Hermosillo v. State

903 S.W.2d 60, 1995 WL 390026
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 18, 1995
Docket2-93-442-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 903 S.W.2d 60 (Hermosillo 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
Hermosillo v. State, 903 S.W.2d 60, 1995 WL 390026 (Tex. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

OPINION

STEWART, Justice (Retired).

A jury sentenced Appellant George Luis Hermosillo to life in prison after convicting him of aggravated robbery. See TexPenal Code Ann. § 29.03 (Vernon 1994). Although he does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction, he brings four points of error on appeal. We overrule appellant’s points of error and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

FACT SUMMARY

Jerry Romero, a witness for the State, testified that he, appellant, and a man named Jose “Joe” Fernandez engaged in a discussion about robbing a taxicab driver shortly after seeing a television news story about the robbery and murder of a cab driver in late November or early December, 1990. Romero testified that Fernandez brought up the subject again on Christmas Eve, 1990, when he told Romero that he was running low on money and was going to plan a robbery. The subject of robbing a cab driver arose a third time, when Romero went to visit Fernandez at the latter’s room at the Fort Worther Motel on December 27, 1990. At that time, Fernandez and appellant indicated they were leaving the motel to carry out their robbery and asked Romero whether he wanted to come along. Romero declined, appellant and Fernandez left the motel, and *63 Romero learned from the television news that night that a taxicab driver had been shot and killed. Romero also said that he discovered his handgun was missing from his home on the day of the robbery and that Fernandez and appellant said they did not know what happened to the weapon.

Fernandez received a life sentence in return for a guilty plea and his testimony at appellant’s trial. He testified that he and appellant planned to call for a taxi from a grocery store known as “Danal’s” located near Romero’s house so that authorities investigating the holdup would not think it was committed by a guest at the Fort Worther Motel. Fernandez said that he and appellant planned to have the cab driver take them to a College Avenue address where a drug house had once been and that they finally decided to kill the cab driver to prevent him from identifying them. Fernandez also said that he and appellant planned how to divide the proceeds of the robbery.

Fernandez said appellant was armed with a gun stolen from Romero’s home and called Yellow Checker Cab after being warned against asking for any of the cab drivers Fernandez knew personally. He said they then wiped their fingerprints off the telephone and waited for the taxi to arrive at Danal’s.

When the taxi came to the store, Fernandez got into the back seat behind the driver, and appellant sat in the rear passenger seat. They gave the driver, Lorain Dingman, instructions to drive to College Avenue, and at some point during the ride, appellant gave Fernandez the firearm. During the drive, Fernandez and appellant carried on a conversation in Spanish so that the driver would not understand that they were discussing how to split the proceeds and encouraging each other to complete the robbery.

Fernandez said that appellant told the driver where to stop on College Avenue, that the driver asked the two for the three-dollar fare and that Fernandez shot the driver in the head as the driver reached for his CB radio. Appellant began rifling through the driver’s pockets, but Fernandez told him to get into the back seat as Fernandez pushed the driver’s body over and drove the car over to a trash dumpster. Fernandez testified that he and appellant took from Dingman between $120 and $140, a silver watch, and a fire extinguisher that had been in the trunk of the cab. Fernandez said appellant encouraged him to shoot Dingman again because the man was still breathing, but Fernandez refused and told appellant to shoot Dingman. Appellant refused to do so.

The two then threw away the fire extinguisher and walked back to the motel, taking back roads because their clothing was stained with blood. Once back at the motel, Fernandez and appellant cleaned up and divided the money in the presence of appellant’s sisters, who were told about the robbery. Some time later at a party, appellant mentioned the robbery, which Fernandez initially denied but later admitted. Fernandez gave a statement to police disclosing his and appellant’s involvement in the robbery after Fernandez was arrested on an assault charge less than two months after the robbery. Included in Fernandez’ confession was the statement that he had sold the gun used in the robbery to a drug dealer so that he would not be caught with the murder weapon.

POINTS OF ERROR ONE AND TWO

In his first and second points of error, appellant complains that the trial court erred by ruling that the State had given adequate racially neutral explanations in the exercise of two of its peremptory challenges. Appellant argues both points simultaneously.

Following voir dire, the State exercised three peremptory strikes against venireper-sons who were members of minority groups, one Hispanic woman and two African-American males. Appellant objected that the State had violated the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution and the Code of Criminal Procedure and requested the court to require the State to provide racially neutral explanations for the challenges. The court responded, “all right.” The prosecutor then supplied her explanations.

On appeal, appellant does not challenge the existence of racially neutral reasons for excluding Emma Maldonado, but he does challenge the reasons for the State’s exclu *64 sion of the two African-Americans, Kemper Cloud, venireperson twenty, and Xavier Sanders, venireperson twenty-five. The prosecutor stated that she struck Kemper Cloud because he indicated that he might be biased in favor of the defendant against the State and the victim and that later she felt like Cloud was “backtracking.” She also added that he appeared to be disinterested in the proceedings.

The following exchange between the prosecutor and Cloud occurred during voir dire:

VENIREMAN CLOUD: My name is Kemper Cloud.
[PROSECUTOR]: Okay. Mr. Cloud, what do I need to know about you—
VENIREMAN CLOUD: I’m sorry?
[PROSECUTOR]: — that would help us?
VENIREMAN CLOUD: I’m a fair person. And I believe that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
[PROSECUTOR]: Uh-huh.
VENIREMAN CLOUD: That’s just the way that I feel, you know. Weigh the facts out.
[PROSECUTOR]: Okay. Do you think that just because a person is accused of committing a crime that they deserve more of a fair trial than, say, the victim in the ease?
VENIREMAN CLOUD: Repeat that again, if you might, please.
[PROSECUTOR]: Do you think that just because a person is accused of committing a crime — he’s the one that might go to prison—
VENIREMAN CLOUD: Okay.
[PROSECUTOR]: —for the act.
VENIREMAN CLOUD: All right.

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Bluebook (online)
903 S.W.2d 60, 1995 WL 390026, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hermosillo-v-state-texapp-1995.