Page 20 - TPA Journal March April 2017

Joe C. Tooley, Legal Digest Editor

Joe C. Tooley, Attorneys & Counselors, Rockwall, Texas
www.TooleyLaw.com 972-722-1058

TEXAS POLICE ASSOCIATION

LEGAL DIGEST

March / April 2017

AUTHOR’S NOTE: It is the goal of this submission to extract those portions of relevant appellate
opinions or the syllabus of the legal reporter which bear directly upon law enforcement methods
and provide guidance for officers on an operational level. Much of the information pertaining to
these cases is lifted verbatim from the court opinion or syllabus with independent analysis inserted
as appropriate. Due to clarity for training purposes, the distinction between quotes from the
opinions and inserted analysis is not always identified and legal citations within the opinion are
often omitted. Emphasis is placed upon reported decisions from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

EVIDENCE – EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY Hernandez lived with Diaz. However, in late
2004, this friendship soured after Diaz let
In February 2014, a jury convicted Juan Hernandez borrow a vehicle that Diaz had
Balderas of capital murder committed in stolen the week before. Police officers stopped
December 2005. After reviewing Balderas’s and arrested Hernandez while he was driving
nine points of error, we find them to be with- the stolen vehicle. After Hernandez informed
out merit. Consequently, we affirm the trial them that he had borrowed the vehicle from
court’s judgment and sentence of death. Diaz, they arrested Diaz for aggravated rob-
bery.
In 2004, the victim, Eduardo Hernandez,
became a member of the Barrio Tres Alief Diaz bonded out of jail in April 2005. He
(“BTA”), a regional subset of the La Tercera was angry with Hernandez for “snitching” on
Crips (“LTC”) street gang in Houston. Balderas, him. He “lectured” Hernandez about giving his
a long-time member of the LTC gang and one name to the police, and Hernandez promised
of the founding members of the BTA subset, that he would not testify against Diaz in the
had introduced Hernandez to the gang. aggravated robbery case. Balderas’s defense
Initially, the other LTC members liked counsel argued at trial that Hernandez’s snitch-
Hernandez, and Hernandez was proud to be ing gave Diaz a motive for murder, but Diaz
part of the gang. LTC member Israel Diaz denied that he wanted to kill Hernandez. Diaz
befriended Hernandez, and for a while testified that he knew that two other witnesses
could identify him as the thief and that police

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