Court Opinion

ID: 9917007
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-11 09:11:48.812848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:54:44.726573
License: Public Domain

In The
                              Court of Appeals
                     Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo

                                   No. 07-22-00372-CR

                         JORGE PEREZ CASTANEDA, APPELLANT

                                            V.

                           THE STATE OF TEXAS, APPELLEE

                          On Appeal from the 222nd District Court
                                 Deaf Smith County, Texas
             Trial Court No. CR-2021L-199, Honorable Roland D. Saul, Presiding

                                     January 5, 2024
                            MEMORANDUM OPINION
                     Before QUINN, C.J. and PARKER and DOSS, JJ.

       Jorge Perez Castaneda appeals his three convictions, namely aggravated assault,

tampering with physical evidence, and felon in possession of a firearm. Two issues pend

for review. We affirm.

       Issue One

       Appellant’s first issue concerns the admission into evidence of State’s Exhibit 209,

a judgment manifesting his prior conviction for “Assault by Strangulation.” The trial court

overruled his objection to the exhibit. Appellant believes that to be reversible error

because the evidence “had no probative effect, and that it was highly prejudicial since it
was for a prior assault of a female by strangulation, i.e., a violent, possibly life-threatening

means, and the current charge included aggravated assault of a female, but this time with

something even more effective at causing death: a firearm.” We overrule the issue.

       Were we to assume the trial court erred, it matters not. This is so because the trial

court admitted the same or similar evidence of his prior strangulation of a female without

objection. This occurred when appellant’s sister testified that he told her of his conviction

for “assault/strangulation of Maribel Salazar.” The admission of this substantially similar

evidence to that underlying appellant’s complaint renders harmless any supposed error

involved in admitting Exhibit 209. Molina v. State, No. 07-22-00004-CR, 2023 Tex. App.

LEXIS 728, at *11–12 (Tex. App.—Amarillo Feb. 6, 2023, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not

designated for publication) (reiterating that the alleged improper admission of evidence is

harmless if the same or similar evidence is admitted without objection at some other point

during trial).

       Issue Two

       Through issue two, appellant accuses his trial attorney of providing him ineffective

assistance of counsel. We overrule the issue.

       The substance of the complaint generally revolves around the admission of Exhibit

209 and the conviction mentioned therein. Defense counsel purportedly was ineffective

because he failed to 1) request contemporaneous limiting instructions, 2) object to the

trial court’s sua sponte limiting instruction included in the charge, 3) object to the question

posed and the answer from appellant’s sister regarding the prior conviction for assault, 4)

object to evidence of appellant’s delivering controlled substances to the complainant, and

5) object to aspects of the State’s closing argument.

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      An ineffective assistance claim consists of the complainant proving two elements:

deficient performance and prejudice resulting therefrom. Rodriguez v. State, No. 07-22-

00194-CR, 2023 Tex. App. LEXIS 2335, at *2 (Tex. App.—Amarillo Apr. 11, 2023, no

pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication). The failure to address either element

defeats the complaint. See Brown v. State, No. 07-22-00107-CR, 2023 Tex. App. LEXIS

1028, at *3 (Tex. App.—Amarillo Feb. 16, 2023, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for

publication). And, when addressing the matter of prejudice, the appellant must “establish

a reasonable probability that but for the deficient performance, the result would have

differed.” Rodriguez, 2023 Tex. App. LEXIS 2335, at *4. “In other words, he has to

illustrate a reasonable probability of a different outcome, not merely conclude as much.”

Id. The latter best describes appellant’s exposition on the second prong here. He

describes the purported error, stacks each supposed mistake upon the other, and then

concludes that “[a]ll of these combine to not only [] show constitutionally deficient

performance but to make the prejudice under the second Strickland prong impossible to

remove.” Missing, though, is any discussion of how either his conviction or sentence

would have differed. The lack of such substantive explanation itself warrants our rejection

of the complaint. See id.

      Having overruled appellant’s issues, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                                       Brian Quinn
                                                       Chief Justice

Do not publish.

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