13TH CT. OF APPEALS TO SALAZAR: GOOSE IS COOKED: ERNIE HERNANDEZ'S ADMIN ASSISTANT WILL GO TO PRISON

By Juan Montoya
The 13th Court of Appeals today turned down the latest effort by Raul Salazar – former administrative assistant to Pct. 2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez – to overturn his conviction on two counts of official misconduct and one of tampering with a government record.
Salazar was convicted Nov. 15, 2013, by a Cameron County jury on the three charges and the trial court sentenced him to three concurrent 10-month sentences. He has been appealing the convictions ever since.
In his appeal, Salazar's attorney Larry Warner raised 12 issues.
In one, he asserted that he should be granted a new trial in the interest of justice, in the second that the verdict was contrary to the evidence; three to six charged that the state presented misleading testimony and evidence calculated to harm him; in the seventh that the witness failed to identify him prior to the trial; the eighth that the state alleged untrue facts regarding an item of evidence; the ninth that the overall conduct of the state in presenting misleading arguments warrants a new trial; and 10-12, that cumulative error deprived Salazar of a fair trial; and that (12) the indictment failed to state the offense.
The state challenged the appeal saying that Salazar's appeal must be denied and the trial court convictions upheld because by failing to provide citations on the record as a basis for appeal, he had "waived his issues by failing to cite the record in his brief. He, the state argued, had "failed to include any cites in the record to support any of these 12 issues."
The appeals court affirmed.
Salazar was indicted on one count of abuse of official capacity when "between March and August 2011, Salazar committed the offenses "in his efforts to assist Roberto Cadriel obtain a job with Cameron County. Salazar was Cameron County Commissioner Ernie Hernandez's administrative assistant and Cadriel is Hernandez's brother-in-law."
The state charged that after Cadriel failed the computerized civil service exam for an Animal Control position twice, Salazar directed Human Resources employee Carmen Vera on June 2011 to take the exam in place of Cadriel and received a passing score (Count 1).
However, the position for which Cadriel had taken the exam had been filled and he then took another exam for a noncommissioned security guard at an international bridge. During the trial, Cadriel said he came back to Human Resources on June 28 and testified that Salazar provided him with "the answer key for the security guard exam (count 2)."
The last count alleged that Salazar had tampered with the government record "by directing Vera to take the civil exam in Cadriel's place."
The appeals court ruled that "an appellant's brief must contain both citations to authorities and to the record and a failure to include either waives an issue on appeal. As an appellate court, we have no duty to make an independent search of a voluminous record for evidence supporting a party's position."
Further, the court found that Salazar failed to include any citations to the record in either his argument or statement of facts. He also cited neither the record or authorities in his claim that he should be granted a new trial in the interest of justice and because the verdict was contrary to the law and evidence.
"Therefore, we are unable to review these issues," and the appeals court opinion states.
In issues three through six, where he charged that the state had presented misleading testimony and evidence calculated to harm him, the court also found that he had not cited the record in his brief and denied.
His seventh issue, that witness Delia Salinas failed to identify him, the appeals court found that she never testified in trial and – again  that he failed to provide record citations to direct the court where she testified or failed to identify him.
On Salazar's eighth (through 12th)  issue(s) that  the state alleged untrue facts regarding an item of evidence and that the prosecutor used misleading arguments, again the court found that he did not support his claims that he caused an item to be placed on the county commissioners agenda to reorganize the Human Resources Department as an act of retaliation with anything on the trial record.
On the issue (12th) that the indictment failed to allege an offense, the court found that "the accused must object to substance defects before the trial begins, otherwise the accused forfeits his right to raise the objection on appeal or by collateral attack."
"Since Salazar did not object to nay defects of substance or form in the charging instrument prior to the day of the trial, Salazar waived any error...We affirm the judgment of the court."
In Salazar's trial, Hernandez declined to testify invoking his Fifth Amendment Right to self incrimination because he feared his testimony would differ from that he had given the grand jury. Hernandez was indicted on seven counts arising from the same offense but those charges were later dropped by Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz when he agreed to resign as commissioner. He received deferred adjudication on a count of coercion of a public official. He has since completed his one-year period of probation and is rumored to be contemplating a run for another public office.
A previous request by Salazar that the trial court provide him a trial transcript based on his claim of indigence was denied by the appeals court.
Salazar is expected to be remanded to the Texas State Dept. of Corrections when the case is scheduled for the 445th District Court with Visiting Judge Federico Hinojosa, who sat on the original case.