Saenz v. State

103 S.W.3d 541, 2003 Tex. App. LEXIS 824, 2003 WL 179620
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 29, 2003
Docket04-01-00283-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 103 S.W.3d 541 (Saenz 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
Saenz v. State, 103 S.W.3d 541, 2003 Tex. App. LEXIS 824, 2003 WL 179620 (Tex. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinions

Opinion by

KAREN ANGELINI, Justice.

Frank Saenz appeals the trial court’s judgment finding him guilty of aggravated sexual assault. According to Saenz, he received ineffective assistance of counsel, and the submitted jury charge was erroneous. The trial court’s judgment is affirmed.

Background

Frank Saenz was charged with six counts of aggravated sexual assault. Trial was before a jury. At the trial, Saenz’s two daughters, Yasmine and Stella, testified that, since 1988, Saenz had been sexually assaulting them. Saenz’s wife, Rosalinda, testified that she did not believe her husband had sexually assaulted her daughters. And Saenz denied the allegations. Nevertheless, Saenz was found guilty of three counts of the charged offense and was sentenced to fifteen years confinement.1 Saenz appeals.

Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

According to Saenz, his trial counsel provided him ineffective assistance at trial. We evaluate a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel according to the two-prong test established by the Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). See Hernandez v. State, 726 S.W.2d 53, 55-57 (Tex.Crim.App.1986). To satisfy this test, Saenz must first demonstrate that his attorney’s performance was deficient. Thompson v. State, 9 S.W.3d 808, 812 (Tex.Crim.App.1999). Second, assuming Saenz has demonstrated deficient assistance, he must affirmatively prove prejudice. Id. Saenz bears the burden of proving counsel was ineffective by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. at 813.

The assessment of whether a defendant received effective assistance of counsel must be made according to the facts of each case. Id. Any allegation of ineffectiveness must be firmly founded in the record. Id. Failure to make the required showing of either deficient performance or sufficient prejudice defeats the ineffectiveness claim; absent both showings we cannot conclude that the conviction resulted from a breakdown in the adversarial process that renders the result unreliable. Id.

According to Saenz, his trial counsel made numerous errors throughout the trial and thus rendered ineffective assistance. First, Saenz maintains his trial counsel was deficient because he lacked a firm command of the law applicable to his case. According to Saenz, this deficiency result[544]*544ed in trial counsel’s request to the trial court to submit an erroneous jury instruction.

Although the State initially charged Saenz -with six counts of aggravated sexual assault, it waived counts three, four, and five. At the charge conference, Saenz’s trial counsel first requested an instruction disallowing the jury to consider any evidence related to the waived counts. The request was denied. Saenz’s trial counsel then requested the following instruction:

You are instructed that the State has elected to waive the charges in Counts III, IV and V of the indictment, that is, the defendant no longer stands accused of those charges. You may still consider the evidence presented regarding those counts to the extent that evidence may be relevant to Counts I, II, and VI.

At the hearing on Saenz’s motion for new trial, trial counsel admitted he “made a mistake” by failing to file a motion to quash the indictments on the grounds that Counts II, III, and IV were barred by limitations.

The point is that a mistake was made, and it was a very, very bad mistake. Evidence was allowed in that would never have been allowed in under the remaining counts, had the three counts that were barred by limitations not been before the jury during the whole eviden-tiary portion of the trial. This was a horrible mistake.
... A Motion for New Trial, when there’s been an egregious error like this, ought to be considered, and this was an egregious error. And the Court knows that I’m a board certified trial lawyer, but not a board certified criminal lawyer, and I think that the fact that I did not pick up on the error in the indictment, subjected Frank Saenz to going to trial and having evidence heard of counts that never should have been before the jury. And the fact that they heard it, could not-there was no possible instruction that the Court could have given that jury to have wiped out the crushing testimony by Yasmin Saenz, of things that happened many years ago, allegedly by Frank Saenz, that never should have been in evidence.
The indictments never should have come down. That is an error that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. ... As a result, I think at least as to the indictment for those three counts, ..., I don’t think Frank Saenz had the benefit of effective assistance of counsel.

Despite trial counsel’s belief, the admission of evidence regarding the waived counts and his request for an instruction allowing the jury to consider that evidence were not error. Article 38.37 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure provides that evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts committed by the defendant against the child who is the victim of the alleged offense shall be admitted for its bearing on relevant matters, including the state of mind of the defendant and child and the previous and subsequent relationship between the defendant and the child. In light of this provision, even if trial counsel’s failure to object to the introduction of evidence regarding the waived counts or his requested jury instruction were inappropriate, the record does not demonstrate that Saenz was harmed by the evidence or the jury question. Yasmin testified to sexual acts that she engaged in with Saenz, beginning in 1984 when she was four or five years old and which continued up until she was fourteen years old. “Evidence of extraneous acts such as this explains how ‘a person in a position of authority, custody, or care of a young child has developed an unnatural attitude and relationship toward that child to explain [545]*545the charged act — an act that would otherwise seem wholly illogical and implausible to the average juror.’ ” Brown v. State, 6 S.W.3d 571, 579 (Tex.App.-Tyler 1999, pet. ref'd)(citing Poole v. State, 974 S.W.2d 892, 897 (Tex.App.-Austin 1998, pet. refd)). Accordingly, the evidence would have been admissible pursuant to article 88.37. Thus, Saenz has not demonstrated that trial counsel’s failure to object to introduction of the evidence and his requested jury instruction was prejudicial.

Saenz also maintains his trial counsel was ineffective because he failed to file pre-trial motions. Specifically, according to Saenz, trial counsel failed to seek discovery of statements made by Saenz and various documents and failed to request notice of the State’s intent to introduce evidence of extraneous acts. However, the record does not demonstrate whether any such documents or statements exist. Saenz’s complaint is, therefore, merely a conclusion not firmly founded in the record. Thompson, 9 S.W.3d at 812.

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Saenz v. State
103 S.W.3d 541 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2003)

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Bluebook (online)
103 S.W.3d 541, 2003 Tex. App. LEXIS 824, 2003 WL 179620, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/saenz-v-state-texapp-2003.