Opinion
No. 07-15-00245-CR
03-29-2016
LUIS ALBERTO JARAMILLO, APPELLANT v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, APPELLEE
On Appeal from the 251st District Court Randall County, Texas
Trial Court No. 24,963C, Honorable Ana Estevez, Presiding
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before QUINN, C.J., and HANCOCK and PIRTLE, JJ.
Luis Alberto Jaramillo appeals his conviction for possessing a controlled substance. The substance was found after officers 1) saw the vehicle he drove make a lane change without signaling the intent to do so, 2) attempted a traffic stop, 3) pursued him once he refused to stop his car, 4) gave chase on foot once he abandoned his car and ran, 5) subdued and arrested him, and 6) searched the vehicle and found contraband adjacent to or within reach of someone sitting in the driver's seat. Three issues pend for our review. The first concerns the admission into evidence of a purportedly void judgment manifesting a prior conviction. The second concerns the sufficiency of the evidence supporting guilt, while the third involves the trial court's refusal to grant appellant's motion to suppress. We affirm.
Void Judgment
Appellant first contends that the trial court "erred in granting the admission of a void judgment from Cause No. 43,666-A during the punishment phase of the trial." Appellant continues by arguing that "[t]he effect of the void judgment is that the second enhancement fails [and] . . . the punishment range therefore is not a 25 to life range of punishment, but instead a second degree felony of 2 to 20 years range of punishment." Appellant was sentenced to forty years imprisonment. We overrule the issue.
Cause No. 43,666-A involved a conviction for a burglary that occurred in 2000. The enhancement paragraphs contained in the indictment and to which appellant pled true were assigned Cause Nos. 7243-J (an adjudication of delinquency for a burglary occurring in 1996) and 51,948-C (a conviction for possessing a controlled substance in 2005). So, appellant is mistaken in suggesting that Cause No. 43,666-A constituted one of the two convictions alleged in the indictment and used to enhance punishment for the crime at bar. More importantly, by not objecting to the admission of the judgment in No. 43,666-A, he waived his complaint even though the 43,666-A judgment purportedly was void. Ex parte Russell, 738 S.W.2d 644, 647-48 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987) (stating that "[i]f a defendant wishes to complain on appeal about prior convictions admitted as evidence during the punishment phase, he must make a timely objection to the evidence or waive it" and distinguishing a situation where a void conviction was alleged "in the indictment for enhancement purposes and [had] . . . the effect of statutorily raising the range of punishment that the jury may consider."); Avery v. State, No. 07-09-00262-CR, 2010 Tex. App. LEXIS 6406, at *3-4 (Tex. App.—Amarillo August 6, 2010, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (finding waiver due to the absence of an objection even though the prior conviction purportedly involved an illegal sentence).
Sufficiency of the Evidence
Next, appellant contends that the evidence was insufficient to illustrate that he possessed the drugs found in the car. We overrule the issue.
Appellant testified that the drugs found in the car were not his but his passenger's and that he did not know she had them. Yet, the drugs and drug paraphernalia were found in a vehicle over which he exercised control, in areas immediately adjacent to him as the driver and well within his reach. That coupled with the consciousness of his guilt as exemplified by his decision to flee capture, Clay v. State, 240 S.W.3d 895, 905 n.11 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (noting flight as evidence of a consciousness of guilt which the factfinder can consider in determining guilt), is enough to enable a rational factfinder to have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. McKay v. State, 474 S.W.3d 266, 269 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015) (stating that in reviewing whether there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction, we look at the evidence presented in the light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt). Furthermore, the factfinder was not obligated to believe appellant's version of events. McKay, 474 S.W.3d at 270-71 (stating that the factfinder is the sole judge of the witnesses' credibility and of the weight to be given to their testimony and when the evidence in the record can support conflicting inferences, we must assume that the jury resolved the conflict in favor of the prosecution).
Suppression of Evidence
Finally, appellant suggests that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence since the stop in question was not justified. It was not justified, according to appellant, because § 545.104(b) of the Texas Transportation Code requires the use of a turn signal when a driver is turning left or right. Appellant allegedly was changing lanes without signaling, not turning left or right, when the officer decided to stop him. We overrule the issue.
According to § 545.104(b) of the Transportation Code, "[a]n operator intending to turn a vehicle right or left shall signal continuously for not less than the last 100 feet of movement of the vehicle before the turn." TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 545.104(b) (West 2011). --------
Section 545.104(a) of the same Code requires the use of a signal "to indicate an intention to . . . change lanes . . . ." TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 545.104(a) (West 2011). The officer testified that appellant changed lanes without signaling. Thus, the trial court had evidence before it to conclude that the officer witnessed a traffic infraction and, therefore, had reasonable suspicion or probable cause to conduct a traffic stop before appellant decided to flee. Ex parte Jaramillo, No. WR-75-992-01, 2013 Tex. Crim. App. Unpub. LEXIS 744, at *2 (Tex. Crim. App. June 26, 2013) (not designated for publication) (involving the same appellant and stating that "the 'decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred.'")
The judgment is affirmed.
Brian Quinn
Chief Justice Do not publish.