Robert Cano v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 6, 2012
Docket13-11-00568-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Robert Cano v. State (Robert Cano 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
Robert Cano v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

NUMBER 13-11-00568-CR

COURT OF APPEALS

THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS

CORPUS CHRISTI - EDINBURG

ROBERT CANO, Appellant,

v.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.

On appeal from the 377th District Court of Victoria County, Texas.

MEMORANDUM OPINION Before Justices Rodriguez, Benavides, and Perkes Memorandum Opinion by Justice Perkes

Appellant, Robert Cano, appeals his conviction for burglary of a habitation,1 a second

degree felony enhanced by prior offenses to a first degree felony.2 By a single issue,

appellant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction. We affirm.

1 See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 30.02(a)(1) (West 2011). 2 See Id. §§ 12.42(b); 30.02(c)(2). I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND3

Nine-year-old K.C.4 was awakened in the early morning when she heard someone

knocking on the front door. She went to the window by the front door, “tipped up” the blinds,

and peeked outside. She saw a man wearing a black leather jacket, black pants, and a

black cap with some red on it. Since she did not recognize the man, she woke up her

mother, Victoria Canales, and told her that someone was at the front door. Her mother told

her to ignore it and to go back to bed.

As K.C. walked back to her bedroom, she heard a sound like a window opening in the

kitchen. She went to the living room, which was adjacent to the kitchen; she had a clear

line-of-sight to the kitchen. She saw the blinds and curtains that covered the window

pushing inward “[l]ike somebody was coming in”—“like the head coming in.” She ran and

told her mother that someone was climbing into the house through the window.

Canales jumped out of bed and ran “to the kitchen area,” where she saw “a figure of a

body coming into the window” and crouching in the kitchen. When asked at trial, “Was the

figure of a body inside your kitchen,” Canales responded, “Yes.” However, she never saw

the person’s face because the blinds and curtains covered the window. She yelled at the

intruder, who quickly exited and left.

Canales and K.C. went outside. They saw two individuals, a man and a woman, in

the distance, walking down the street. K.C. noticed that the man was wearing the same

clothes as the man who had knocked on the door.

3 Because this is a memorandum opinion and the parties are familiar with the facts, we will not recite them here except as necessary to advise the parties of the Court's decision and the basic reasons for it. See TEX. R. APP. P. 47.4. 4 We use the alias “K.C.” to protect the identity of the minor child declarant. 2 While Canales and K.C. stood there, Canales’s father, Victor Trevino, who lived

about fifteen houses down the street, arrived on his bike. Trevino had been outside

smoking a cigarette when he saw a man and woman walk down the street and enter a

driveway near his daughter’s house. Less than five minutes later, he saw the two people

leave the driveway “kind of fast” and walk in his direction. He observed that the man was

wearing black clothes and a black jacket. While Trevino was talking to Betsy de la Garza,

he saw the two people get into a white, Ford Taurus that was parked about seven houses

away. The car’s owner, who was in her house at the time, had turned the car on and left it

running to warm up. As Trevino watched, the two people drove away in the car.

At the time of these events, de la Garza was taking her children and Canales’s niece,

who lived at Trevino’s house, to school. While on her way to pick the niece up, de la Garza

noticed a man and woman walking down the street near Canales’s house. She told the trial

court:

[The woman] looked dirty. What made me notice, she had on big red houseslippers [sic]. Her hair was in a bun, scraggly, and she had acne or something on her face.

The guy was wearing a black jacket and had shaggy hair and he had on a baseball cap. It was black, I believe.

Their appearance concerned de la Garza. After picking up the Canales’s niece and taking

her to a nearby store for some medicine, de la Garza decided to drive by Canales’s house

again. As she passed Canales’s house, she saw the man standing approximately ten

inches away from Canales’s kitchen window and the woman standing at the front door

moving her head back and forth and “looking . . . like she was looking out for him.” De la

Garza drove to Trevino’s house and informed him that someone was trying to break into

3 Canales’s home. De la Garza testified that she then drove around the block again, and

upon driving down the street, the white Taurus pulled out in front of her car. She saw the

woman, who was driving the vehicle, look back before pulling out, and she saw the man,

whom she recognized by “his shaggy hair and jacket,” sitting in the passenger seat.

After the break-in, Canales called 9-1-1. Peace Officer Melissa Rendon Wasicek

(“Officer Rendon”) overheard the 9-1-1-dispatcher’s conversation and determined that the

call involved a burglary. She also heard a car-theft call that came in a few minutes earlier.

She understood that two individuals were involved in the burglary. While en route to the

location of the occurrences, the 9-1-1 dispatcher issued a description of the suspects.

Officer Rendon drove by two people, appellant and Jessica Kathleen Orellana, walking near

the general area of the reported crimes; they matched the suspects’ descriptions. She

notified the dispatcher that she may have found the suspects. Officer Cody Breunig heard

Officer Rendon’s update and reported to her location. The two officers “made contact” with

the two individuals; Officer Breunig approached appellant, and Officer Rendon approached

Orellana.

Officer Breunig recorded his conversation with appellant, which the State played at

trial. Officer Breunig testified that it sounded like appellant told him, “I went in—I didn’t go

into the house.” The recording also recorded Officer Breunig’s immediate response to that

statement, in which he told appellant, “I know you didn’t break into the house.” At trial,

Officer Breunig explained that at the time appellant made that statement to him, Officer

Breunig was only thinking about the car theft. He described that as his “primary concern.”

In the recorded conversation, Officer Breunig told appellant, “I’m not worried about the

house, I’m trying to figure out what happened with the car.” 4 Appellant informed Officer Breunig that he had a crowbar, which Officer Breunig

seized from appellant’s black leather jacket. Upon searching appellant, the officers found a

black hat with a red design on it. In addition, appellant possessed women’s perfume,

women’s deodorant, nail polish, and a Bible, all of which had been taken from the stolen

vehicle. The vehicle was found abandoned nearby.

At the scene of arrest, de la Garza told one of the officers that she recognized the two

people as the ones who had been in Canales’s driveway and the stolen car. Canales and

K.C. also went to the scene. K.C. told Officer Breunig that she recognized appellant as the

man who had knocked on her door. Trevino, also present, told the police officers that he

recognized the man as the one who had entered his daughter’s driveway and the woman as

the one who drove away in the stolen car.

Officer Breunig took the crowbar to Canales’s house and investigated the window.

He noticed “that it [the window] had been pryed [sic] open by some kind of pry device. . . .”

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