Calandra Trish Badia v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 17, 2006
Docket13-05-00267-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Calandra Trish Badia v. State (Calandra Trish Badia v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Calandra Trish Badia v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion



NUMBER 13-05-00267-CR



COURT OF APPEALS



THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS



CORPUS CHRISTI - EDINBURG

CALANDRA TRISH BADIA, Appellant,



v.



THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.

On appeal from the 24th District Court of Victoria County, Texas.

MEMORANDUM OPINION



Before Justices Hinojosa, Rodriguez, and Garza

Memorandum Opinion by Justice Hinojosa



A jury found appellant, Calandra Trish Badia, guilty of the offense of capital murder, and the trial court assessed her punishment at life imprisonment. Appellant challenges her conviction in four issues. We affirm.

A. Background

On the afternoon of October 28, 2002, appellant was home with her two children, nineteen-month-old Dravyn Hohensee and three-month-old Jordan Badia. At approximately 5:00 p.m., Ron Hohensee, Dravyn's father and Jordan's stepfather, received an emergency page from appellant. When he called her, appellant told him that something was wrong with Jordan and he needed to come home immediately. When he arrived at home, Ron found Jordan on the couch very limp. Ron immediately rushed him to the emergency room at Citizens Medical Center in Victoria. Later that night, Jordan was transferred to Santa Rosa Children's Hospital in San Antonio. After his arrival at Santa Rosa, it was determined that Jordan was brain dead, and he was removed from life support. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head.

B. Sufficiency of the Evidence

In her third and fourth issues, appellant contends the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to support her conviction.

The standard of review for challenges to the legal and factual sufficiency of evidence is well settled. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979) (legal sufficiency); Young v. State, 14 S.W.3d 748, 753 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000) (legal sufficiency); Johnson v. State, 23 S.W.3d 1, 11 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000) (factual sufficiency); Malik v. State, 953 S.W.2d 234, 240 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997) (legal and factual sufficiency).

A person commits the offense of murder if she "intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual." Tex. Pen. Code Ann. § 19.02(b)(1) (Vernon 2003). A person commits the offense of capital murder if "the person commits murder as defined under Section 19.02(b)(1) and . . . the person murders an individual under six years of age." Tex. Pen. Code Ann. § 19.03(a)(8) (Vernon Supp. 2005).

The indictment alleged that on or about October 28, 2002, appellant intentionally or knowingly caused the death of Jordan Badia, an individual younger than six years of age, "by shaking the decedent with her hand or hands, a deadly weapon, and by striking the decedent with and against an object, a deadly weapon, the exact nature of which is unknown to the Grand Jurors, and any combination thereof . . . ."

1. Ron Hohensee

Ron testified that he had been in a relationship with appellant for approximately five years and that they had lived together "on and off." Although they were never married, appellant and Ron had a child together, Dravyn. Ron further testified that although he discovered shortly after Jordan was born that he was not Jordan's biological father, he considered Jordan his son. On October 28, 2002, Ron left the house at approximately 4:30 p.m., and appellant was home alone with Jordan and Dravyn. Around 5:00 p.m. he received a "911" page from appellant. When he called her, appellant told him that something was wrong with Jordan. Ron described appellant's voice as not really stressed or excited, but that he could tell something was wrong. When he arrived home, appellant told him that Dravyn had fallen on top of Jordan while Jordan was in his bouncy seat on the floor. Ron testified that:

Jordan was on the couch, with his arms out to the side. His eyes were half open. The left side of his head was quite large and you could tell he was in trouble.



He picked Jordan up and immediately took him to the hospital. When he told appellant to "come on," she said that she had to put Dravyn's shoes on, and he left without her. Twenty to thirty minutes later, appellant arrived at the hospital with one of her friends, Suzanne Lawrence. Ron testified that when she arrived, appellant did not show any emotion, and once Jordan was stable and they were allowed to be with him, appellant did not want to stay very long. While appellant was at the hospital, she showed no emotion or grief and did not cry at all.

Ron further testified that approximately two days after the incident, she told him a different story about what had happened to Jordan. She now said that while she was carrying Jordan, she had tripped over an extension cord that ran from the wall to a box fan and fell on him. However, Ron also said that shortly before the police arrived to further investigate her second explanation, appellant adjusted the cord to the box fan; the cord was under the carpet and she moved it on top of the carpet.

Ron testified that while appellant would do anything to comfort and care for Dravyn, there was an incredible difference in how she treated Jordan when it came to things like feeding and holding, and she talked about putting Jordan up for adoption. He said that appellant showed no emotion after Jordan's funeral. Ron also testified that after appellant was taken into custody, he and two friends tried to re-create the accident appellant had described. He said that a friend who was about the same height and size as appellant made several attempts, and each time the cord would come unplugged or the fan would come off the table.

2. Jennifer Schumann

Registered Nurse Jennifer Schumann testified that on October 28, 2002, she was the triage nurse at Citizens Medical Center in Victoria and received Jordan into the emergency room at approximately 5:05 p.m. At the time Jordan arrived, he was not breathing, had a very low pulse rate, was pale, his eyes were closed, and he was limp and seemed "lifeless." She said that when Ron handed Jordan to her, the only information he gave her was that Jordan was not "doing good" and that he did not know what happened because he was not there. Although she did not notice any exterior physical trauma immediately, once a sustained heart rate and circulation was restored, she noticed bruises on both of Jordan's arms.

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