Page 102 - Texas police Association Peace Officer Guide 2017

day, he returned to Wendy’s apartment to seek clarification. On this occasion, Wendy expressly
identified Balderas as the gunman, stating that she was positive in her identification. She wrote a
sentence in Spanish on the back of the lineup to confirm her positive identification. Based on this
identification, police obtained a warrant for Balderas’s arrest.

On December 16, Officer Rick Moreno drove to an apartment complex where he watched for
Balderas and another LTC gang member, Rigalado Silder, and waited for the assistance of a
SWAT team. After Moreno had been watching the complex for about 25 minutes, he observed
Balderas and Silder leave an upstairs apartment and start down the stairs. Each man was carrying
a large box, and Balderas had a black bag slung over his shoulder. When they saw the SWAT
team arriving, Balderas and Silder set everything down and started running. Moreno caught
Silder in the apartment complex, while the SWAT team pursued Balderas into the neighborhood
and caught him as he tried to hide under a car.

Moreno saw that the boxes and bag contained firearms and other weapons, bullet-proof vests,
identification holders, magazines, and ammunition. One of the weapons recovered from the box
that Balderas had been carrying was a handgun that was later identified, through ballistics
testing, as the murder weapon in Hernandez’s killing. A shell casing from a semiautomatic
handgun was recovered from Balderas’s right rear pants pocket.

In his first point of error, Balderas asserts that the evidence is insufficient to prove his
guilt. Specifically, he argues that Wendy Bardales, the only eyewitness who identified him as the
gunman, was not credible and testified falsely. He points to inconsistencies between her
statements to police and her trial testimony, as well as ways in which her description of the
gunman did not accurately describe Balderas. Balderas also alleges that Wendy’s statements to
police evolved over time: first, she did not recognize the gunman and had never seen him before;
then, upon viewing the photo array, she immediately recognized Balderas, whom she had known
for several months, but she was not sure that he was the gunman; and finally, she confidently
identified Balderas as the gunman.

In assessing the legal sufficiency of the evidence, we consider all of the evidence in the
light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether, based on that evidence and reasonable
inferences therefrom, any rational juror could have found the essential elements of the crime
beyond a reasonable doubt. “The reviewing court must give deference to ‘the responsibility of
the trier of fact to fairly resolve conflicts in testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw
reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.’” Each fact need not point directly and
independently to a defendant’s guilt, as long as the cumulative force of all the incriminating
circumstances is sufficient to support the conviction.

The State may prove a defendant’s identity and criminal culpability by either direct or
circumstantial evidence, coupled with all reasonable inferences from that evidence. The jury is
the sole judge of the credibility and weight to be attached to witness testimony. When the
record supports conflicting inferences, we presume that the jury resolved the conflicts in favor of
the verdict, and we defer to that determination. Because we will not second-guess the jury’s
assessment of the credibility and weight of witness testimony, and because we defer to the jury’s

A Peace Officer’s Guide to Texas Law 97 2017 Edition