Yurisdanyer Garcia-Sanchez v. State ( 2018 )

NUMBER 13-17-00569-CR
COURT OF APPEALS
THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS
CORPUS CHRISTI – EDINBURG
YURISDANYER GARCIA-SANCHEZ, Appellant,
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.
On appeal from the 299th District Court
of Travis County, Texas.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before Justices Contreras, Longoria, and Hinojosa
Memorandum Opinion by Justice Longoria
Appellant Yurisdanyer Garcia-Sanchez appeals his conviction of tampering with or
fabricating physical evidence, a third-degree felony. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN.
§ 37.09(a)(1) (West, Westlaw through 2017 1st C.S.). Garcia-Sanchez argues on appeal
that the evidence is legally insufficient to support his conviction. We affirm.
I. BACKGROUND 1
On June 2, 2016, Officer Willis Rounds was called to assist Officer John
Gabrielson with traffic control in relation to a stalled vehicle. After the disabled vehicle
was towed away, Rounds began to remove the safety cones from the street. Rounds
noticed that two of the cones were stuck together. He pulled the safety cones apart and
a handgun fell out. He called over his corporal and Gabrielson. He was instructed by his
corporal to give the gun to Gabrielson, because the safety cones containing the gun had
come from Gabrielson’s car. Gabrielson drove back to the substation and reported the
discovery of the gun to Detective Russ Bolan. Bolan obtained the unit number of that
particular patrol car and discovered that it was an SUV with a camera that monitors the
backseat. Detective Bolan watched the videos from that patrol car, moving backward in
time from the discovery of the gun, until he saw Garcia-Sanchez in the backseat, hiding
a gun between two safety cones on May 30, 2016, three days before Officer Rounds saw
the gun fall out of the cones. Bolan testified,
So when I watched the video, I noticed first the officer had handcuffed the
prisoner behind his back, and he—kind of like a backwards jump rope took
his hands around to the front of his body where he had now more freedom
to move his hand. And it looked like he was wearing some very slim-fitted
jeans or skinny jeans, and the gun had fallen from wherever it was into his
pant leg. And then in the video you see him with his hands handcuffed push
the gun up from the knee area of his pants and kind of work it up his thigh
into his waistband and then—I mean, there you can obviously see the gun.
1 This case is before this Court on transfer from the Third Court of Appeals in Austin pursuant to a
docket-equalization order issued by the Supreme Court of Texas. See TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 73.001
(West, Westlaw through 2017 1st C.S.).
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Bolan further testified that even though the cones were shuffled around over the next few
days, he did not see anyone in the video recordings put anything in the cones other than
Garcia-Sanchez.
The State presented evidence regarding the circumstances under which Garcia-
Sanchez was placed in that patrol car on May 30, 2016. Officer Dustin Hammit was using
that same patrol car during his shift that night when he assisted another officer in taking
Garcia-Sanchez into custody, at gunpoint, in connection with a disturbance at “an
apartment/hotel.” Officer Hammit put Garcia-Sanchez in handcuffs, with his hands behind
his back. Hammit frisked him twice but did not find any weapons. Officer Hammit then
placed Garcia-Sanchez in the back of the patrol car. At one point after placing Garcia-
Sanchez in the back of the patrol car, Hammit noticed that Garcia-Sanchez’s handcuffed
hands were in front of his body, not behind his back.
At the time of Garcia-Sanchez’s detention, there was an ongoing investigation in
which the police were looking for a handgun. Officers looked all around the building and
inside of a hotel room, but no gun was found. Officer Hammit admitted that he was
distracted when performing both frisks and that the frisks he conducted were not
sufficiently thorough. Officer Hammit’s supervisors later concluded that he was
overwhelmed by everything that was going on at the scene of the disturbance and that
he made a mistake by not frisking Garcia-Sanchez more thoroughly.
Garcia-Sanchez was charged with tampering with physical evidence and on July
12, 2017, jury trial on the merits commenced. The jury found him guilty, and the trial court
assessed punishment at four years in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department
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of Criminal Justice, probated for five years of community supervision. Garcia-Sanchez
filed a motion for new trial, which was overruled as a matter of law. This appeal ensued.
II. LEGAL SUFFICIENCY
In his sole issue, Garcia-Sanchez argues that the evidence is legally insufficient to
sustain his conviction.
A. Standard of Review and Applicable Law
In criminal cases, we review whether sufficient evidence supports a conviction by
considering all of the evidence introduced at trial in the light most favorable to the verdict
and deciding whether any rational trier of fact could have found the State proved all of the
essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. McKay v. State, 474
S.W.3d 266, 269 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015) (citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319
(1979)). This standard tasks the factfinder, the jury in this case, with resolving conflicts
in the testimony, weighing the evidence, and drawing reasonable inferences from it.
Murray v. State, 457 S.W.3d 446, 448 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). Our role on appeal is
limited to determining whether the necessary inferences drawn by the jury are reasonable
based upon the cumulative force of all the evidence when viewed in the light most
favorable to the verdict. Id. If the record supports conflicting inferences, we presume that
the jury resolved the conflict in favor of its verdict and defer to that determination. Id. at
448–49; Thomas v. State, 444 S.W.3d 4, 8 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014).
We measure the sufficiency of the evidence against the essential elements of the
offense defined by the hypothetically correct jury charge for the case. Anderson v. State,
416 S.W.3d 884, 889 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). The hypothetically correct jury charge is
one that accurately sets out the law, is authorized by the indictment, does not
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unnecessarily increase the State’s burden of proof or unnecessarily restrict its theories of
liability, and adequately describes the particular offense for which the defendant was tried.
Id. (citing Malik v. State, 953 S.W.2d 234, 240 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997)). The hypothetically
correct jury charge for this case required the State to prove that Garcia-Sanchez: (1)
knowing that an investigation was pending or in progress; (2) intentionally or knowingly;
(3) concealed a handgun; (4) with intent to impair its availability as evidence in the
investigation. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 37.09(a)(1).
B. Discussion
Garcia-Sanchez argues that the evidence “failed to show beyond a reasonable
doubt that the gun admitted was the gun seen in the video and that the gun was intended
to be concealed.” However, for purposes of this sufficiency analysis, the State was not
obligated to prove that the gun produced at trial was the specific gun that Garcia-Sanchez
hid among the cones. The State just needed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
Garcia-Sanchez, while knowing that an investigation was in progress, intentionally or
knowingly concealed a gun with the intent to impair its availability as evidence in the
investigation. See id. However, even assuming the State needed to prove that it was the
same gun, the video surveillance showed that Garcia-Sanchez hid the gun between the
cone and that a gun fell out of the cones from that same vehicle three days later.
Furthermore, Bolan testified that the gun in the surveillance footage and the gun found
by Officer Rounds were of the same model, same color, same magazine, same ammo,
and same serial number.
Garcia-Sanchez stipulated as to the first element; he admitted that he knew an
investigation was in progress. Concerning the second, third, and forth elements, video
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surveillance clearly showed Garcia-Sanchez placing a gun between two safety cones in
the back of a police car. Officer Gabrielson used that same police car to control traffic on
the street. Officer Rounds saw the gun fall out of the cones that were stored in Officer
Gabrielson’s vehicle. Conceal is defined as “to hide or keep from observation, discovery,
or understanding; keep secret.” See Hollingsworth v. State, 15 S.W.3d 586, 595 (Tex.
App.—Austin 2000, no pet.). Furthermore, “[i]t is both a common-sense inference and an
appellate presumption that a person intends the natural consequences of his acts.” Ex
parte Thompson, 179 S.W.3d 549, 556 n.18 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). Therefore, it was
reasonable for the jury to infer that Garcia-Sanchez intentionally concealed the gun. See
Murray, 457 S.W.3d at 448.
Without much elaboration, Garcia-Sanchez argues that he did not conceal the gun
because the act of him hiding the gun amongst the cones was recorded by the police car
surveillance camera. In other words, his argument appears to be that he did not truly hide
the gun from view because the video surveillance saw where he placed the gun.
However, the reviewing court is not permitted to disregard, realign, or weigh the evidence.
See Moreno v. State, 755 S.W.2d 866, 867 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988). As stated above, our
role on appeal is limited to determining whether the necessary inferences drawn by the
jury are reasonable based upon the cumulative force of all the evidence when viewed in
the light most favorable to the verdict. Murray, 457 S.W.3d at 448. The evidence at trial
showed that Garcia-Sanchez placed the gun between the cones in the car and that the
gun was not discovered until it fell out of the cones three days later. The jury had a sound
basis to conclude that Garcia-Sanchez knowingly concealed the gun and that he did so
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with the intent of impairing the gun’s availability as evidence in the on-going investigation.
See id.; Hollingsworth, 15 S.W.3d at 595.
In conclusion, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, the
evidence was sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Garcia-Sanchez, while
aware of an on-going investigation, intentionally concealed a gun with the intent of
impairing its availability as evidence in the investigation. See McKay, 474 S.W.3d at 269.
We overrule Garcia-Sanchez’s sole issue.
III. CONCLUSION
We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
NORA L. LONGORIA
Justice
Do not publish.
TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
Delivered and filed the
23rd day of August, 2018.
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