Marvin Castenano v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 15, 2007
Docket01-05-01042-CR
StatusPublished

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Bluebook
Marvin Castenano v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

Opinion issued February 15, 2007







In The

Court of Appeals

For The

First District of Texas



NO. 01-05-01042-CR

____________



MARVIN CASTENANO, Appellant



V.



THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee



On Appeal from the 232nd District Court

Harris County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 997502



MEMORANDUM OPINION

A jury found appellant, Marvin Castenano, guilty of the offense of aggravated robbery, (1) and the trial court assessed his punishment at confinement for eight years. In three issues, appellant contends that the evidence is factually insufficient to support his conviction, the trial court erred in admitting into evidence appellant's pre-trial statement, and his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel.

We affirm.

Factual and Procedural Background

Daniel Gutierrez, the complainant, with the assistance of a Spanish translator, testified that on August 15, 2004, he, Jose Uribe, and Miguel Saavedera left a party "[s]omewhere after 2:00 in the morning" in the complainant's car. The complainant drove Uribe, who was in the front-passenger seat, and Saavedera, who was in the back seat, to an apartment complex. The complainant parked the car, and two men "came up crouching on either side of the vehicle and then they both got up at the same time." One of the two men, wearing a black t-shirt, "had the revolver and was pointing at [the complainant]" on the driver's side of the car. The other man was at the front-seat passenger's window. The man with the revolver told the complainant "[t]o get off the vehicle or off the car and to hand over all of [the complainant's] belongings." He "put [the gun] on the back of [the complainant's] neck," and "was very aggressive and he was saying that if [the complainant] moved or stood up he could shoot [the complainant] or he could shoot at the others."

When the complainant got out of his car, one of the men threw the complainant to the ground and removed what the complainant had in his pockets, taking the complainant's keys and "some quarters." The complainant feared for his life. The two men then pulled the other two passengers out of the car and took the wallet of one of the passengers. The man on the passenger's side "was telling [the complainant] not to move [be]cause if they did he would shoot because you could tell he had something underneath the shirt."

The complainant described the two men: one being "thin, somewhere around 5 foot 6," wearing "a black shirt and black pants," and the other as "almost the same size but heavy," wearing a t-shirt. A "[s]mall Toyota" truck pulled up behind the complainant's car, and the two men who had just robbed the complainant and his passengers got into the truck. As the truck left, the complainant saw a total of three men inside the truck.

The complainant further testified that he and his passengers then called for emergency assistance, providing "a description of the people that were in the vehicle and the color and the make of the vehicle." A police officer arrived after "[a]bout 15 minutes," and both the complainant and Uribe spoke with the officer entirely in English. Although the complainant "speak[s] very little" English and Uribe does not speak very much English, they "were able to understand what [the officer] was asking." About one-half of an hour after the robbery, the officer took the complainant and Uribe to a location "[a]bout ten miles" away "to identify some people that they had arrested."

Out of the three men that the police had detained, the complainant identified two men as being involved in the robbery, and he was positive in his identification with regard to "[t]he one that had the revolver." After identifying the men, another police officer took the complainant and Uribe "to the closest police station." The officer put the three men "before [them] but this time it was closer and through a glass." At the police station, the complainant "was sure about" the two men that robbed him. In court, however, he was not as sure because it had "been a year since" the robbery. During his testimony, although the complainant identified appellant as "one of two people that robbed [him]," he was not able to say whether appellant was the man with the revolver.

Jose Alfredo Uribe, with the assistance of a Spanish translator, testified that when he got out of the car, he handed his wallet, which contained "[c]lose to two-thousand five-hundred dollars," over to the man on his side of the car. After the robbery, when the police officer took Uribe and the complainant to identify the detained suspects, Uribe, from inside the patrol car, identified three men as being involved in the robbery. Uribe identified the person who had the gun, noted that he was wearing a black shirt, and he was sure, at that time, that the three individuals that the police officers had detained were those involved in the robbery. Later, at the police station, the police officer returned Uribe's wallet and money to him.

Houston Police Department ("HPD") Officer J. Lopez, Jr., testified that on August 15, 2004, at around 3:20 a.m., he and his partner, Officer Benables, responded to a dispatch for the aggravated robbery. On their way to the apartment complex, the officers received information over their police radio that the suspects, three Hispanic men, were driving away in a "black Toyota truck." Approximately one minute later, Benables "noticed a black truck" traveling in the opposite direction with its tail lights out. At that point, Lopez and Benables, who "were about two or three miles away" from the robbery location, stopped the truck because its tail lights did not work. Lopez "approached the driver and looked over into the back seat as best [he] could to the vantage point [he] had and asked the driver to look back to [him] for his license and insurance." Lopez got the driver's license, "ran the license plate on the computer system," and then decided to remove the three men from inside the truck and identify them. Lopez noted that the men matched the description of the robbery suspects given over their police radio.

Officer Lopez further testified that they first removed the front-seat passenger from the truck. As Officer Benables watched the other two suspects, Lopez "did a quick pat down search for any weapons" of the front-seat passenger. Lopez "walked him back to the police car [and] put him in the back of the car." Lopez then removed the back-seat passenger.

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Marvin Castenano v. State, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/marvin-castenano-v-state-texapp-2007.