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Court rejects Paniaguas second application for appeal

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A second appeal hearing for a new trial for defendant Guillermo Paniagua Paniagua in connection with the traffic death of Needville ISD Police Chief Ernest Mendoza has been turned down by the 13th District of Texas for the Corpus Christi-Edin-burg area.

Previously, the Waco Court of Appeals ruled against Paniagua in the case. The defendant was originally found guilty by a jury in the 329th

District Court in Wharton in April of 2008 and was sentenced to 90 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

In his appeal, the main objection centers on two voluntary confessions offered to law enforcement officers at the Gulf Coast Medical Center after the defendant was admitted for the taking of a blood sample and later at the Wharton County Jail. In making its ruling, the appeals court determined it found the defendant's actions and words indicated he understood his rights and demonstrated that he fully understood those rights

"The court's findings are supported by the record," according to a transcript of the ruling. "At the hearing on Paniagua's motion to suppress, Trooper (Todd) Respondek testified that Paniagua nodded his head in the affirmative after being read his rights in Spanish and asked if he understood. The trial court also viewed a video showing Paniagua nod in the affirmative after his rights were read in Spanish. Trooper Daniel Terronez testified that when he questioned Paniagua at the jail later that day, he provided Paniagua with his article 38.22 warnings written in English and played a Spanish recording that read each of the warnings. Following the Spanish translation, Paniagua stated that he understood his rights and signed his name at the bottom of a page that listed the warnings in English.

"Based on the totality of the circumstances, we conclude that, at both the hospital and the Wharton County jail, Paniagua knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived his rights as required by article 38.22. Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court did not err by denying Paniagua's motion to suppress. Paniagua's first issue is overruled."

In his second issue, Paniagua contended he received ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial counsel failed to request an application paragraph on the issue of causation.

"Paniagua argues that counsel's assistance was ineffective because the jury was not given an application paragraph on the issue of causation and, therefore, the jury was 'unduly influenced by [Paniagua's] prior record for D.W.I., [and] his blood alcohol concentration at the date and time of the accident' and less concern[ed]' with whether Mendoza or Paniagua 'actually caused the collision.'"

In the ruling, the court reports that "Although the application paragraph of the jury charge made no reference to Paniagua's defensive theory of causation, the jury charge provided the following instruction on causation: A person is criminally responsible if the result would not have occurred but for his conduct, operating either alone or concurrently with another cause, unless the concurrent cause was clearly sufficient to produce the result and the conduct of the actor clearly insufficient.

"Additionally, although there was no direct eyewitness testimony as to which vehicle crossed the center line and caused the collision, the jury heard evidence that gouge marks were found in Mendoza's lane. Trooper Terronez opined that based on his training in reconstruction, the position of the gouge marks, and the positions of the vehicles, the collision was the result of Paniagua crossing into Mendoza's lane.

"The State also presented testimony that Paniagua smelled of alcohol and that his eyes were bloodshot. Blood testing revealed that Paniagua's blood alcohol content was over two times the legal limit hours after the collision, and retrograde extrapolation testimony revealed that Paniagua's blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit at the time of the collision.

"Although Paniagua's accident reconstructionist expert testified that Mendoza's car was in Paniagua's lane at the time of the collision, he further testified that Paniagua's vehicle was in Mendoza's lane just before the impact. Moreover, Paniagua's accident reconstructionist stated, 'I cannot tell you more likely than not who crossed into the wrong lane first.'

"Based on the foregoing, Paniagua has failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that but for counsel's alleged unprofessional conduct, the jury would have returned a different verdict. We, therefore, cannot conclude that trial counsel's failure to request an application paragraph on the issue of causation deprived Paniagua of a fair trial.

"Accordingly, Paniagua's second issue is overruled. Having overruled all of Paniagua's issues, (the appeals court) affirms the trial court's judgment.

A Department of Public Safety report of the wreck states the collision took place around 9 p.m. on Jan. 19, 2007 at a location 3.2 miles east of Wharton on FM 1301 near where it intersects with CR113. Paniagua's pickup crossed the center line of the roadway and impacted with Mendoza's vehicle.

Paniagua left the scene on foot and was later taken into custody at the Shell Station in Boling, about five miles from the crash site.

The case was the first in which the Wharton County District Attorney's Office prosecuted a DWI fatality case under the felony murder law which allows for a defendant to be charged with murder while committing another felony, in this case felony DWI. At the time, it was still relatively new case law.

"The statute itself has been around for a while," Dudley said prior to the original trial. "An example of how it's been used in the past might be a bank robbery where one of the suspects uses a weapon to kill a guard.

"A co-conspirator in the robbery might not have known the other person was going to use a real weapon, but they still have a degree of liability in participating in the robbery. Using it with a DWI as the underlying felony is a relatively new approach."



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© 2010 East Bernard Express East Bernard, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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