Joe Louis Tienda v. State

479 S.W.3d 863, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 4895, 2015 WL 2375256
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided May 14, 2015·No. 11-11-00283-CR·Published·Cited by 38 cases

Opinions

OPINION

JOHN M. BAILEY, JUSTICE

Joe Louis Tienda appeals his jury convictions for the offense of indecency with a child by sexual contact. See Tex Penal Code Ann. § 21.11(a)(1), (c) (West 2011). Appellant was indicted on' thrée counts of indecency-with a child by sexual contact. The jury acquitted him of Count One and convicted him of Counts Two and Three. On Count Three, the jury assessed his punishment at confinement for a term of six years in the Texas Department of [869] Criminal Justice, Institutional Division. On Count Two, the jury assessed his punishment at confinement for a term of ten years and recommended that the punishment be suspended. Accordingly, the trial court suspended the imposition of Appellant’s ten-year sentence, of confinement and placed him on community supervision for a term of ten years.

In six issues on appeal, Appellant contends that (1) one of his convictions for indecency with a child should be set aside on double jeopardy grounds; (2) the evidence was insufficient to sustain his convictions; (3) the trial court erred when it admitted, as an excited utterance, the testimony of a school nurse regarding the child’s statement to her; (4) the trial court erred when it admitted, as an excited utterance, an audio recording of an interview of the child taken by a police detective; (5) the trial court erred when it admitted out-of-court statements made by the child- to the police detective as- information relied upon by the detective in his investigation; and (6) the trial court erred when it allowed improper opinion testimony from the police detective. We reverse and remand. • -

Background Facts

Appellant was charged by indictment with three counts of indecency with a child by contact. In light of the-jury’s verdict, we direct our attention to Counts Two and Three. These two counts of the indictment alleged that Appellant engaged in sexual contact “by touching the buttocks of [S.D.] with his male sexual organ with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of [Appellant].” Count Two alleged the date of occurrence as “on or about” July 1, 2007, and Count Three alleged the date of occurrence as “on or about” August 1,2007.

S.D. was "'a sixteen-year-old girl who lived with her mother and Appellant, her stepfather. In September of 2007, S.D. told Darelle Jordan, a school nurse, that some1 events happened over the summer between her arid her-stepfather that made her feel Uncomfortable. Nurse Jordan testified that S.D. made the following report to her: ■

She said he — when her mother was not home and she was alone at the house, that -he would sit' next to her, close to her, put his -hand near -her breast.1 She would ask -him to move his hand, he would refuse; He would joke, act like it was all in fun. She would have to actually remove herself from his presence in order to get him to leave her alone. She would try to retreat to her bedroom.
: When she retreated to- her bedroom, he followed her into the bedroom, he laid down in the bed- next to her, he rubbed his pelvis and genital area on her, he, laid on top of her. When he was doing-that, she could feel his erect penis, it made her frightened and uncomfortable.

Nurse Jordan told S-.D. that she would have to report these incidents to Child Protective Services (CPS). S.D. did not want Nurse Jordan to report anything. Nurse Jordan testified that S.D. was worried that, if- Appellant was reported to authorities, it “might cause problems in their family, that financial support by [Appellant] would be missed by her family.” Nevertheless, Nurse Jordan reported these events to. CPS.

[870] Scott Johnson, a detective with the San Marcos Police Department, received the report from CPS. He met with S.D. at her high school. .Detective Johnson testified that he interviewed S.D. and recorded her statements about what had happened between her and Appellant. He testified that S.D. made the following report to him:

[S.D.] described activity which began in that summer proceeding [sic] that school year of 2007. What began as uncomfortable displays of affection on the part of [Appellant] where he began kissing her, which then evolved into further attempts to kiss on the mouth. She described him trying to kiss her using his tongue. She said that he began— when he would embrace her, he would frequently brush his hand across her—
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As I-was saying, she described the defendant brushing his hand across her breast, making her feel very uncomfortable. She then described her efforts to try to avoid him by going into her room and staying in her room.
She described [Appellant] coming into her room and lying in bed with her. And at times, on more than one occasion, lying on top of her in — he was dressed in shorts. And she — the action she described was him lying on top of her so that his genitals would be in contact through the clothing with her buttocks and him moving back and forth . in a motion, and she also described feeling his erect penis- through his shorts while he was doing that.

A portion of the audio recording of Johnson’s interview of S.D. was admitted at trial as an- excited utterance. In the portion of the audio recording admitted as evidence, S.D. said that Appellant would lie on top of her while she was lying on her stomach. She reported that Appellant would move “up and down” on her while lying on top of her and that she could feel his penis when he was doing this even though he was wearing shorts. S.D. stated to Detective Johnson that Appellant’s penis was “hard” and that he did this “three times.”

At the time of trial, S.D. was twenty years old. She was reluctant to testify against Appellant. The trial court issued’ a writ of attachment to secure her attendance at trial after she did not voluntarily comply with a subpoena. S.D. told the prosecutors prior to trial that she wanted the charges against Appellant dropped. When asked why she wanted the charges dropped, S.D. testified: “Because I felt like everything was fíne in our family and I just wanted to just move on with my life and just, you know, be happy again.” S.D. was hesitant to testify that Appellant had sexual contact with her.' S.D. initially testified at trial that Appellant’s- penis was not hard on the occasions- that -he lay on top-of her. She also testified that it was possible that what had happened was an accident or simply wrestling with Appellant. When confronted with the statements she made to Detective Johnson, however, S.D. testified that she told him the truth about what had occurred. S.D. also testified that she remembered telling Detective Johnson that she felt Appellant moving up and down-when he was on-top of her and she felt his hard penis on her “butt.” •

Double Jeopardy and Sufficiency - of the Evidence

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Joe Louis Tienda v. State, 479 S.W.3d 863, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 4895, 2015 WL 2375256 (Tex. Ct. App. 2015).

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