Dunnington v. State

740 S.W.2d 899, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 9301, 1987 WL 1842
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 25, 1987
Docket08-86-00214-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 740 S.W.2d 899 (Dunnington 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
Dunnington v. State, 740 S.W.2d 899, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 9301, 1987 WL 1842 (Tex. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

OPINION

FULLER, Justice.

This is an appeal from a conviction for aggravated sexual assault on a child. This is a companion case to Dunnington v. State, 740 S.W.2d 896, decided this same date, in which Appellant was convicted of indecency with a child. The jury assessed punishment at seven years’ imprisonment on the indecency conviction and ten years’ imprisonment on the aggravated sexual assault. Both sentences were probated. We reverse and remand.

Points of Error Nos. Two through Ten challenge the admissibility of certain portions of medical records generated during rape examinations of Appellant’s two stepdaughters following their outcries of sexual abuse. All evidentiary aspects of this case are governed by the state of the law prior to the effective date of the Texas Rules of Criminal Evidence. We find no hearsay or right to confrontation error with regard to these records as a whole. Following satisfaction of the business records admissibility predicate, they were properly introduced under former Article 3737e of the Texas Revised Civil Statutes. Both the recorded observations and the diagnostic opinion of the treating physician were admissible. Prine v. State, 509 S.W.2d 617 (Tex.Crim.App.1974); Drakes v. State, 505 S.W.2d 892 (Tex.Crim.App.1974); Roddy v. State, 494 S.W.2d 174 (Tex.Crim.App.1973); Williams v. State, 492 S.W.2d 496 (Tex.Crim.App.1973); Batiste v. State, 462 S.W.2d 30 (Tex.Crim.App.1971). We find the doctor’s conclusions to be more in the nature of factual observations or at least common medical diagnosis upon which competent physicians would normally agree. Granviel v. State, 552 S.W.2d 107 (Tex.Crim.App.1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 933, 97 S.Ct. 2642, 53 L.Ed.2d 250 (1977). The patients’ allegations contained in the records were admissible insofar as relevant to the medical diagnosis and treatment and the issues at trial. See, e.g., Drakes, at 894. In Prine, a murder prosecution, the Court of Criminal Appeals distinguished between the admissible record references to the charged murder offense and the inadmissible medical references to prior child abuse. In our case, the prior sexual abuse of the children constituted admissible extraneous offenses. Hence, medical record references to both instant and prior assaults were admissible. The records did contain inadmissible hearsay concerning the context in which the assaults occurred. These were unrelated and unnecessary to the diagnosis and treatment. Specific complaint as to these portions of the records was raised, however, for the first time on appeal. When the exhibits were first offered, the only objection addressed was the admissibility of the diagnostic conclusion of the physician. It was properly overruled. Later, the de *901 fense reurged an objection generally complaining of the included hearsay statements of the girls but not specifying which assertions. The second objection was untimely and too general to preserve error. Prine, at 620. Points of Error Nos. Two through Ten are overruled.

Points of Error Nos. Eleven and Twelve challenge the constitutional propriety of the parole instruction given the jury under Tex.Code Crim.Pro.Ann. art. 37.07, sec. 4 (Vernon Supp.1987). We agree. Rose v. State, (Tex.Crim.App. 193-87, November 12, 1987). Points of Error Nos. Eleven and Twelve are sustained.

We now turn to the troublesome issue presented in Point of Error No. One — the expert testimony of D.H.R. Caseworker Yolanda Aguilar. The State’s case-in-chief depicted an increasing intensity of sexual abuse of Appellant’s two stepdaughters over a two-year period. Belated outcries by the children and by a cognizant natural mother was before the jury from the outset. Focusing in part on the timing of the belated outcries to the mother and the mother’s delay in reporting the allegations to the police, Appellant’s defense asserted the falsity of the accusations. It was Appellant’s contention that the children were falsely pursuing the allegations under the domineering influence of his vengeful estranged wife. The desire for revenge was purportedly motivated by Appellant’s responsibility for the termination of social security survivor benefits for one child, the repossession of the mother’s automobile, and his efforts to testify for the wife of his ex-wife’s boyfriend in the other couple’s divorce action. Appellant sought to correlate the outcry and police report dates with critical stages in the aforementioned controversies. On rebuttal the State offered the testimony of Yolanda Aguilar, a purported expert in the field of sexual abuse of children, regarding “certain principles or maxims that are recognized by the experts” in this field. Aguilar testified as to opinion in the field interpreting belated outcry, propensity for expansion of sexual misconduct by the offender outside the family setting, the “conditioning process” to which offenders subject their child victims, reasons for “spousal denial” and general profile characteristics of the three recognized categories of pedophiles (fixated, regressed and sadistic).

The defense repeatedly objected that the testimony was improper rebuttal, improper bolstering, intrusive upon the function of the jury, irrelevant in certain instances and not of a content necessitating expert assistance to the jury in assessing the evidence and issues. We note that trial argument over admissibility incorporated reference to two opinions by this Court. Brewington v. State, 702 S.W.2d 312 (Tex.App.-El Paso 1986, no pet.), and Garcia v. State, 712 S.W.2d 249 (Tex.App.-El Paso 1986, PDRR). Neither is applicable in this case. In Brewington, the only issues were the expert qualifications of a D.H.R. caseworker and the guilt/innocence relevancy of his testimony. In Garcia, Yolanda Aguilar was called to testify on rebuttal that “she had never seen a mother try to get a child to lie about being sexually abused for any reason.” Garcia, at 252. While finding this type of credibility bolstering improper, this Court also found that the error had not been preserved for review.

The trial court was confronted with the objection that this testimony would not properly assist the jury in its function. Having heard the prospective testimony outside the presence of the jury, the trial judge was called upon to determine whether:

[I]t is appropriate because of unfamiliarity of lay jurors with a body of expertise which is relevant to the resolution of the litigation.

Holloway v. State, 613 S.W.2d 497, 502 (Tex.Crim.App.1981).

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Bluebook (online)
740 S.W.2d 899, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 9301, 1987 WL 1842, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dunnington-v-state-texapp-1987.