Opinion
No. 10-02-00263-CR
Opinion delivered and filed July 14, 2004. DO NOT PUBLISH.
Appeal from the 18th District Court, Johnson County, Texas, Trial Court # F35015. Affirmed.
Michael Byrne, Attorney at law, Cleburne, TX, for appellant/relator. Dale S. Hanna, Johnson County District Attorney, Cleburne, TX, for appellee/respondent.
Before Chief Justice GRAY, Justice VANCE, and Justice REYNA.
MEMORANDUM Opinion
This appeal concerns convictions for aggravated sexual assault of a child and four counts of indecency with a child. Appellant appeals. We will affirm. 1. In Appellant's first issue, he contends that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to suppress evidence of his confession. He argues that the confession was involuntary. We will overrule Appellant's first issue. 1A trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress evidence is "subject to the discretion of the court." Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 28.01(6) (Vernon 1989). On appeal, "[g]enerally, a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress is reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard." Dyar v. State, 125 S.W.3d 460, 462 (Tex.Crim.App. 2003). Only when the case presents the appellate court with "a question of law based on undisputed facts" does the court review the ruling de novo. Id. Otherwise, a reviewing court must "give almost total deference to a trial court's determination of historical facts." Rayford v. State, 125 S.W.3d 521, 528 (Tex.Crim.App. 2003); accord Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85, 89 (Tex.Crim.App. 1997). An appellate court is "obligated to uphold the trial court's ruling on [an] appellant's motion to suppress if that ruling was supported by the record." Armendariz v. State, 123 S.W.3d 401, 404 (Tex.Crim.App. 2003), cert. denied, 124 S.Ct. 1883 (2004). The test for the voluntariness of a confession is whether "the confession [is] the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker." Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 226 (1973) (quoting Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 602 (1961)); accord Alvarado v. State, 912 S.W.2d 199, 211 (Tex.Crim.App. 1995). The voluntariness of a statement is judged by "the totality of all the surrounding circumstances" of the making of the statement. Schneckloth at 226; accord Wyatt v. State, 23 S.W.3d 18, 23 (Tex.Crim.App. 2000). At a hearing to suppress evidence of a statement, the State bears the burden of proving by the preponderance of the evidence that the defendant gave the statement freely and voluntarily. Griffin v. State, 765 S.W.2d 422, 429 (Tex.Crim.App. 1989). Here, Appellant points to his testimony at the hearing on the motion to suppress to the effect that a police detective told him that he would be arrested if he did not confess. The detective denied that he told Appellant that. The detective further testified that he told Appellant that if Appellant gave false answers during a polygraph examination, the detective would present Appellant's case to the district attorney's office; and that after the polygraph examination showed that Appellant was deceitful, the detective asked whether Appellant wanted to give a written statement, but told Appellant that he was free to go whether or not he gave a statement. On the basis of this evidence, the trial court did not err in finding by the preponderance of the evidence that Appellant's statement was voluntary. Accordingly, Appellant's first issue is overruled. 2. In Appellant's second issue, he contends that the trial court erred in sustaining the State's objection to evidence of letters that he argues were written by one of his victims. We will overrule Appellant's second issue. One of Appellant's victims testified that Appellant's abuse of her made her feel "the feeling of being like your innocence is just taken right away from you." Outside the presence of the jury, Appellant offered the purported letters that he argues "described and discussed sexual topics" to show that the victim was not innocent. The State objected on the grounds that the purported letters were not relevant in time and that their probative value was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. See TEX. R. EVID. 401, 403. The trial court sustained the objections. The trial court's ruling on the admission or exclusion of evidence is reviewed for the abuse of discretion. Rayford, 125 S.W.3d at 529. Appellant does not address the State's independent Rule 403 objection, and we may overrule his issue for that reason alone. The purported letters, moreover, are dated after the time of Appellant's abuse of the victim. Thus, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in holding that the evidence was not relevant in time. Accordingly, Appellant's second issue is overruled. Having overruled both of Appellant's issues, we affirm.