Samaniego v. State

679 N.E.2d 944, 1997 Ind. App. LEXIS 508, 1997 WL 236155
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 12, 1997
DocketNo. 01A02-9505-PC-264
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 679 N.E.2d 944 (Samaniego v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Samaniego v. State, 679 N.E.2d 944, 1997 Ind. App. LEXIS 508, 1997 WL 236155 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

OPINION

KIRSCH, Judge.

Albert Samaniego appeals from the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. He presents several issues which we consolidate and restate as follows:

I. Whether the State withheld material evidence favorable to the defense;
II. Whether such evidence constituted newly discovered evidence;
III. Whether some of the prosecutor’s remarks constituted fundamental error; and,
IV. Whether Samaniego received ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel.

We affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The facts underlying Samaniego’s conviction were set forth by our supreme court in his direct appeal:

“[On June 22, 1987], the victim and her 2-year-old daughter returned home at approximately 9:00 p.m. During her absence, the victim had left her house unlocked. However, upon returning home, she locked the door for the evening. Shortly after she retired, her daughter told her there was a man in the house. Appellant thought the child was attempting simply to avoid going to bed.
“However, the victim soon discovered a man in fact was in the house. The man grabbed the victim and repeatedly told her to quiet the child or he would kill her. The man jerked the victim out of bed, placed a knife to her throat, and pushed her into a hallway where he forced her to her knees in order to perform fellatio. He told her that he would kill her if she did not comply. The victim then told the attacker that he would have to kill her.
“In an ensuing struggle, the attacker pushed the victim down several steps to a landing. She then was pushed down the rest of the steps. After the attacker and the victim were at the bottom of the stairway, the attacker grabbed the victim’s hair and repeatedly hit her head against the wall. The victim also received cuts from the knife held in the attacker’s hand. During the melee, the victim tore from her attacker’s hand a portion of a finger of a rubber glove.
“Neighbors who had been alerted by the victim’s screams were outside the home when the attacker and the victim ran out of the house. One of the neighbors, Rex Grant, followed the man, who he identified as appellant, to a nearby alley. The appellant ran toward a lumber yard then back to his truck, which was parked in the alley. Another neighbor, Dan Aguilar, was carrying a flashlight when he came to investigate. Mr. Aguilar and his daughter, Diana Aguilar, saw a man, whom they later identified as appellant, approach a red and white Ford pickup truck from the direction of the lumberyard.
“Mr. Aguilar questioned appellant who stated he had a problem with his truck and had been at a friend’s house. Mr. Aguilar shined the flashlight on appellant and continued to question him because he knew of the attack. Mr. Aguilar was especially interested in identifying appellant because Mr. Aguilar had been told that the attacker might be Hispanic, and he initially believed appellant was Hispanic. Diana Aguilar recognized appellant as a man whom she had seen mowing the lawn at the nursing home where she was employed.
“Appellant told Aguilar that he lived in the Belmont Estates area of Decatur. Within an hour of the attack, police located appellant’s truck and proceeded to question appellant. He admitted that he had been in the area of the attack that evening but claimed his truck had run out of gas. He told police officers that his small son accompanied him that evening. However, a neighbor told police that appellant’s son [947]*947had been in her care for approximately one and a half hours.
“Because of the descriptions from the various witnesses of appellant and the truck, the police placed appellant under arrest. A further check disclosed that the license plate number on the truck seen in the alley was the same as the license plate number of appellant’s truck.
“Following appellant’s arrest, a search at the jail produced two medallions, a pocketknife, and marijuana. Appellant’s wife permitted police to search their residence. She told police officers that she owned a pair of pink rubber dishwashing gloves. However, when she attempted to show them to the police, she discovered they were missing.
“After receiving medical attention at the hospital, the victim returned to her home and discovered a fingertip from the rubber glove and a silver necklace in her home. A pair of pink rubber gloves found near the lumberyard, where appellant had stopped briefly after he ran into the alley, had a fingertip missing which matched the fingertip found in the victim’s home.
“The silver necklace found in the victim’s home was identified by appellant’s wife as a necklace worn by appellant to which the medallions were attached which were found on appellant’s person when he was searched at the jail. Appellant’s wife further told the police officers that she and her husband had watched a movie, ‘Don’t Answer the Phone.’ The wife expressed concern because the subject of the movie in many ways paralleled the attack on the victim in this ease.
“Friends of appellant, Ken and Dana Lee Moses, had a conversation with appellant on the afternoon before the attack on the victim and he told them that he had watched the movie and wanted to do the things that were done in the movie. He stated that his wife “never gave him any,” and that he was going to get some if he had to use force. He indicated the type of sexual activity he was seeking was fellatio. He also showed Ken and Dana a knife which he carried in his shoe.
“A few hours after the incident, four of the witnesses who had been alerted by the victim’s screams, were taken to the jail where each was permitted to view appellant through a window in the cell and each identified him as the person they had seen coming out of the victim’s apartment and running down the alley.
“While appellant was awaiting trial, he told a cellmate that he committed the crime. The cellmate, Douglas Barnett, testified that appellant told him in detail how the attack took place. The details matched the testimony of other witnesses in the case. On cross-examination, Barnett was asked if he had read in the newspapers any of the details he had recited. He replied that he had never read a newspaper article concerning the ease and that everything he knew had been told to him by appellant while they were cellmates.
“When asked why he gave the police this information, he stated that at first he thought it might do him some good, but that in fact he received no benefit from any information he had furnished and that he had served out his sentence.”

Samaniego v. State, 553 N.E.2d 120, 121-23 (Ind.1990), reh’g denied.

Samaniego’s subsequent petition for post-conviction relief was denied. This appeal followed.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

In post-conviction proceedings, the petitioner bears the burden of establishing the grounds for relief by a preponderance of the evidence. Ind.Post-Conviction Rule 1(5).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
679 N.E.2d 944, 1997 Ind. App. LEXIS 508, 1997 WL 236155, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/samaniego-v-state-indctapp-1997.