Ortega v. State

628 S.W.2d 539, 1982 Tex. App. LEXIS 4056
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 19, 1982
Docket07-81-0015-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 628 S.W.2d 539 (Ortega 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
Ortega v. State, 628 S.W.2d 539, 1982 Tex. App. LEXIS 4056 (Tex. Ct. App. 1982).

Opinion

COUNTISS, Justice.

The offense is burglary of a habitation with intent to commit rape. The punishment is 15 years imprisonment. We affirm.

The following sequence of events was developed by the State’s evidence. In the early morning hours of August 12,1979, the prosecutrix came home from work and went to bed. A few minutes after she retired, a man entered her house. She immediately left the house and stood outside near the front door until the man came up behind her and grabbed at her. She then ran to a neighbor’s house and started knocking on the door and calling to the neighbor. The man came up behind the prosecutrix again, hit her in the head and pushed her into a nearby field. He threw her to the ground, choked her and hit her, then pulled his pants down and her gown up. Thereafter, the man lay on the prose-cutrix and attempted, unsuccessfully, to have sexual intercourse with her. After a few minutes, the man stood up and the prosecutrix also got up. When he took her by the shoulders “like he was going to try to have sex standing up” she broke away and ran back to the neighbor’s house.

Police Officer Logan of the Lubbock Police Department had responded to a call from the neighbor and was at the neighbor’s house when the prosecutrix arrived. Police Officer Moody arrived a few minutes later and the prosecutrix described her assailant to them as a short Mexican male with dark hair, wearing a T-shirt. She directed the officers to the field where the attempted rape occurred and they began a search of the field. They soon found appellant, who matched the description given by the prosecutrix, lying on his back in the field with his pants down and his shoes off.

The officers handcuffed appellant after a struggle, placed him in a patrol car and *541 returned to the neighbor’s house. Officer Logan asked the prosecutrix if she could identify her assailant and, when she said she could, he took her to the patrol car. She looked at appellant and said, “Yes, that’s him." Approximately 30 minutes elapsed between the time of the incident and the time the prosecutrix viewed appellant in the patrol car. Appellant was then charged with the offense in question here.

The prosecutrix was unable to identify appellant at the trial. She testified, however, that the man in the patrol car on the night of the incident was her assailant and the police officers identified appellant at the trial as the man in the patrol car.

Appellant denied having any contact with the prosecutrix. He testified he spent the afternoon and evening prior to the events in question with a friend in the Blow-Up Lounge, where he had a small amount to drink. At approximately 1:00 a. m., he started walking home. While he was crossing the field where the police officers later found him, he stopped to urinate and fell asleep. When he awoke, the police officers had him in handcuffs.

On the first day of the trial, while various preliminary matters were transpiring in the courtroom, the prosecutrix and officers Logan and Moody looked through the windows in the courtroom door and observed appellant. One officer testified he did so at the request of one of the prosecutors and the other officer testified he did so on his own initiative. The prosecutor involved in the matter admitted that he suggested to the prosecutrix that she look in the courtroom to see if she could identify her assailant. He stated that one of the reasons he did so was because, in his opinion, an effort had been made to alter the appearance of a third year law student, who was assisting the defense counsel, to resemble appellant. There was no evidence that the prosecuting attorney pointed out the appellant for the witnesses. Both officers testified their identification of appellant in the courtroom was based upon their observation of him on the night of the arrest, not on their viewing of him at the trial.

The jury convicted appellant and assessed his punishment at 15 years confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections. Appellant presents four arguments under five grounds of error in this court. We will consider the grounds in the order presented.

By his first and second grounds appellant attacks the showup identification evidence. He contends the trial court should not have permitted the prosecutrix to testify that the man arrested on the night of the incident was her assailant and the officers should not have been permitted to testify that appellant was the man arrested and identified by prosecutrix. The showup procedure, argues appellant, was too suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification.

It is settled that a one-on-one showup identification, conducted soon after the criminal activity has occurred, Waller v. State, 581 S.W.2d 483, 484 (Tex.Cr.App. 1979) or under emergency circumstances, Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967), is not illegal per se. The test, as appellant recognizes, is the same used in analyzing other pre-trial identification procedures, i.e., whether the confrontation was, under the totality of the circumstances, (1) so unnecessarily suggestive and (2) so conducive to irreparable mistaken identification, that the defendant was denied due process of law. Id. at 301-302, 87 S.Ct. at 1972; Banks v. State, 530 S.W.2d 940, 942 (Tex.Cr.App.1975).

The first inquiry, then, is whether the showup was unnecessarily suggestive. It is, of course, fallacious to believe there are no suggestive elements in a one-on-one showup identification. The very nature of such a procedure, conducted in the presence of law enforcement officers, is suggestive. The issue, however, is whether the confrontation is so unnecessarily suggestive as to deny due process to the accused.

In this case, the prosecutrix told the officers she could identify her assailant, and did so immediately upon seeing him, within 30 minutes after the attack. There is no evidence of uncertainty or hesitency by her *542 nor is there anything in the record to indicate that the police officers did or said anything that influenced the identification. We are satisfied the showup was not unconstitutionally suggestive.

The second inquiry is whether the showup was conducive to irreparable mistaken identification. In that regard, five factors have been formulated for evaluate ing the likelihood of misidentification because of pre-trial identification procedures: (1) the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, (2) the witness’ degree of attention, (3) the accuracy of the witness’ prior description of the criminal, (4) the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and (5) the length of time between the crime and the confrontation. Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 114, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 2253, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977); McGee v. Estelle, 632 F.2d 476, 478 (5th Cir. 1980). *

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Bluebook (online)
628 S.W.2d 539, 1982 Tex. App. LEXIS 4056, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ortega-v-state-texapp-1982.