Court Opinion

ID: 9407717
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-08 06:09:56.319907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:39.756748
License: Public Domain

Opinion filed July 7, 2023

                                    In The

        Eleventh Court of Appeals
                                 __________

                  Nos. 11-21-00272-CR & 11-21-00273-CR
                                __________

                  FERNANDO NARVAEZ A/K/A
             FERNANDO AGUIRRE NARVAEZ, Appellant
                                       V.
                      THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

                     On Appeal from the 35th District Court
                              Brown County, Texas
                   Trial Court Cause Nos. CR27775 & CR27788

                      MEMORANDUM OPINION
       In separate cause numbers, Appellant, Fernando Narvaez a/k/a Fernando
Aguirre Narvaez, was indicted for the felony offenses of unlawful possession of a
firearm by a felon and evading arrest with a vehicle. 1 See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN.
§§ 38.04(a), (b)(2)(A), 46.04(a)(1) (West 2016 & Supp. 2022). The State alleged
one prior felony conviction in the indictment for unlawful possession of a firearm
and two prior felony convictions in the indictment for evading arrest. Upon the
State’s motion, the trial court joined the indictments for trial. See PENAL CODE
§ 3.02(a) (West 2021). The jury found Appellant guilty of both offenses. The trial
court found the enhancement allegations to be true and assessed Appellant’s
punishment at twenty years’ incarceration and twenty-five years’ incarceration,
respectively, to be served concurrently in the Institutional Division of the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice.
             Appellant asserts two issues on appeal. First, Appellant states that the trial
court erred in admitting a 9-1-1 call when the caller was available to testify but did
not. Second, Appellant argues that the trial court erred in refusing to provide a
limiting instruction or an instruction for the jury to disregard a witnesses’ comment
on Appellant’s criminal history and parole. We affirm the judgments of the trial
court.
                                Factual and Procedural History
         After a family outing, an argument began when Elaina Aguirre told Appellant,
her boyfriend, to leave her apartment so that she could rest. Elaina, her daughter
Gabby Aguirre, Gabby’s child, Gabby’s friend, and Appellant all had returned to
Elaina’s apartment after lunch. Elaina and Appellant had been “cruising” and
drinking. Elaina had a forty-eight hour shift the next day, so she asked Appellant to
leave, but Appellant did not want to leave. The argument then became physical

         A third indictment, not before us on appeal, charged Appellant with aggravated assault. He was
         1

convicted of the lesser included offense of deadly conduct and was sentenced by the trial court to one year
in the county jail.

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between Elaina and Appellant and continued outside of the apartment. Appellant
was then locked out of the apartment and threatened those inside by saying that he’s
“going to shoot the door open.”
        During the altercation, Gabby called 9-1-1. The 9-1-1 recording began with
Gabby telling dispatch that Appellant was threatening to shoot the door open.2
Gabby provided her name and address, and told dispatch that Appellant was drunk,
high, and on parole. Gabby shared information with the 9-1-1 operator about
Appellant’s actions and criminal history. She stated that Appellant had fired a shot
into her mother’s car door the previous day. Other parts of the 9-1-1 call included
Gabby relaying to dispatch that Appellant was “counting to three” and “saying that
he’s going to shoot the door right now.” Gabby repeatedly told her mother to not
open the door.
        Police quickly arrived at the scene and talked to Appellant, who was, at that
time, sitting in his car. Appellant screamed at the officers. He told the officers to
shoot him, or else he would shoot himself. After a thirty-minute standoff with police,
Appellant “backed his vehicle up and drove away.”                              Officers activated their
emergency lights and began a pursuit. During the pursuit, Appellant “didn’t exceed
any speed limits or run any stop signs or anything. He just kept continuing to drive”;
Appellant evaded police for about ten minutes. But because Appellant was no longer

        2
          Appellant describes the evidence in dispute as the “recording of the 911 call.” The thirty-six-
minute call was not admitted in its entirety; rather, two portions were admitted. The first portion is the first
eight minutes of the call, and the second portion is a minute and a half from later in the call. Appellant
objected to both portions at trial and does not differentiate between the two portions in his brief. However,
Appellant’s argument is that the call established Appellant’s possession of a firearm. The second portion
merely identifies Appellant’s name and physical characteristics; this is information already given in the
first portion. Therefore, when we refer to the “9-1-1 call,” we refer to the first admitted portion of the 9-1-
1 call.

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creating a danger to himself or others, police made the decision that it was safe to
terminate the pursuit.
                                Standard of Review
      “Generally, we review a trial court’s decision to admit or exclude evidence
for an abuse of discretion.” Smith v. State, 631 S.W.3d 484, 494 (Tex. App.—
Eastland 2021, no pet.) (quoting Rhomer v. State, 569 S.W.3d 664, 669 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2019)). A trial court abuses its discretion when it acts without reference to any
guiding rules or principles, or the court acts arbitrarily and unreasonably. Rhomer,
569 S.W.3d at 669. When we review the same evidence under a Confrontation
Clause objection, we review the trial court’s constitutional legal ruling de novo.
Woodall v. State, 336 S.W.3d 634, 642 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011).
                                      Analysis
      A. Admission of the 9-1-1 call recording did not violate the Confrontation
         Clause
      “To implicate the Confrontation Clause, an out-of-court statement must
(1) have been made by a witness absent from trial and (2) be testimonial in nature.”
See Nicholls v. State, 630 S.W.3d 443, 448 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2021, pet. ref’d)
(citing Woodall, 336 S.W.3d at 642). “Post-Crawford, the threshold question in any
Confrontation Clause analysis is whether the statements at issue are testimonial or
nontestimonial in nature.” Render v. State, 347 S.W.3d 905, 917 (Tex. App.—
Eastland 2011, pet. ref’d); Wells v. State, 241 S.W.3d 172, 175 (Tex. App.—
Eastland 2007, pet. ref’d). Statements are testimonial if they are made under
circumstances that would lead an objective witness to reasonably believe that the
statements would be available for use at a later trial. Langham v. State, 305 S.W.3d
568, 576 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) (citing Wall v. State, 184 S.W.3d 730, 735–36

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(Tex. Crim. App. 2006)); Walter v. State, 581 S.W.3d 957, 981 (Tex. App.—
Eastland 2019, pet. ref’d).
                1. The U.S. Supreme Court has addressed the issue
        In Davis v. Washington, the Supreme Court analyzed communications
made in the course of police interrogations when there is no ongoing
emergency (testimonial            statements),        and      communications            made       under
circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is
to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency (non-testimonial
statements).3 547 U.S. 813, 822–23 (2006). Specifically, the Supreme Court in
Davis considered the following factors in determining whether a statement was
testimonial: whether the caller was describing present events, whether a reasonable
listener would recognize the caller was facing an emergency, whether the elicited
statements were necessary to resolve the present emergency, and whether the caller
made the statements in a tranquil or safe environment. Duchesneau v. State, No. 02-
18-00321-CR, 2019 WL 2455619, at *2 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth June 13, 2019, pet.
ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (citing Davis, 547 U.S. at 826–27).
        Davis found a 9-1-1 call to be nontestimonial. Davis, 547 U.S. at 813–14. In
Davis, the 9-1-1 caller was describing “events as they were actually happening,
rather than ‘describ[ing] past events.’” Davis, 547 U.S. at 827 (quoting Lilly v.
Virginia, 527 U.S. 116, 137 (1999) (plurality opinion) (alteration in original)). The
9-1-1 caller in Davis was plainly asking for help against a bona fide physical threat.
Davis, 547 U.S. at 827. The 9-1-1 operator’s questions were necessary to resolve
the emergency, rather than find out what happened in the past. Davis, 547 U.S. at

        3
         The 9-1-1 call in Davis (and our present case) was not made directly to police, but instead to a 9-
1-1 operator. As in Davis, we consider the acts of the 9-1-1 operator to be the acts of police. Davis, 547
U.S. at 823 n.2.

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827. Finally, the 9-1-1 caller provided answers over the phone “in an environment
that was not tranquil, or even (as far as any reasonable 9-1-1 operator could make
out) safe.” Davis, 547 U.S. at 827.
      The facts here are almost identical to those in Davis. Gabby’s 9-1-1 call
focused on her present situation. Gabby mentions that Appellant is outside the house
with a gun. She relays that he is “counting to three” before shooting the door down.
These circumstances represented a bona fide physical threat to Gabby and her
family. The 9-1-1 operator asked Gabby her name, Appellant’s name and physical
description, and what kind of gun Appellant had—all questions aimed to resolve the
present emergency. Like the phone call in Davis, Gabby’s 9-1-1 call was not made
in a tranquil or safe environment.      The most notable difference between the
statements here and in Davis is that Gabby incidentally offered information beyond
Appellant’s present behavior. But these statements about Appellant’s criminal
record and previous actions warned police that they were approaching a potentially
volatile person in a dangerous situation. It is also relevant that these comments were
not elicited by the 9-1-1 operator. If they had been elicited, it might support an
argument that Gabby’s statements were more the result of “structured police
questioning” as had occurred in Crawford. See Davis, 547 U.S. at 829 (quoting
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 53 n.4 (2004)). But the 9-1-1 operator only
asked questions relevant to the present emergency. Gabby’s comments, whether
responses to police questioning or not, were primarily made to assist the police in
the ongoing emergency. As in Davis, “She simply was not acting as a witness; she
was not testifying.” Davis, 547 U.S. at 828.
      An interrogation can evolve into testimonial statements once exigent
circumstances have been addressed. Davis, 547 U.S. at 828. That is not the case

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with regard to Gabby’s recorded 9-1-1 call. Id. at 828–29 (discussing in dicta that
“[i]t could readily be maintained” that victim’s responses to the operator’s questions
after the appellant drove away were testimonial). The entirety of the audio occurred
while Appellant waited outside the apartment, gun in-hand. There was never a time
when the dialogue evolved into a formal interrogation or similar “testimonial”
exchange. Because the 9-1-1 call here is nontestimonial, it did not invoke the
Confrontation Clause. See id.
             2. Exception to Hearsay - Excited Utterance
      Appellant also argues that the 9-1-1 call does not fall within any exception to
the hearsay rule. At trial, the State characterized the 9-1-1 call as both an excited
utterance and a present sense impression. See TEX. R. EVID. 803(1), (2). The trial
court overruled the hearsay objection, but it did not specify whether the 9-1-1 call
was an exception under Rule 803(1), 803(2), or both. Evidentiary rulings are
reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard, and we must uphold the trial court’s
decision if any ground ruled upon was meritorious. State v. Ross, 32 S.W.3d 853,
855–56 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000).
      “The hearsay doctrine, codified in Rules 801 and 802 of the Texas Rules of
Evidence, is designed to exclude out-of-court statements offered for the truth of the
matter asserted that pose any of the four ‘hearsay dangers’ of faulty perception,
faulty memory, accidental miscommunication, or insincerity.” Fischer v. State, 252
S.W.3d 375, 378 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008); see TEX. R. EVID. 801, 802. Exceptions
to the hearsay rule are permissible because they address unreliable aspects of these
out-of-court statements. Fischer, 252 S.W.3d at 378. In Fischer, the Court of
Criminal Appeals discussed the history and rationale of Rule 803(1) and (2), which
they characterized as “unreflective statements.” Id. at 378–79. These statements

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eliminate the danger of insincere or unreliable statements because they are made
contemporaneously with the event, and are “instinctive, rather than deliberative.”
Id. at 381 (quoting Commonwealth v. Coleman, 326 A.2d 387, 389 (Pa. 1974)).
      An excited utterance requires that a person, while under the stress of
excitement from a startling event or condition, makes a statement relating to that
event or condition. TEX. R. EVID. 802(2). The basis for an excited utterance is that
a person under the stress of a turbulent event loses the capacity for reflection that
would otherwise cast doubt on the sincerity of the statement. Grantham v. State,
No. 06-21-00150-CR, 2022 WL 4232914, at *11 (Tex. App.—Texarkana Sept. 14,
2022, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication). To determine whether a
statement is an excited utterance, the court will look to, among other things: the
length of time between the occurrence and the statement, the nature of the declarant,
whether the statement is made in response to a question, and whether the statement
is self-serving. Apolinar v. State, 155 S.W.3d 184, 187 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005).
The “critical determination” is whether the declarant was still dominated by the
emotions created by the event. Zuliani v. State, 97 S.W.3d 589, 595 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2003) (quoting McFarland v. State, 845 S.W.2d 824, 846 (Tex. Crim. App.
1992), overruled on other grounds by Bingham v. State, 915 S.W.2d 9 (Tex. Crim.
App. 1994)).
      Each consideration weighs in favor of admitting Gabby’s 9-1-1 call. Gabby’s
statements, whether responding to dispatch or talking to her family, occur during the
event and are about the event. As to the “critical determination,” it was not
unreasonable for the trial court to find that Gabby was dominated by the emotions
Appellant created when he threatened to shoot his way inside the apartment—where
she hid with her child and mother. The phone call demonstrates these emotions.

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During the initial few seconds of the call, Gabby talks over the 9-1-1 operator twice
before finally saying, “Can I have someone come to [the address]? My mom’s
boyfriend has a gun and he said he’s going to shoot the door open. He’s on parole.”
Gabby responds to questions from dispatch but also makes numerous unprompted
comments, including “I got anxiety” and “this is too much for me.” Gabby’s voice
at times seems calm and level; she even has an exchange with her child that sounds
more lighthearted than fearful, so as not to alarm a child in an alarming situation.
The trial court’s determination to overrule the hearsay objection was not
unreasonable or arbitrary. As such, the 9-1-1 call was admissible under the excited
utterance exception to the hearsay rule.
      Because we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in
admitting the phone call as an excited utterance, we do not need to address whether
Appellant’s argument that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the 9-1-1
call as a present sense impression. See Ross, 32 S.W.3d at 855–56; see also TEX. R.
APP. P. 47.1. We overrule Appellant’s first issue.
      B. Appellant’s objection and request for instruction was not timely
      In Appellant’s second issue, he contends that the trial court erred when it
refused to give an instruction to disregard testimony after Elaina, a witness, made
comments about Appellant’s criminal history and mental health. The following
exchange occurred during cross examination by Appellant’s counsel:
             Q: What kind of help did you think he needed?
            A: Well, because -- I mean, like -- he’s like -- he’s been
      incarcerated practically his whole life. I mean, he needed help, you
      know --
             Q: But what kind of help --
             A: -- he needed counseling and stuff like that.

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             Q: -- did you think he needed?
            A: I lived with him so -- abandonment issues. Obviously, if he
      couldn’t go home that day, you know . . .
      Cross examination continued without objection, and then counsel passed the
witness to the State. After the State’s redirect examination concluded, the witness
stepped down and was excused. It was then that Appellant’s counsel made an
objection and a request outside the presence of the jury.
             [DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I asked her what problems she was
      trying to help Fernando with, and she blurted out that he had been
      locked up for most of his life in front of the jury, and I would, first of
      all, ask the Court to instruct the jury to disregard that statement.
      The trial court denied Appellant’s request to provide an instruction at that
time. However, the trial court did include a general instruction in the jury charge
regarding extraneous offenses. Appellant concludes this did not remedy the harm of
the witness’s specific statements, but Appellant does not state the reasons why he
claims that the general charge, in this situation, would be inadequate.
      “Limiting instructions are governed by Rule 105 of the Texas Rules of
Evidence, which provides that, ‘[i]f the court admits evidence that is admissible
against a party or for a purpose—but not against another party or for another
purpose—the court, on request, must restrict the evidence to its proper scope
and instruct the jury accordingly.’” Smith, 631 S.W.3d at 500 (quoting TEX. R.
EVID. 105(a)). A trial court errs if it does not give a limiting instruction upon proper
request of a party. Rankin v. State, 974 S.W.2d 707, 713 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996).
A proper request is one that is lodged as soon as the ground of objection becomes
apparent. It must be timely made. See Hammock v. State, 46 S.W.3d 889, 892 (Tex.
Crim. App. 2001); Moore v. State, 999 S.W.2d 385, 403 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999);

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Beckley v. State, 827 S.W.2d 74, 77 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 1992, no pet.). Waiting
until the witness has stepped down is too late to request a limiting instruction.
Moore, 999 S.W.2d at 403. Even continuing a brief line of questioning before
objecting can waive complaint on appeal. Beckley, 827 S.W.2d at 77 (trial court did
not err in refusing to strike testimony when Appellant’s counsel continued in his
questioning for three more exchanges).
       As in Moore, Appellant did not request a limiting instruction until after the
witness stepped down. By failing to object to the witness’s testimony and failing to
timely request an instruction to disregard the statements, Appellant waived any
complaint as to a limiting instruction for these statements. See Hammock, 46 S.W.3d
at 895; Moore, 999 S.W.3d at 403. Therefore, the trial court did not err in refusing
to instruct the jury to disregard the witness’s statements. We overrule Appellant’s
second issue.
                                   This Court’s Ruling
       We affirm the judgments of the trial court.

                                                W. BRUCE WILLIAMS
                                                JUSTICE

July 7, 2023
Do not publish. See TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
Panel consists of: Bailey, C.J.,
Trotter, J., and Williams, J.

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