Ontiveros v. State

240 S.W.3d 369, 2007 Tex. App. LEXIS 6355, 2007 WL 2274832
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 10, 2007
Docket03-06-00738-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 240 S.W.3d 369 (Ontiveros 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
Ontiveros v. State, 240 S.W.3d 369, 2007 Tex. App. LEXIS 6355, 2007 WL 2274832 (Tex. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

OPINION

W. KENNETH LAW, Chief Justice.

A jury found appellant Raul Ontiveros guüty of entering a habitation and committing or attempting to commit sexual assault, for which it assessed punishment at twenty-five years’ imprisonment. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 30.02(a)(3) (West 2003). In his only point of error, appellant contends that DNA evidence obtained by swabbing his penis should have been suppressed as the fruit of an unconstitutional search. We wül overrule this contention and affirm the conviction.

When we review a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress evidence, we defer to the court’s factual determinations but review de novo the court’s application of the law to the facts. Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85, 89 (Tex.Crim.App.1997). We wül sustain the trial court’s ruling admitting evidence if the ruling is reasonably supported by the record and correct on any theory of law applicable to the case. Willover v. State, 70 S.W.3d 841, 845 (Tex.Crim.App.2002).

The nineteen-year-old complainant testified that she was awakened during the early morning hours of October 30, 2005, *370 by the presence of appellant in her bed. She recognized appellant because he lived with her aunt and was the father of her aunt’s children. Overcoming the complainant’s resistance, appellant penetrated her vagina with his penis. When the assault ended, the complainant took a shower. She then ran from the family apartment and called her boyfriend. Appellant was gone by this time, so the complainant reentered the apartment and woke up her parents to tell them what had happened.

The complainant’s stepfather testified that after hearing the complainant’s report, he called the police and then walked downstairs. In the living room, he noticed that the air conditioning unit had been removed from the window. A crime scene specialist later found blood on the curtain next to the air conditioner. DNA tests identified this blood as appellant’s.

Detective Christopher Dunn arrived at the complainant’s residence at about 5:00 a.m. There, he saw the apparent forced entry and learned that the complainant had identified appellant as her attacker. Dunn then went to the hospital, where he interviewed the complainant. At about 8:30 a.m., Dunn received a report that appellant had been found by members of the complainant’s family, apparently at the residence he shared with the complainant’s aunt, and that there was an ongoing physical and verbal dispute. Having determined that there were outstanding warrants for appellant’s arrest, Dunn ordered officers at the scene to arrest appellant on the warrants, book him into jail, and place a hold on him for the sexual assault. He also gave instructions to “ask [appellant] for a voluntary specimen from his penis or penis swab, but if he did not consent, I wanted it anyway under exigent circumstances.”

Asked to explain what he meant by “exigent circumstances,” Dunn testified:

The foreign DNA on a human body, in my training and experience, is very fragile. It can be removed and destroyed very readily. Three hours had already elapsed and there was still a possibility that that DNA could be present. It has also been my experience that suspects we have had in the interview rooms, hearing of a penile swab, had attempted to destroy the evidence on videotape during their interrogations.

Dunn testified that he did not know if a magistrate was available at the jail that morning to issue a search warrant. He added that because it was a Sunday morning, “the judges have an extremely large docket from a Saturday night,” and he estimated that it “could have been four or five hours before I could have received a search warrant. In that time frame, I believed, after three hours had expired, that DNA could have been damaged.” Dunn testified that a suspect had been known to spit on his hands and try to wipe DNA material off of his penis. He also testified that urine can destroy DNA evidence.

Officer Pedro Arroyo transported appellant from the scene of his arrest to the jail. Arroyo testified that he took appellant to a private room and, as instructed, asked appellant to submit to a penile swab. Appellant refused. Arroyo then told appellant that the swab would be taken whether he consented or not. According to Arroyo, appellant then agreed to the procedure. An evidence technician, James Bixler, testified that he took the swab at about 9:30 a.m. The procedure was described as “run[ning] it across [appellant’s] penis.” Bixler said that he and appellant were the only persons in the room and that appellant offered no resistance. Appellant testified, to the contrary, that two police officers were in the room with Bixler and forced him to submit to the swab. Epithe *371 lial cell fractions containing the complainant’s DNA were found on the swab, as were sperm cell fractions containing appellant’s DNA.

Appellant argues that the swabbing of his penis was an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. See U.S. Const, amend. IV. A warrantless search of a person or property is presumptively unreasonable. Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 372, 113 S.Ct. 2130, 124 L.Ed.2d 334 (1993). However:

The test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application. In each case it requires a balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails. Courts must consider the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is conducted.

Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979).

In Cupp v. Murphy, Murphy agreed to speak to police officers investigating the strangulation murder of his estranged wife. 412 U.S. 291, 292, 93 S.Ct. 2000, 36 L.Ed.2d 900 (1973). While he was at the station house, officers noticed a dark spot on his finger. Id. Suspecting that it might be dried blood and knowing that evidence of strangulation is often found under the assailant’s fingernails, the officers asked Murphy if they could take a sample of scrapings from his fingernails. Id. Murphy refused, and there was trial testimony that he began to rub his hands together and put them in his pockets. Id. at 296, 93 S.Ct. 2000. Over Murphy’s protest, the officers took the samples anyway, without a warrant. Id. at 292, 93 S.Ct. 2000. The samples contained traces of skin, blood cells, and fabric from the victim’s clothing. Id.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
240 S.W.3d 369, 2007 Tex. App. LEXIS 6355, 2007 WL 2274832, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ontiveros-v-state-texapp-2007.