Jose Lopez v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 15, 2013
Docket03-11-00086-CR
StatusPublished

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Bluebook
Jose Lopez v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN

NO. 03-11-00086-CR

Jose Lopez, Appellant

v.

The State of Texas, Appellee

FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF CALDWELL COUNTY, 421ST JUDICIAL DISTRICT NO. 2009-261, HONORABLE TODD A. BLOMERTH, JUDGE PRESIDING

MEMORANDUM OPINION

The appellant, Jose Lopez, was indicted for intentionally and knowingly causing

serious bodily injury to a child by striking him with a vase. See Tex. Penal Code § 22.04(a)(1)

(serious bodily injury to a child), (e) (offense under Subsection (a)(1) is first-degree felony when

conduct is committed intentionally or knowingly). A jury found Lopez guilty and sentenced him to

ten years in prison. In three issues, Lopez argues that (1) the evidence is insufficient to support the

jury’s verdict of guilt, (2) the trial court did not have authority to enter a judgment for the first-degree

felony of serious bodily injury to a child because of errors in the charge and the verdict form, and

(3) the trial court then erred by charging the jury for the range of punishment applicable to a first-

degree felony. We will affirm the conviction. BACKGROUND

J.S., a six-year-old boy, and his grandmother, Maria Sanchez, were visiting Lopez,

Sanchez’s boyfriend, for a few days at Lopez’s home in Lockhart in early July 2009.1 J.S. and

Sanchez lived in San Antonio at that time. Sanchez testified that on the evening of July 6, she and

Lopez argued, and during the argument, Lopez picked up a tequila bottle being used as a vase,

cursed, and threw the bottle at J.S., who was lying on the floor nearby. The tequila bottle hit J.S. in

the mouth. J.S. began crying and screaming, and his mouth was bleeding profusely. Sanchez took

J.S. into the bathroom to run water over his mouth. She put a towel over his mouth and took him

back to the bedroom, but the bleeding did not stop.

Sanchez testified that she was unable to leave the house with J.S. to get medical help

that night because Lopez, who had been drinking, had lain across the threshold of the room and

passed out, preventing her from opening the bedroom door to leave the room. In addition, Sanchez,

who is an undocumented immigrant, testified that Lopez had told her that if she called the police,

he was going to call immigration and have her deported. Sanchez, who did not have a car, left the

next day with J.S. to get help. She walked until she found a church with a thrift store inside. Two

women, who were strangers to Sanchez, drove her and J.S. to San Antonio because Sanchez wanted

to take him to a hospital in the city where they lived.

J.S. was hospitalized for three days. Dr. Vivian Carlin, one of J.S.’s treating physicians

at the hospital, testified that after J.S. arrived at the hospital on the night of July 7, he immediately

received intravenous antibiotics and fluids. A forensic nurse examiner, Edward Russell, testified

1 Sanchez is raising J.S. as her son. Her daughter is J.S.’s biological mother.

2 that shortly before 1:00 a.m. on July 8, he conducted a forensic medical exam on J.S., which is the

hospital’s standard procedure in cases involving physical abuse. As part of the forensic exam,

Russell interviewed J.S. separately from Sanchez, conducted a full physical exam, and documented

J.S.’s injuries both in writing and with photographs. He also interviewed Sanchez. Russell provided

the information he collected to both the emergency room physician and the forensic physician.

Dr. Nancy Kellogg, who is board-certified in pediatrics and child abuse, reviewed

Russell’s report and the photographs of J.S.’s injuries. As medical director of the preventive-nurse

program at the hospital, Dr. Kellogg regularly reviews the information collected by the forensic

nurses during their patient exams to determine the likelihood that the documented injuries are related

to child abuse. She testified that she has reviewed thousands of cases and she has testified many

times as an expert witness on child abuse. Dr. Kellogg testified that two of J.S.’s bottom teeth had

been knocked out of his gum, and he had multiple cuts and abrasions on his upper lip. One of J.S.’s

lower teeth had become jammed so far up into his upper lip that it was only visible when the lip was

x-rayed. Dr. Kellogg opined that J.S.’s injury was “an abusive inflicted injury and it was severe.”

Dr. Kellogg testified that J.S.’s injury was not consistent with a normal childhood fall at that age nor

was it the type of injury she would expect to see from an object falling off a shelf the height of the

one in Lopez’s room, even accounting for the weight of the tequila bottle if it was filled with water

and flowers. In her medical opinion, more force was required to inflict J.S.’s injury—the bottle had

to have been “thrown hard.”

Dr. Carlin testified that J.S. had plastic surgery to remove the tooth and close the

largest laceration on his lip. J.S. has scarring at the surgery site, and it is possible the functionality

3 of his permanent teeth will be impaired. Dr. Kellogg testified that scarring that remained after a year

and a half would not heal itself. Sanchez testified that J.S.’s gums continue to hurt, he has constant

headaches, and he is frequently afraid. Both Dr. Carlin and Dr. Kellogg opined that J.S.’s injury

constitutes “serious bodily injury” as defined by the Penal Code. See Tex. Penal Code § 1.07(46)

(defining “serious bodily injury” as “bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death or that

causes death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of

any bodily member or organ”).

Russell had contacted the Lockhart Police Department to notify them of the possible

crime. The sergeant who took the call contacted the San Antonio Police Department and asked for

assistance with obtaining statements and evidence. A San Antonio Police Department detective went

to the hospital and took photographs and collected the tequila bottle, which Sanchez had brought

with her. A different police officer, Onofre Serna, went to the hospital to speak with Sanchez. He

observed J.S.’s injuries and wrote up a report, which was sent to the Lockhart Police Department.

A Lockhart Police Department detective, Mike Nichols, investigated the case. After

he located Sanchez, he set up a forensic interview for J.S. at a child-advocacy center in San Marcos.

Detective Nichols testified that it is the Department’s procedure to use a forensic interviewer anytime

that it is necessary to interview a child for a case. The forensic interviewer, Melissa Rodriguez,

conducted an interview with J.S. in Spanish. During the interview, J.S. told her about how he had

been injured. Nichols interviewed Sanchez on the same day. Based on those interviews, Nichols

obtained a warrant for Lopez’s arrest for the first-degree felony of serious bodily injury to a child.

Lopez was arrested after he reported to the district clerk’s office. He came to the office to deny that

4 he was the person named in the warrant, but he eventually admitted to the police that he was the

person named.

Lopez was indicted for “intentionally and knowingly, by act, caus[ing] serious bodily

injury to [J.S.], a child . . . by then and there striking the [child] with . . .

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