Maria Teresa Brown v. State

NUMBER 13-13-00360-CR
COURT OF APPEALS
THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS
CORPUS CHRISTI – EDINBURG
MARIA TERESA BROWN, Appellant,
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.
On appeal from the 404th District Court
of Cameron County, Texas.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before Chief Justice Valdez and Justices Benavides and Longoria
Memorandum Opinion by Justice Longoria
By one issue, appellant Maria Teresa Brown challenges her conviction for driving
while intoxicated, third offense. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. §§ 49.04, 49.09(b)(2) (West
2011). We affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
San Benito Police Department Officer Ariel Villafranca testified at trial that on the
night of July 18, 2011, he observed a car driving in front of him veer across the opposite
lane of traffic, climb over the curb, and collide with a tree. Villafranca testified that he did
not observe any reason for the vehicle to veer off the road. He approached the vehicle
to see if the driver needed assistance, but the driver, appellant, indicated that she was
not injured. Both Villafranca and Officer Carlos Andrade, who arrived to back up
Villafranca, testified that they smelled alcohol coming from appellant and observed a
bottle of tequila in the car. However, the bottle did not appear on the inventory of the
vehicle’s contents after the car was impounded.
Villafranca administered the walk-and-turn, stand-on-one-leg, and horizontal gaze
nystagmus field sobriety tests to appellant while Andrade observed. Villafranca testified
that appellant had severe horizontal nystagmus and performed poorly on the coordination
tests. Villafranca tried several times to administer a breathalyzer test to appellant, but
the result came back “invalid test.” Marie Montoya, an employee of a private company
that maintains the police department’s breathalyzers and certifies officers to operate
them, testified at trial that the machine was operating correctly and that the result “invalid
test” meant that the person being tested did not give an adequate sample of breath.
The State charged appellant by indictment with driving while intoxicated, third
offense. See id. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the trial court imposed a
sentence of five years’ imprisonment in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice—
Institutional Division, suspended the sentence, and placed appellant on probation for six
years. Appellant filed a pro se motion for new trial that was denied by the trial court.
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Appellant’s newly appointed appellate counsel moved for rehearing on the motion, which
the court denied following another hearing in which appellant testified. This appeal
followed.
II. DISCUSSION
By one issue, which appellant divides into two sub-issues, appellant argues that
her counsel performed deficiently and that counsel’s deficient performance raised a
reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different.
1. Standard of Review and Applicable Law
We evaluate claims of ineffective assistance of counsel under the strict standards
set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668,
687 (1984). See Jaynes v. State, 216 S.W.3d 839, 851 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 2006,
no pet.). Under the Strickland standard, appellant must show by a preponderance of
evidence that: (1) trial counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of
reasonableness; and (2) there is a reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding
would have been different but for the attorney’s deficient performance. Strickland, 466
U.S. at 687. “A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence
in the outcome.” Cox v. State, 389 S.W.3d 817, 819 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012) (quoting
Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694). Appellate courts may address either prong first, and if an
appellant fails to prove one prong of the test, we do not need to address the other prong.
Id.
When evaluating the quality of trial counsel’s representation, we look to “the totality
of the representation and the particular circumstances of each case.” Thompson v. State,
9 S.W.3d 808, 813 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999). Even though “a single egregious error of
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omission or commission” can constitute ineffective assistance, the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals has been hesitant to designate any particular error as ineffective
assistance per se. Id. We apply “a strong presumption that counsel's conduct fell within
the wide range of reasonable professional assistance.” Id. Allegations of ineffectiveness
must therefore be “firmly founded in the record, and the record must affirmatively
demonstrate the alleged ineffectiveness.” Id. (citing McFarland v. State, 928 S.W.2d 482,
500 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996)). Direct appeal is usually inadequate to make an
ineffectiveness claim because the record is frequently undeveloped. Goodspeed v. State,
187 S.W.3d 390, 392 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005); see Cox, 389 S.W.3d at 819 n.11 (observing
that “a reviewing court will rarely be in a position on direct appeal to fairly evaluate the
merits of an ineffective-assistance claim”). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has
explained that “trial counsel should ordinarily be afforded an opportunity to explain his
actions before being denounced as ineffective.” Rylander v. State, 101 S.W.3d 107, 111
(Tex. Crim. App. 2003) (citing Bone v. State, 77 S.W.3d 828, 836 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002)).
Unless counsel had an opportunity to explain his trial strategy, Texas appellate courts
should “not find deficient performance unless the challenged conduct was ‘so outrageous
that no competent attorney would have engaged in it.’” Goodspeed, 187 S.W.3d at 392
(quoting Garcia v. State, 57 S.W.3d 436, 440 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001).
2. Analysis
Appellant divides her ineffective assistance argument into two sub-issues. By her
first sub-issue, appellant asserts that counsel was ineffective for not: (1) allowing
appellant to testify in order to present her own theory of the case; (2) calling the jail
medical personnel who examined her; and (3) subpoenaing medical records created by
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the medical personnel during the examination.1 We understand appellant as arguing that
she wanted to testify during the trial as she did at the hearing on her motion for new trial,
where she stated that she did not crash because she was intoxicated but because she
suffered from night blindness, and she did not perform well on the sobriety tests because
she was injured and in shock. Appellant argues that the testimony of the medical
personnel and the contents of the medical records would confirm her version of events
and rebut Villafranca and Adrade’s testimony that she was not injured.
Regarding counsel’s failure to allow her to testify, in order to establish ineffective
assistance of counsel on this ground, it is necessary for appellant to show where in the
record she asserted her right to testify and that her attorney failed to protect that right.
Salinas v. State, 163 S.W.3d 734, 741 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). Even though appellant
did eventually testify and present her own theory of the case at the hearing on her motion
for new trial, appellant is unable to show that her counsel performed deficiently because
she did not direct us to any place in the record where she asserted her right to testify
before the jury reached its verdict. See id. Regarding trial counsel’s failure to call the jail
medical personnel to testify, “failure to call witnesses at the guilt-innocence and
punishment stages is irrelevant absent a showing that such witnesses were available and
appellant would benefit from their testimony.” Perez v. State, 310 S.W.3d 890, 894 (Tex.
Crim. App. 2010) (quoting King v. State, 649 S.W.2d 42, 44 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983) (en
banc)). Appellant cannot establish deficient performance because she did not identify the
1 Although we evaluate ineffective assistance according to the totality of counsel’s representation,
see Thompson v. State, 9 S.W.3d 808, 813 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999), we will address appellant’s first sub-
issue separately because she argues that the omissions mentioned there are alone sufficient to establish
ineffective assistance of counsel.
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jail personnel she wanted to testify and did not show that the witnesses were available.
See id. Finally, even if we assume that failing to subpoena the medical records was
deficient performance, appellant has not explained what injuries the medical records
would have revealed that affected her performance on the sobriety tests such that there
is a reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding would have been different.
See Cox, 389 S.W.3d at 819 (holding that appellant must establish both deficient
performance and prejudice).
By her second sub-issue, appellant argues that there is a reasonable probability
that the result of her trial would have been different if her trial counsel had not made
thirteen omissions and errors. Appellant argues that her trial counsel performed
deficiently by:
(1) failing to object to the introduction of the video from Villafranca’s
police vehicle;
(2) failing to request a hearing on pretrial motions, “including failure
to obtain a hearing to establish disclosure of expert witnesses”;
(3) failing to request a jury instruction after the trial judge sustained
counsel’s objection to improper argument;
(4) failing “to properly cross examine on the issue how wearing
glasses both interferes with and invalidates” a horizontal gaze
nystagmus test;
(5) failing to introduce “evidence of the condition of the grounds upon
which the field sobriety tests were conducted in the form of photos or
video”;
(6) failing to “properly object to admitted breathalyzer evidence as
inadmissible since the officer was the one who discontinued the test,
while the [a]ppellant still wished to attempt to provide a sample”;
(7) failing to “properly cross examine officer as expert on field
sobriety tests, . . . and fail[ing] to disqualify officer or take [him] on
voir dire to disqualify officer as expert on the issues that the officer
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does not know about the NHTSA training manual”;
(8) attempting “to have officer prove up insurance report on total loss
of vehicle”;
(9) cross-examining the officer on the report he filled out about
administering the breathalyzer test on the grounds that not all of the
blanks were filled in but instead pursued a defensive theory which
appellant does not detail;
(10) failing to “get the officer to testify as to whether he did or did not
see the airbag deployment and cloud of white dust from the
deployment of the airbag upon impact”;
(11) failing to object to Montoya as an “undisclosed expert witness”
or failing to secure a pretrial hearing on her qualifications as an
expert that “would have foreclosed her testimony”;
(12) failing to pursue his objection to the “results of the NCIC/TCIC
investigation” to a ruling;2 and
(13) failing to object to the investigator from the district attorney’s
office identifying appellant by her driver’s license photo.
Appellant, however, does not explain in her brief why any of the objections should
have been sustained by the trial court,3 how she suffered prejudice as a result of counsel’s
failure to cross-examine several witnesses concerning issues related to the sobriety tests
and their qualifications to testify about the tests,4 and whether any pretrial motion would
2 Appellant is referring to the testimony of Carlos Trevino, an investigator with the Cameron County
District Attorney’s Office. Trevino testified that he ran a check on appellant’s driver’s license number at the
request of the prosecutor and then testified regarding appellant’s previous arrest records.
3 In order “[t]o show ineffective assistance of counsel for the failure to object during trial,” appellant
“must show that the trial judge would have committed error in overruling the objection.” Ex parte White,
160 S.W.3d 46, 53 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004).
4 The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held that “[c]ross-examination is inherently risky, and
a decision not to cross-examine a witness is often the result of wisdom acquired by experience.” Ex parte
McFarland, 163 S.W.3d 743, 753 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). Because “cross-examination is an art, not a
science . . . it cannot adequately be judged in hindsight,” id. at 756, and we will not find ineffective assistance
of counsel unless the appellant can show that the cross-examination of the witness would have affected
the outcome of the proceeding. See McKinney v. State, 76 S.W.3d 463, 476 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st
Dist.] 2002, no pet.) (en banc) (refusing to find ineffective assistance of counsel when appellant did not
point to any evidence that cross-examination of a witness would have called into question the reliability of
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have been granted.5 Finally, even assuming that the third, fifth, eighth, and thirteenth
alleged errors and omissions could constitute deficient performance, appellant does not
explain how she suffered prejudice as a result of these alleged errors and omissions. See
id. (holding that appellant must establish both deficient performance and prejudice to
succeed on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim). Because appellant has not
established that she suffered prejudice as a result of these errors and omissions, we hold
that appellant has not overcome the strong presumption that her counsel provided
constitutionally sufficient representation. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688. We overrule
appellant’s sole issue.
III. CONCLUSION
We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
NORA L. LONGORIA
Justice
Do not publish.
TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
Delivered and filed the
13th day of February, 2014.
the witness’s testimony about the value of stolen goods).
5 “The failure to file pre-trial motions is not categorically deemed ineffective assistance of counsel
because trial counsel may decide not to file pre-trial motions as part of his trial strategy.” Mares v. State,
52 S.W.3d 886, 891 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2001, pet. ref’d). “To establish ineffective assistance of
counsel for failure to file a motion with the trial court, a defendant must demonstrate that he would have
succeeded on the motion.” Keller v. State, 125 S.W.3d 600, 608 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2003),
pet. dism’d, improvidently granted, 146 S.W.3d 677 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004) (per curiam); see Hollis v. State,
219 S.W.3d 446, 456 (Tex. App.—Austin 2007, no pet.) (same).
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