Miguel G. Martinez v. the State of Texas

Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided August 31, 2022·No. 04-19-00745-CR·Published

Opinion

Fourth Court of Appeals

San Antonio, Texas

OPINION

No. 04-19-00745-CR

Miguel G. MARTINEZ,

Appellant

v.

The STATE of Texas,

Appellee

From the 437th Judicial District Court, Bexar County, Texas Trial Court No. 2015CR4203 Honorable W.C. Kirkendall, Judge Presiding 1

Opinion by: Luz Elena D. Chapa, Justice

Sitting: Rebeca C. Martinez, Chief Justice (concurring in judgment without opinion)

Luz Elena D. Chapa, Justice Liza A. Rodriguez, Justice

Delivered and Filed: August 31, 2022 AFFIRMED Miguel Martinez was convicted by a jury of murder and sentenced to life in prison and assessed a $10,000 fine. He seeks reversal of the judgment, arguing the trial court erred by denying him a continuance, failing to suppress records from his cell phone provider, and denying his request for a jury instruction regarding the voluntariness of his statements to police. We conclude the record does not show reversible error, and we therefore affirm the judgment.

1 Senior Judge, sitting by assignment

THE EVIDENCE AT TRIAL

At dusk on the evening of January 11, 2015, fourteen-year-old Luis Castillo went outside his house on Arrid Street in San Antonio to find out why his dog was barking and to feed it. Outside, Castillo saw a silver Honda pull up in front of the vacant house next door with the driver’s side next to the curb, facing away from him and toward the end of the dead-end street. The car was parked across the street from a large park. An illuminated street light was next to the car. Castillo testified he saw a light-skinned Hispanic male in his late twenties or early thirties wearing a dark hoodie get out of the passenger side of the car and start “messing around with” his pockets. Castillo went back inside to get the water for the dog, and when he returned, the same person was back inside the car with the door closed. Castillo did not see who sat in the driver’s seat.

Castillo went back inside the house to have dinner with his grandmother. Within a few minutes, they heard five or six loud gunshots. They both got low to the ground, and Castillo’s grandmother went to the other room and called 911. She testified all she could see out the window in that room was the parked car. Castillo testified he first went and looked out a window. A minute or two later, he went and peeked out a door on the side of the house, where he saw a white van with a decal on it speeding away up Arrid Street.

San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) Detective Michael Wehe was a patrol officer at the time. He testified he received a report of gunshots fired at 6:51 p.m. and responded to the call. When he arrived, he saw a car parked on the side of the street with the lights on and the passenger door open. There was a female in the driver’s seat who appeared deceased. A wallet was found on the floorboard on the front passenger side of the car and a purse in the back seat. The victim was preliminarily identified from the driver’s license in the wallet as Laura Carter. Her identity was later confirmed.

A doctor with the Bexar County Medical Examiner testified the victim had five gunshot wounds to the right side of her head and ruled her death a homicide. The investigators testified they found bullet holes in the driver’s side window and the interior of the driver’s door. They recovered bullets and fragments from the driver’s side door and window and from the yard. Edward Wallace, an expert firearms examiner with the Bexar County Criminal Investigation Laboratory, testified he received four fired bullet jackets, one fired bullet, and three bullet cores, but he never received a firearm with which he could compare the fired bullets. Nevertheless, he was able to examine the fired bullets and determine the caliber of firearm used to fire them, what kind of firearm could have been used to fire them, and whether they were fired from one or multiple guns. He testified that his examination disclosed that all the bullets were .38 caliber class and were fired from the same weapon, a revolver.

Mark Duke, a homicide detective with the SAPD, was assigned to respond to the scene.

After interviewing Castillo and his grandmother, Detective Duke contacted and met with Carter’s parents. Her identity was confirmed; she was a thirty-three-year-old student working on her master’s degree at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her father testified he and his wife provided Detective Duke a list of her friends and acquaintances and told the detective she was on his cell phone plan, so he had access to a record of her calls. He printed a log of her calls and texts from the day she was murdered. Her parents and sister identified to whom all but one of the telephone numbers belonged. She had communicated with the unknown number earlier that day and then several times within the hour before the 911 call. Detective Duke learned the unknown number belonged to a Verizon account, but he was unable to discern the name of the person who held the Verizon account using databases to which he had access. He then spoke with many of the victim’s friends, but was still unable to identify the owner of the Verizon telephone number.

On January 13, one of the friends Detective Duke talked to was Courtney Mills. Mills testified at trial that she and the victim had known each other since junior high school and had been best friends since college. She testified they started abusing prescription painkillers about six years before the murder. Mills admitted she occasionally used heroin with the victim. Mills identified Martinez at trial as a heroin dealer and testified she and the victim had driven together a number of times to purchase heroin from him. She testified that most times they met Martinez in a parking lot by the Panda Express off Interstate 37 at Southcross. They would back the car into a parking space and Martinez would park his truck a few spaces down; then Carter would go over to the truck, get in and do the deal, and return to the car.

According to Mills, Carter was frustrated with not having enough money to support herself while she finished her graduate degree. In December 2014, she told Mills that Martinez had approached her with a business proposition whereby she would invest $1,500 of her student loan funds with him. He would use it to buy and then resell heroin, and they would split the profit. She believed if she did this eight to ten times, she would cover all of her living expenses; she told Mills she “was going to do this deal.”

Detective Duke testified Mills told him during the January 13 interview that she and the victim periodically bought heroin from Martinez and shared details about the “business deal” Martinez had proposed to Carter a month earlier. Detective Duke later obtained Carter’s bank records, and a Frost Bank employee testified that her account received a $9,680 direct deposit from UTSA on January 6, and she withdrew $7,000 cash from the account on January 8.

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Miguel G. Martinez v. the State of Texas, (Tex. Ct. App. 2022).

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