Javier Eguade v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 31, 2017
Docket08-15-00268-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Javier Eguade v. State (Javier Eguade 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
Javier Eguade v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

COURT OF APPEALS EIGHTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS EL PASO, TEXAS

§ JAVIER EGUADE, No. 08-15-00268-CR § Appellant, Appeal from § v. 409th District Court § THE STATE OF TEXAS, of El Paso County, Texas § Appellee. (TC # 20110D03949) §

OPINION

Javier Eguade was indicted for three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child

(L.D.R.) after the juvenile court transferred the case to the 409th District Court. Count I alleged

that Appellant intentionally and knowingly caused the penetration of L.D.R.’s sexual organ by

means of the sexual organ of Appellant; Count II alleged that Appellant intentionally and

knowingly caused the penetration of the anus of L.D.R by the means of the sexual organ of

Appellant; and Count III alleged that Appellant intentionally or knowingly caused L.D.R.’s

mouth to contact the sexual organ of Appellant. During trial, the State moved to dismiss Count

II, because there was not enough evidence to support it. A jury found Appellant not guilty of

Count I, but guilty of Count III. Appellant elected to have the trial court assess his punishment

and the trial court honored the punishment agreement between Appellant and the State,

sentencing him to ten years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division, probated for ten years. Appellant filed a motion for new trial which was overruled by operation

of law.

Appellant now raises three issues on appeal. He argues: (1) the State was not authorized

to indict and prosecute him on Count III because the jurisdiction to prosecute him was never

transferred to a felony district court by the juvenile court in its transfer order; (2) the trial court

committed egregious error by failing to sua sponte submit a Penal Code Section 8.07(a)

instruction in its guilt-innocence charge to inform the jury that it had to find that Appellant was

fourteen years or older in order to find him guilty of either Count I or Count III; and (3) he

should be granted a new trial because the trial court misdirected the jury on the law by

instructing it not to consider the State’s abandonment of Count II or the lack of evidence

supporting Count II in deliberating the merits of Count III. For the reasons that follow, we

affirm.

FACTUAL SUMMARY

The Eguade and De La Rosa families lived next door to each other in the San Elizario

community. Appellant’s mother is L.D.R.’s godmother and according to L.D.R., the two

families had a family-like relationship.

On January 31, 2010, when L.D.R. was in the fifth grade, she told her brother, Hector De

La Rosa that Appellant had sexually abused her when she was getting ready to enter the first

grade. Hector immediately told their mother, who called the police. El Paso Sheriff’s Deputy

Sergio Juarez responded to the call at the De La Rosa residence and created an initial report

which he turned over to a detective for further investigation. On February 9, 2010, Detective Joe

Zimmerly interviewed L.D.R. at a child advocacy center.

2 At the time of trial, L.D.R. was sixteen years old and a sophomore in high school. She

testified that Appellant raped her when she was five years old, going into the first grade at

Borrego Elementary, and her teacher during this time was Mrs. De Leon. L.D.R. related that the

first time occurred at Appellant’s house in his mother’s bathroom. When L.D.R. went to use the

bathroom, Appellant was at the door when she was finished. He touched her, pulled down his

shorts, and inserted his penis into her vagina while she was lying on her back on the floor. While

she and Appellant were in the bathroom, Appellant’s sister knocked on the door and Appellant

told L.D.R. to be quiet. When he left, he told her to stay in the bathroom for a while.

The next occasion occurred in the Eguade’s hallway bathroom. Again, she went to the

bathroom and Appellant was waiting for her at the door when she was finished. He put his penis

in her vagina, and then he sat down on the toilet and forced L.D.R. to put her mouth on his penis

by putting his hand on the back of her neck. She testified that she saw a white substance come

out of his penis. L.D.R. never told anyone because once she learned that what had happened was

wrong, she felt guilty and was afraid that the two families would part ways.

On cross-examination, L.D.R. testified that she felt pain, but did not remember whether

she bled. One of the reasons she never told anyone was because Appellant made her feel as

though it was her fault. Even after her mother learned of the abuse, L.D.R. did not speak

extensively because she does not like talking about what happened. After she made her outcry,

no other incidents occurred.

The State rested its case and moved to dismiss Count II given that there was no evidence

regarding anal penetration. Appellant moved for directed verdicts on Counts I and III, which the

trial court denied.

3 Mrs. De La Rosa testified as the first defense witness. On January 31, 2010, Deputy

Juarez responded to her call and she informed him of L.D.R.’s outcry. Mrs. De La Rosa began

taking L.D.R. to counseling because she was having emotional problems and difficulty at night.

She did not recall informing law enforcement officials that L.D.R.’s abuse occurred during

mutual cookouts with the Eguades. She also did not remember giving officers the five dates of

occurrence for the abuse, but did recall that the two families spent significant time together,

including traveling together.

On cross-examination, Mrs. De La Rosa explained that she had known the Eguade family

for 25 years, and that before the abuse, the two families were extremely close. L.D.R. is shy,

suffers from weight problems, and becomes very angry whenever she has to talk about the abuse.

L.D.R.’s outcry made her feel helpless and angry. She then recalled that she did in fact give law

enforcement the dates of abuse which were an approximation because the child was too young to

give precise dates. Mrs. De La Rosa remembered that L.D.R. told her she was around five or six

years old when the events at issue occurred.

Detective Gil, a twenty-one year veteran of the sheriff’s department, testified that she

took Mrs. De La Rosa’s and Hector’s statements in 2010 after L.D.R. made her outcry. She did

not recall reading the statement back to Mrs. De La Rosa, but explained that Mrs. De La Rosa

initialed each paragraph in her statement to verify its contents.

L.D.R.’s counselor, Martha Dominguez, testified that she had seen L.D.R. approximately

nineteen times. She observed that L.D.R. was generally a happy person, and during counseling,

Dominguez helped her focus on reducing the anxiety she experienced about having to testify.

L.D.R. only opened up to her once concerning the abuse. Dominguez has thirty years of practice

as a licensed social worker and has treated approximately three hundred sex-abuse victims. She

4 opined that family support is one the most important factors in how a child copes with sexual

abuse. She also indicated that during her time with L.D.R., she never recanted her statement.

Mrs. Eguade testified that she was aware of the charges against her son and confirmed

that he was fourteen years old at the time and L.D.R. was five years old. As L.D.R.’s

godmother, she cared for L.D.R., but she never noticed that anything was bothering the child.

On cross-examination, she minimized her family’s relationship with the De La Rosas. They

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