Fourth Court of Appeals

San Antonio, Texas

MEMORANDUM OPINION

No. 04-13-00356-CR

Daniel CASAS,

Appellant

v.

The State of 

The STATE of Texas,

Appellee

From the 379th Judicial District Court, Bexar County, Texas

Trial Court No. 2011CR8563

Honorable Ron Rangel, Judge Presiding

Opinion by: Sandee Bryan Marion, Justice

Sitting: Catherine Stone, Chief Justice

Sandee Bryan Marion, Justice

Rebeca C. Martinez, Justice

Delivered and Filed: April 2, 2014

AFFIRMED

A jury found appellant, Daniel Casas, guilty of failing to comply with sex offender 

registration requirements. In his sole issue on appeal, appellant asserts the evidence is legally 

insufficient to support his conviction. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

In 1991, appellant was indicted on three counts. He pled guilty/no contest to Count Two 

of the indictment—indecency with a child—and was sentenced to ten years’ probation. At the 

time he completed probation, Texas law required appellant to register as a sex offender for ten 
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years upon completion of probation. Appellant complied with this registration requirement and 

was discharged from the sex offender registration program in March 2005. Effective September 

2005, the Texas Legislature amended the sex offender registration program to require sex 

offenders with certain reportable convictions or adjudications, including indecency with a child, 

to register for life.1

In 2006, appellant was granted an expunction with respect to Count Three of the 

indictment. However, there was no expunction of Count Two of the indictment, which was for 

indecency with a child and to which appellant pled guilty/no contest. Due to a clerical error, the 

Bexar County District Clerk destroyed the entire case records rather than the records pertaining 

solely to Count Three. This caused the Bexar County District Clerk’s records to erroneously 

display that all charges against appellant had been expunged from his record. The error went 

undiscovered until 2011, when it was brought to the attention of Detective Rodolfo Gomez of the 

San Antonio Police Department’s Sex Crimes Unit. Upon realizing appellant was not currently 

registered but was required to do so, Detective Gomez called appellant to inform him of his duty 

to register. Appellant referred Detective Gomez to his attorney who told Detective Gomez that 

appellant was no longer required to register pursuant to an expunction order. Detective Gomez 

forwarded the expunction order to the Department of Public Safety, which confirmed appellant 

was required to register as a sex offender for life.

Shortly thereafter, Detective Gomez learned appellant resided outside the San Antonio 

Police Department’s jurisdiction and forwarded appellant’s information to the Bexar County 

Sheriff. Bexar County Sheriff Detective Buddy Enriquez called appellant on June 13, 2011, and 

1 It is undisputed appellant failed to register for the sex offender registration program after the 2005 amendment went 

into effect. However, the State did not seek to prosecute appellant for the time he was unregistered prior to the San 

Antonio Police Department and Bexar County Sheriff contacting him in 2011.

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again informed him of his requirement to register. The next day, Detective Enriquez visited 

appellant at his residence. Detective Enriquez once again informed appellant of his requirement 

to register and informed him that his expunction with respect to Count Three did not relieve this 

registration requirement. Before leaving, Detective Enriquez scheduled an appointment for 

appellant to register, but appellant failed to appear. A warrant was issued and appellant was 

arrested for failing to comply with sex offender registration requirements.

Appellant filed a pretrial motion in limine arguing all records from his 1991 case do not 

legally exist and cannot be mentioned in court pursuant to section 55.04 of the Texas Code of 

Criminal Procedure, which criminalizes a knowing release, dissemination, or any other use of 

expunged records or files. The trial court held a pretrial hearing on appellant’s motion where it 

heard testimony from Beatrice Gonzalez, Bexar County District Clerk Division Chief; Melissa 

Plate, Bexar County District Clerk Senior Division Chief; and Lilian Cronk, retired Bexar County 

District Clerk Supervisor. Their testimony established the Bexar County District Clerk destroyed 

all physical records pertaining to appellant’s 1991 case. However, Plate testified that during her 

research of this case, copies of the erroneously destroyed records were found on microfilm. The 

Bexar County District Clerk provided the State with certified copies of these public records. The 

trial court denied appellant’s motion and ruled the certified copies were self-authenticating 

documents. A jury found appellant guilty of failing to comply with sex offender registration 

requirements, and the trial court assessed punishment at eight years’ deferred adjudication.

On appeal, appellant asserts the State failed to introduce properly authenticated evidence 

showing he was required to register as a sex offender. As such, he contends the evidence was 

legally insufficient to support a conviction for failing to comply with sex offender registration 

requirements.

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LEGAL SUFFICIENCY

1. Standard of Review

In reviewing the legal sufficiency of the evidence, we must view “the evidence in the light 

most favorable to the verdict” and determine whether “any rational trier of fact would have found 

the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 

307, 319 (1979); Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893, 899 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). We defer to the 

jury’s credibility and weight determination because the trier of fact is the sole judge of the witness’ 

credibility and the weight to be given their testimony. See Jackson, 443 U.S. at 326; Brown v. 

State, 270 S.W.3d 564, 568 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008).

2. Analysis

Chapter 62 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure defines the scope and requirements 

of Texas’s sex offender registration program. A person commits the offense of failing to comply 

with registration requirements if the person is required to register and fails to comply with any 

requirement of Chapter 62. TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 62.102(a) (West 2008). A person is 

required to register with the local law enforcement authority in any municipality or county where 

he resides or intends to reside for more than seven days if he has a “reportable conviction or 

adjudication.” Id. art. 62.051(a). A reportable conviction or adjudication is a conviction or 

adjudication for specifically identified offenses containing a sexual component. See id. art. 

62.001(5)(a) (including indecency with a child as reportable conviction or adjudication).

To establish that a defendant has been convicted of a prior offense, the State must prove 

beyond a reasonable doubt that (1) a prior conviction exists, and (2) the defendant is linked to that 

conviction. Flowers v. State, 220 S.W.3d 919, 921 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). No specific document 

or mode of proof is required to prove these elements. Id. While a certified copy of a final judgment 

and sentence may be preferred, the State may prove both elements by a number of different ways, 

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including (1) the defendant’s admission or stipulation, (2) testimony by a person who was present 

when the person was convicted of the specified crime and can identify the defendant as the person 

convicted, or (3) documentary proof that contains sufficient information to establish both the 

existence of a prior conviction and the defendant’s identity as the person convicted. Id.

There is no dispute appellant failed to register with the local law enforcement authority. 

The issue in this case is whether the State proved appellant had a reportable conviction or 

adjudication requiring appellant to register as a sex offender. Specifically, appellant argues the 

Bexar County District Clerk’s erroneous destruction of his entire case file required the State to 

recreate computer entries relying on “records that were not part of the court record, but instead 

were parsed together through business record affidavits . . . .” Appellant asserts the records offered 

by the State used to prove his underlying indecency with a child offense were (1) not properly 

authenticated and should have not been admitted into evidence, and (2) even if the records were 

properly admitted, the records were insufficient to establish a prior reportable conviction or 

adjudication.

The State did not present a certified copy of the final judgment and sentence, and appellant 

did not admit or stipulate to his prior offense. Nor was testimony given by a person present when 

appellant was convicted. Instead, the State relied on documentary proof to establish a prior 

conviction existed and to link appellant to that offense. To do so, the State introduced a total of 

twelve exhibits into the record. Although appellant fails to specifically identify in his brief which 

records he complains were not properly authenticated, the record reflects appellant objected to the 

authentication of State’s Exhibits 1, 3, and 5, all of which are documents recovered by the Bexar 

County District Clerk from appellant’s 1991 offense (trial court cause number 91-CR-0486).

During the trial, Plate testified as to the general duties and expunction procedures of the 

Bexar County District Clerk. Although the Bexar County District Clerk destroyed the original 

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records related to appellant’s non-expunged charges, copies of the erroneously destroyed records 

were retrieved via microfilm. The State introduced certified copies bearing the District Clerk’s 

seal and signature, which the trial court accepted as self-authenticating certified copies of public 

records. Under Texas Rule of Evidence 902(4), a document is self-authenticating if it is 

accompanied by a certificate from the custodian or manager of the public records who certifies 

them as a true and correct copy of the original. TEX.R.EVID. 902(4); see also Flowers, 220 S.W.3d 

at 922–23 (stating “[r]ule 902 of the Texas Rules of Evidence explicitly allows for the selfauthentication of certified copies of public records”). Appellant fails to explain how such 

documents were not properly authenticated and provides no authority for such argument. 

Accordingly, we disagree with appellant’s argument that the documents introduced as evidence 

were not properly authenticated and conclude they were self-authenticating documents under Rule 

902. We next determine whether the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that a prior reportable 

conviction or adjudication existed, and whether the defendant was sufficiently linked to that 

conviction.

State’s Exhibit 1 is a certified copy of the “Agreed Order of Expunction.” It provides 

appellant is entitled to expunction with respect to Count Three of the indictment in trial court cause 

number 91-CR-0486. State’s Exhibit 3 is a certified copy of the “Order” granting appellant early 

termination of probation. State’s Exhibit 5 is a certified copy of “Defendant’s Waivers and 

Affidavit of Admonitions,” which was signed by appellant and shows he pled guilty/no contest to 

indecency with a child.

In addition to these documents, the State introduced several other exhibits that contain 

sufficient information to establish both the existence of a prior conviction and appellant’s identity 

as the person convicted. Without objection from appellant, the State also introduced State’s 

Exhibit 9, which includes appellant’s sex offender registration records from the San Antonio Police 

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Department’s Sex Crimes Unit. The records contain appellant’s name, address, driver’s license 

number, social security number, telephone number, fingerprints, and a picture of appellant dated 

October 2002.

State’s Exhibit 16 contains appellant’s employment records from the City of Lacoste, 

introduced as business records authenticated by affidavit. The first page of State’s Exhibit 16 is 

the “Order Deferring Adjudication of Guilt and Granting Adult Probation (Non-Jury),” showing 

appellant was sentenced to ten years’ deferred adjudication for indecency with a child.

Finally, State’s Exhibit 18 consists of business records maintained by the Department of 

Public Safety and introduced as a certified public document along with an affidavit from the 

custodian of records. The first document in State’s Exhibit 18 is a redacted copy of the 1991 

indictment showing appellant was charged with indecency with a child. The second document is 

a duplicate of State’s Exhibit 16 showing appellant was sentenced to ten years’ deferred 

adjudication for indecency with a child. The third document is appellant’s “Motion for Early 

Termination of Probation” stating appellant “was placed on probation by this court on the 5th day 

of December, 1991, for a period of ten (10) years for the offense of indecency with a child.” The 

final document is a duplicate of State’s Exhibit 3, “Order” granting early termination of probation.

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we conclude a rational trier 

of fact could have found that appellant had a reportable adjudication, was required to register under 

Chapter 62, and failed to register with the Bexar County Sheriff.

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CONCLUSION

We conclude the evidence in this case was properly authenticated and was legally sufficient 

to support appellant’s conviction for failing to comply with sex offender registration requirements. 

Therefore, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

Sandee Bryan Marion, Justice

Do not publish

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