Ramirez v. State

815 S.W.2d 636, 1991 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 152, 1991 WL 105629
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas·Decided June 19, 1991·No. 69749·Published·Cited by 359 cases

Opinion

OPINION

MILLER, Judge.

Appellant was convicted of capital murder. V.T.C.A. Penal Code, sec. 19.03(a)(2). The trial judge assessed appellant’s punishment at death by lethal injection after the jury returned affirmative answers to the special issues submitted pursuant to Art. 37.071(b)(1) and (2). 1 Appellant presents twenty-eight points of error in this direct appeal. We will reverse the judgment of the trial court and address those points of error which may arise in the event of a retrial.

Appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction or to support the jury’s affirmative answers to the issues at punishment. Appellant does challenge, however, the admissibility of certain evidence at guilt/innocence. A somewhat detailed recitation of the facts is necessary to facilitate our discussion of those points of error.

Appellant was charged with committing the murder of Beverly Strothers in the course of burglarizing her home. The indictment specifically alleged in pertinent part that appellant:

while in the course of committing and attempting to commit burglary of a habitation owned by BEVERLY SUE STROTHERS, intentionally cause (sic) the death of BEVERLY SUE STROTH-ERS, ..., by cutting and stabbing [her] with a knife.

Appellant and a friend, Steve Hernandez, who was also charged in connection with this offense, went to visit Jacquie Picasso at approximately 3:00 a.m. on September 14, 1985. Jacquie’s mother, Leci Gillette, told appellant and Hernandez that Jacquie was out with her friend Candis Cain. 2 The two men then left, and Gillette watched them walk in the direction of Candy’s apartment, but she did not see whether they entered it. Approximately fifteen or thirty minutes later, Gillette heard screams, which she recognized as her daughter Jacquie’s and Candy’s voices, coming from Candy’s home.

Candy testified she and Jacquie entered her home through the back entrance. Candy noticed both the patio gate and the sliding glass door to her room were open which was unusual. Once inside the apartment, Candy noticed her mother’s room *641 was “messed up” and then she saw her mother’s legs protruding from the bathroom into the hallway. Candy described her mother as naked, very bloody, and still alive when she found her in the bathroom. Candy asked her mother what happened; her mother told her “They raped me” and she mumbled something else before dying in Candy’s arms. Candy’s little brother, Jim Bob Strothers, was asleep on one of the couches in the front room and was not awakened during the assault on his mother. Both Candy’s TV and her mother’s TV were missing from the apartment.

Appellant did not testify at trial. His confession, which was edited and read to the jury, stated in pertinent part:

Steve said let’s go to Candy’s house and get the TV’s (sic). We walked around to Candy’s apartment and went to the back patio. Steven opened the sliding door and we went in. The bedroom light was on but no one was in the room. We started looking around in the bedroom for jewelry. We did not find any thing so decided to take the TV. We were in the living room trying to take the TV. Candy’s mother was laying down on the couch sleeping. Candy’s little brother was laying on the small couch. I guess we were making too much noise, and she started moving around and sat up. She saw us and started yelling. We both told her to shut up. She yelled y’all are Candy’s friends, ain’t you. We grabbed and drug her into the hall between the bathroom and the kitchen. As we were dragging her her gown came off. She started fighting with us. We told her to be quiet and stay still. Steve said, ‘Hey, man, she knows us, we’ll have to kill her.’ I told Steve no but he kept hollering that we had to kill her. Steve got a knife from the kitchen and came in and stabbed her somewhere in the chest while I was holding her. She then laid still. I went into the kitchen and got a big knife from one of the drawers. I went back and stabbed her about three times in the left' chest. Steve was holding her around the mouth. She was still alive. We both cut her throat. I put the knife I had in the closet with the towels ... After we finished stabbing her, I grabbed the small TV which came out of one of the bedrooms, and Steve grabbed the big TV which was in the living room ... I didn’t mean to kill her, we just went over there to steal the T.V., but when she woke up she recogniezed (sic) us. Things just happened ...

The assistant medical examiner testified Strothers, the deceased, had a cluster of five stab wounds to the left side of her neck and another such cluster to the left side of her chest. In addition to these ten stab wounds, Strothers had superficial cuts and abrasions, defensive wounds on her right hand, an abrasion of her vagina, and a contusion between her vagina and anus. Strothers died as a result of three of the stab wounds to her chest.

Houston police department chemist Christie Kim testified she performed sero-logical analyses on the hair, skin, and bodily fluids samples from appellant, Hernandez, and the victim. Kim testified she found spermatozoa in the deceased’s mouth which indicated to her the deceased had had oral sex prior to her death, but there was an insufficient seminal stain present to detect the type of donor’s seminal fluid. No sperm were detected on the vaginal and oral smears taken from the victim. Kim stated seminal stains were also present on the briefs appellant was wearing when he was arrested later that morning of the offense, but no such stains were found on Steve Hernandez’s clothing. Kim’s testimony coincided with that of the assistant medical examiner that the contusions in the victim’s vaginal and anal orifices were consistent with an assault to the genital area but were not made by the male sex organ. The assistant medical examiner stated the contusions and abrasions could have been caused by fingers or a blunt object.

In his first point of error, appellant contends the trial court committed reversible error by allowing Candy, the victim’s daughter, to testify her mother told her she had been raped. Appellant argues this testimony introduced evidence of an extraneous offense which was not admissible because “rape” was not alleged in the indict *642 ment and the State relied upon his intent to steal, as evidenced by his confession, to prove its case.

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Ramirez v. State, 815 S.W.2d 636, 1991 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 152, 1991 WL 105629 (Tex. 1991).

815 S.W.2d 636 (Ramirez v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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