Arrington, Charles

451 S.W.3d 834, 2015 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 15, 2015 WL 170110
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 14, 2015
DocketNO. PD-1448-13
StatusPublished
Cited by208 cases

This text of 451 S.W.3d 834 (Arrington, Charles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Arrington, Charles, 451 S.W.3d 834, 2015 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 15, 2015 WL 170110 (Tex. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION

Alcala, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court,

in which Keller, P.J., and Keasler, Hervey, Richardson, and Newell, JJ., joined.

This ease addresses whether a defendant suffers egregious harm from erroneous jury instructions permitting a non-unanimous verdict when a jury confronted with two diametrical positions reaches multiple verdicts signifying, in the aggregate, its belief in' the credibility of the State’s evidence and its disbelief in the defendant’s evidence. The State’s petition for discretionary review argues that the court of appeals erred by determining that erroneous jury instructions permitting non-unanimous jury verdicts caused egregious harm to Charles Lavoy Arrington, appellant. Arrington v. State, 413 S.W.3d 106, 118 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 2013). The State challenges the court of appeals’s judgment in favor of appellant that reversed his six convictions, including five convictions for aggravated sexual assault of a child and one conviction for indecency with a child by contact. We conclude that, by improperly failing to consider all of the evidence that was admitted at trial and by finding dispositive the jury’s inability to reach a verdict on a single count without considering other rational reasons for the lack of a verdict on that single count, the court of appeals erroneously determined •that the faulty instructions egregiously harmed appellant. We reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand this case for consideration of appellant’s other issues on appeal. 1

I. Background

A. The Facts and Trial Court Proceedings

The complainant, H.A., is appellant’s daughter. H.A. and her younger brother lived with their mother, who had separated from their father, appellant, when H.A. was very young. H.A. and her younger *836 brother visited appellant on occasional weekends and holidays for several years. In 2010, H.A. made an outcry that during two of those visits earlier that year, appellant had sexually abused her in numerous ways in four different places in appellant’s homes. In 2010, H.A. was nine years old and her younger brother was eight years old.

H.A. indicated that the first time appellant sexually touched her was when appellant was living with his mother, H.A.’s grandmother. Appellant’s room, in the back of the house, had a mattress on the floor and a television. H.A. was lying awake on the mattress while her younger brother sat at the foot of the mattress playing a video game. As he lay next to H.A. on the mattress, appellant “stuck his hands down [her] pants” and “rubbed” her “vagina and [her] butt.” H.A. said that she was scared and shocked and did not say or do anything as appellant fondled her. H.A. testified specifically that appellant did not penetrate her female sexual organ or her anus with his finger during this incident.

The second event occurred in appellant’s shower during H.A.’s spring break later that same year. At that time, having moved out of his mother’s house, appellant was cohabiting with his girlfriend. H.A. and her brother visited appellant for a few days and slept on a mattress in the living room during their stay. While appellant, H.A., and H.A.’s brother were watching a movie in the living room, appellant told H.A. to take a shower in appellant’s bathroom. While H.A. was showering, appellant turned the lights off in the bathroom and joined her in the shower. Appellant washed H.A.’s body, touching H.A.’s breast, female sexual organ, and buttocks in the process. H.A. stated that appellant did not penetrate her female sexual organ or her anus during this incident, but that he only put his hands on the “front part” of her female sexual organ and on the “top part” of her buttocks. He then made H.A. get down on her hands and knees and place his male sexual organ in her mouth. H.A. tried to pull away but appellant held the back of her head. Appellant also forced H.A. to rub his penis using a “back and forth” motion. At the subsequent trial, H.A. answered “yes” to a single question asking whether appellant also placed his mouth on her vagina during this incident. H.A., however, gave no details about that conduct.

H.A. described the third event, explaining that it occurred the following day and again in a shower, but this time it took place in the shower for guests, which H.A. used during her visit. While H.A. was in the shower, appellant joined her there. Appellant rubbed and digitally penetrated H.A.’s female sexual organ and anus, and H.A. recalled that it hurt. Appellant then forced her to get on her hands and knees and he placed his male sexual organ in H.A.’s mouth. During this incident, appellant also knelt down, “widened his legs around [H.A.’s] legs,” and placed his male sexual organ in her female sexual organ. H.A. stated that he was “humping” her by “moving his hips back and forth.” She stated that this hurt her. H.A. also stated that during this encounter appellant placed his male sexual organ in her anus, and that this hurt as well.

The fourth event occurred the next day in the living room of appellant’s girlfriend’s house. After watching a movie together with H.A. and appellant on the mattress, H.A.’s brother fell asleep. Appellant picked H.A.’s brother up and placed him on a nearby sofa, leaving H.A. alone on the mattress with appellant. Appellant pushed her beneath the covers on the mattress and forced her to place his male sexual organ in her mouth. H.A. gagged *837 and told him to stop. Appellant then fondled H.A.’s breasts, female sexual organ, and buttocks, digitally penetrating her female sexual organ and anus. While facing each other on the mattress, appellant placed his penis in her female sexual organ. After that, he turned her around so that she was “facing away” from him and placed his penis “in [her] butt.” H.A. described appellant as “humping” her in a back and forth motion. H.A. recalled that appellant asked her if it “felt good,” and H.A. responded “no” as she pleaded for him to stop. H.A. described that a clear gel that looked like “smushy stuff’ came out of appellant’s penis that made it slippery.

Later that school year, after she had returned from spring break, H.A. told friends that she was pregnant, and rumors spread throughout the school, ultimately reaching Lisa McGinnis, H.A.’s school counselor. McGinnis questioned H.A. about the rumors and informed H.A.’s mother about them. H.A. denied to her school counselor and to her mother that she was pregnant or that she had been abused. H.A. said it was all a misunderstanding and “she was just talking about, basically, where babies come from and her friends had misunderstood her.” Two days later, on the last day of school, as the rumors persisted with additional information that H.A. believed that her father was the father of the baby, McGinnis again approached H.A. about the pregnancy rumors. During that conversation, H.A. “became tearful and she told [McGinnis] that her father had touched her inappropriately.”

After H.A. made an outcry to her school counselor, a police investigation began and H.A. was examined by a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. The nurse did not find any physical evidence of the abuse during her examination.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
451 S.W.3d 834, 2015 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 15, 2015 WL 170110, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/arrington-charles-texcrimapp-2015.