De Vaughn 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
De Vaughn v. State, 239 S.W.3d 351, 2007 WL 2608530 (Tex. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

OPINION

Opinion by

SANDEE BRYAN MARION, Justice.

A jury found defendant, Lenard De Vaughn, guilty of burglary of a habitation, and the trial court assessed punishment at forty years’ confinement. In three issues on appeal, defendant asserts the trial court erred in (1) denying his motion to suppress a pre-trial identification, (2) denying his motion for continuance, and (3) not instructing the jury on two Iesser-included offenses. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

Around noon-time on March 5, 2004, the complainant, Gertraud Oliver, was at home alone when she heard her doorbell ring. When she looked out the window of her front door, she saw a man walking away from the door. Oliver, thinking the man was a salesman, walked back to her bedroom. About forty minutes later, she heard a crashing noise, which turned out to be the sound of a potted cactus being thrown through the window of her bedroom. Oliver saw the same man who had been at her front door, this time with his arm through the window. Because there were no window coverings, both Oliver and the man looked at each other. Oliver ran out of her house, screaming. She then saw the man running through the yard, looking back at her as he ran.

At about the same time, Mary Helen Salazar was in her minivan running an errand, when she saw a man run across the street in front of her. She also saw Oliver “in the middle of the street yelling and kind of jumping around agitated.” As the man crossed the street, he looked at Salazar, and she said she got a good look at the man. Because he looked suspicious, Salazar followed the man to a Diamond Shamrock store, where she saw him throw a bag into the back of a car. Salazar pulled into the parking lot, next to the man’s car. When she parked next to his car, the man again looked at her, then he drove away. Salazar memorized the license plate number, and then drove back to where she had seen Oliver standing in the street. By this time, Oliver was on the telephone speaking to the police dispatcher, and Salazar was able to provide the license plate number. About forty minutes later the police arrived, and Oliver described the man.

San Antonio Police Detective Shawn Commerford testified he developed a sus *354 pect when the license plate number revealed defendant as the vehicle’s registered owner. He then compiled a photo array, from which both Oliver and Salazar identified defendant as the man they saw. Oliver and Salazar also identified defendant at trial.

PRETRIAL IDENTIFICATION

Defendant first asserts the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress an impermissibly suggestive pretrial photographic identification. Defendant contends the procedure used in the photographic identification was impermissibly suggestive because Oliver, who was initially unable to identify him, was improperly presented with the same photos a second time in a manner that caused her to mistakenly identify him as the culprit.

“An in-court identification is inadmissible when it has been tainted by an impermissibly-suggestive pretrial photographic identification.” Ibarra v. State, 11 S.W.3d 189, 195 (Tex.Crim.App.1999). “The test is whether, considering the totality of the circumstances, ‘the photographic identification procedure was so impermis-sibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable mis-identification.’ ” Id. (quoting Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968)). “[I]f the totality of the circumstances reveals no substantial likelihood of misidentification despite a suggestive pretrial procedure, subsequent identification testimony will be deemed ‘rehable,’ ‘reliability [being] the linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony.’ ” Webb v. State, 760 S.W.2d 263, 269 (Tex.Crim.App.1988) (quoting Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977)). Suggestiveness may be created by the manner in which the pretrial identification procedure is conducted, for example, by police pointing out the suspect or suggesting that a suspect is included in the line-up or photo array. Ibarra, 11 S.W.3d at 196.

Defendant contends the manner of presenting the photo array to Oliver was impermissibly suggestive. We disagree. Oliver was shown the same photo array twice, once on March 16 and again on March 23. On March 16, Oliver eliminated five of the six photos, and as to the sixth photo, she thought the man in the photo, who was defendant, “looked the closest to the man she saw involved in the burglary of her home.” Commerford testified he “would not call [Oliver’s identification] an absolute positive I.D.” Because Oliver’s identification was not “a hundred percent,” Commerford did not ask Oliver to initial the photo. Instead, he wanted Salazar to view the photo array. When Salazar saw the array, she immediately selected defendant’s photo. Salazar told Commerford she was “very sure” about her identification. Commerford had Salazar initial and date the photo. On March 23, Commer-ford again asked Oliver to view the same photo array. Oliver again selected defendant’s photo. After identifying defendant, Oliver signed and dated the back of defendant’s photo. Although by this time Salazar had already initialed and dated defendant’s photo, Commerford testified Oliver did not know Salazar had selected and initialed the same photo. Commerford testified he did not point out defendant’s photo in the array or suggest that a suspect was in the photo array. We conclude the procedures used by Commerford to present the photo array to Oliver were not impermissibly suggestive; therefore, we do not consider whether the procedure gave rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.

MOTION FOR CONTINUANCE

Defendant next asserts the trial court erred in denying his motion for con *355 tinuance. We review a trial court’s ruling on a motion for continuance for an abuse of discretion. Wright v. State, 28 S.W.3d 526, 532 (Tex.Crim.App.2000). In order to establish an abuse of the trial court’s discretion, an appellant must show that the denial of his motion for continuance resulted in actual prejudice. Id.

After the State rested, defendant announced he wished to call Officer Edward Rodriguez; however, Rodriguez was not present. When asked by the court if defense counsel had told Rodriguez to be present, counsel responded that he was entitled to rely on the State’s subpoena. The State admitted they had released Rodriguez, who had been present at court earlier in the day, because the State did not know defendant wanted Rodriguez to testify. After the jury was excused for the afternoon, the court instructed defense counsel to have his witnesses ready by the next morning. The next morning, defendant filed a motion for continuance. By this time, Rodriguez was out of the country on vacation. The trial court denied the motion.

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Bluebook (online)
239 S.W.3d 351, 2007 WL 2608530, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/de-vaughn-v-state-texapp-2007.