Rios v. State

263 S.W.3d 1, 2005 WL 3077220
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 1, 2006
Docket01-04-00795-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 263 S.W.3d 1 (Rios 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
Rios v. State, 263 S.W.3d 1, 2005 WL 3077220 (Tex. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

*4 OPINION

JANE BLAND, Justice.

Appellant Juan Rios pleaded not guilty to the charge of aggravated robbery. A jury found Rios guilty and assessed punishment at thirty years’ imprisonment and a $3,000 fíne. On appeal, Rios contends, with respect to the guilt/innocence phase of the trial, that (1) the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to sustain his conviction; (2) the trial court erred in admitting fingerprint testimony where the State failed to give adequate notice; (3) the trial court erred in admitting testimonial hearsay; and (4) the trial court erred in admitting accomplice testimony without sufficient corroboration. Concerning the punishment phase of the trial, Rios contends that the trial court erred in (1) admitting evidence of an unreliable pretrial identification; (2) failing to require an affirmative finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt on unadjudicated extraneous offenses at punishment; and (3) submitting an ambiguous parole instruction to the jury. We affirm.

I. FACTS

In April 2003, Marcia Escobar and Karla Mejia picked up their aunt, Carmen Esco-bar, from work. A car followed them into Carmen’s apartment complex. When the women stopped near Carmen’s unit, the car behind them stopped as well, and three men wearing masks and bearing guns exited the car and approached the women’s vehicle. The men began hitting the windows of the vehicle with their hands, telling the women to open the doors, and one of the men used a machete to break out the rear window. When the women unlocked the doors, one of the men entered the car and pointed his gun at Karla while another man put his gun in Carmen’s mouth and demanded her jewelry. When Carmen struggled, the man broke one of her teeth with the gun and yanked her earrings out of her ears. The women’s screams appeared to make the assailants nervous, so after a few minutes, the men returned to their car and left, taking with them the earrings, a cell phone, and the keys to the women’s vehicle.

The first officer to arrive on the scene did not speak Spanish, and the victims did not speak English, so the officer called a wrecker driver in the area whom he knew to be fluent in both languages. With the help of the wrecker driver, the officer obtained statements from the victims. After the victims told the officer where their assailants struck their car windows, police recovered fingerprints. Police later matched the fingerprints to Rios, Jose Ma-tutes, and Henry Martinez. The victims identified Matutes and Martinez in a photo array, but none of them could identify Rios.

At trial, Matutes testified to Rios’s involvement in the robbery. The victims testified to the details of the robbery. Over Rios’s hearsay objection, the first officer to arrive on the scene testified to the contents of the statements made to him by the complaining witnesses, as translated by the interpreter. Also over Rios’s objection, a fingerprint expert testified that the fingerprints found on the victims’ car matched the fingerprints of Rios, Matutes, and Martinez found in the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (“AFIS”), and matched the fingerprints taken from Rios during the course of the trial. Another officer testified that he later pulled Rios over with his two co-defendants in a vehicle containing a revolver and two ski masks. The jury found Rios guilty of aggravated robbery.

During the punishment phase of the trial, the State presented evidence that Rios previously had been identified from a pho *5 to array as the perpetrator of a similar robbery a few months earlier. The trial court denied Rios’s motion to suppress the testimony, finding that it was the not the result of an overly suggestive photo array.

II. GUILT/INNOCENCE PHASE OF TRIAL

A. Admission of Fingerprint Expert Testimony

In his first issue, Rios contends the trial court erred in allowing expert testimony comparing Rios’s fingerprints to those recovered from the crime scene because the State failed to give adequate notice of the content of such testimony. During a trial recess, an expert fingerprinted Rios, and immediately after the recess Rios’s counsel objected “Judge, before they come in, just for the record, my client, Juan Rios, was just fingerprinted by Deputy Davis, which again I reurge my objection as to him having done that to him.” Though this objection appears to renew an earlier objection, Rios does not point us to the initial objection in his brief, and we are unable to find any earlier objection in the record. Defense counsel did not object to the admission of Exhibit 39, the latent fingerprint card that linked Rios to the scene. The trial court overruled counsel’s objection, and the expert testified, without further objection, that the fingerprints he had just taken from Rios matched those found on the victims’ car.

On appeal, Rios argues not that his fingerprints were improperly taken or admitted, but rather that he was not given adequate notice that the expert would testify that Rios’s fingerprints taken during the trial recess matched fingerprints taken from the crime scene. The State contends that the objection made at trial differs from the argument made on appeal, and, thus, that any error in the admission of the testimony is waived. We agree.

To preserve a complaint for appellate review, a defendant must make a timely, specific objection to the trial court. Tex.R.App. P. 33.1(a); see Wilson v. State, 71 S.W.3d 346, 349 (Tex.Crim.App.2002). It follows that an objection stating one legal basis may not be used to support a different legal theory on appeal. See Heidelberg v. State, 144 S.W.3d 535, 537 (Tex.Crim.App.2004). Courts have routinely held that where a complaint on appeal does not comport with an objection made at trial, the error is not preserved on the complaint. Wilson, 71 S.W.3d at 349; Goff v. State, 931 S.W.2d 537, 551 (Tex.Crim.App.1996); Flores v. State, 125 S.W.3d 744, 747 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2003, no pet.). An objection is sufficient to preserve error for appellate review if the objection communicates to the trial judge what the objecting party wants and why the objecting party thinks himself entitled to relief. Lankston v. State, 827 S.W.2d 907, 909 (Tex.Crim.App.1992). To preserve error where objectionable testimony is involved, a party must object every time the allegedly inadmissible testimony is offered. Johnson v. State, 84 S.W.3d 726, 729 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2002, pet. ref'd) (citing Ethington v. State, 819 S.W.2d 854, 858 (Tex.Crim.App.1991)).

Rios failed to object when Deputy Davis, the fingerprint expert, took the stand, he failed to object to any of the State’s questions, and he failed to object when Davis stated that Rios’s fingerprints matched those found at the scene. The only objection at trial, that the fingerprints taken during the trial should not be admitted, is completely different from the argument on appeal, that the State did not provide adequate notice of Davis’s testimony. 1

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Bluebook (online)
263 S.W.3d 1, 2005 WL 3077220, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rios-v-state-texapp-2006.