Kylie Lorraine Michell A/K/A Kylie Brown v. State of Texas

381 S.W.3d 554, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 5166, 2012 WL 2454069
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 28, 2012
Docket11-10-00153-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by53 cases

This text of 381 S.W.3d 554 (Kylie Lorraine Michell A/K/A Kylie Brown v. State of Texas) 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
Kylie Lorraine Michell A/K/A Kylie Brown v. State of Texas, 381 S.W.3d 554, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 5166, 2012 WL 2454069 (Tex. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

OPINION

JIM R. WRIGHT, Chief Justice.

The jury found Kylie Lorraine Michell a/k/a Kylie Brown guilty of the offense of continuous sexual abuse of a young child or children. The victims were her stepdaughter and her stepson, both of whom *557 were under the age of fourteen. Appellant elected to have the trial court assess her punishment, and it assessed her punishment at imprisonment for life. We affirm.

Appellant presents us with three issues on appeal. In her first issue, she generally argues that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict of guilty. In Issue Two, she claims that the trial court erred when it admitted “the wrong outcry witness and multiple outcry witnesses.” In her third issue, appellant claims that the trial court committed reversible error when it denied her request for an instruction on lesser included offenses.

Because the State charged appellant with continuous sexual abuse of a child, the State had to prove three elements: (1) the defendant “committed] two or more acts of sexual abuse” (2) “during a period that is 30 or more days in duration,” and (3) “at the time of the commission of each of the acts of sexual abuse, the [defendant was] 17 years of age or older and the victim [was] a child younger than 14 years of age.” Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 21.02(b) (West Supp. 2011).

In her first issue, appellant maintains that the State did not meet its burden in that it did not prove that the instances of sexual abuse took place during a period that was thirty or more days in duration. For that reason, she claims that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict of guilty.

Normally, we would discuss the sufficiency of the evidence issue first. However, a resolution of that issue involves the issue of the appropriateness of admitting the testimony of the alleged outcry witnesses. We will consider the complaint directed at outcry witnesses first.

We refer to the child victims in this case by the pseudonyms previously assigned to them in the indictment: Angela Green and Adam Green. Appellant is their stepmother. Their father, Cass Anova Brown, is a codefendant with appellant in this case. The jury convicted Cass Brown, in a joint trial with appellant, of the same offense involved in this appeal. Today, in a separate opinion, we also affirm Cass Brown’s conviction.

Angela was eleven years old and in the fourth grade when she told a friend at school that she was being sexually abused. Because Angela suffered from ADHD, she and her friend wrote down the directions for Angela to use to call the police to report the sexual abuse. The friend also wrote down her mother’s phone number in case Angela needed help. Angela telephoned the 9-1-1 dispatcher on January 7, 2009. The State produced a CD recording of the 9-1-1 conversation, and the trial court admitted it.

Amanda Williams was the 9-1-1 dispatcher who received Angela’s call. Williams directed Officer Stephanie J. Morgan of the Brownwood Police Department to the address Angela gave to Williams: 1612 Indian Creek Road in Brownwood. When Officer Morgan got there, Angela came out of the house. She did not want Officer Morgan to go inside because the house was messy. Angela was scared and upset, but she gave Officer Morgan basic personal information and told her about the general nature of the reason behind the call to 9-1-1. Officer Morgan talked with Angela for “probably about 10 minutes.” Adam never made any comments to Officer Morgan about sexual abuse.

Officer Morgan contacted Child Protective Services. Kimberly Cruz and Shannon Duran responded and went to 1612 Indian Creek Road. Angela finally allowed Officer Morgan, Cruz, and Duran to go inside the house. Officer Morgan described the condition of the house to the *558 jury: “The house inside was in general disarray. There was clothes in the floor, trash, dirty dishes, the kitchen was very dirty, the bathroom as well.” The mattresses were not covered with linens and were very dirty. Animals were in the house, and the house smelled of animal urine and feces. The house was not habitable for children. There was no objection to any of this testimony. Cruz photographed the inside of the house.

While Officer Morgan and the others were at the house, Cass Brown arrived. Officer Morgan told him that Angela had accused him of touching her inappropriately and of engaging in sexual misconduct. He denied any illegal behavior. He thought that Angela might be rebelling in response to discipline imposed upon Adam and her for stealing candy from a convenience store and for not doing their chores. Additionally, Cass Brown said that Angela might be referring to a time when she was bleeding vaginally, and he used his hand to examine for the cause; he determined it to be the result of drinking too much apple juice. That day, CPS removed Angela and Adam from the home.

The next day, January 8, 2009, Mikey Betancourt, a forensic interviewer with the Hill Country Child Advocacy Center, interviewed Angela in depth. Over a hearsay objection, the trial court allowed the State to use Betancourt as the outcry witness in the case involving Angela.

We review a trial court’s decision to admit or exclude evidence for an abuse of discretion. Montgomery v. State, 810 S.W.2d 372, 391 (Tex.Crim.App.1991). We will reverse the trial court’s decision only if it acted arbitrarily, unreasonably, or without reference to any guiding rules or principles. Id. at 380. We will uphold the trial court’s ruling if it is within the zone of reasonable disagreement. Id. at 391.

Article 38.072 of the Code of Criminal Procedure permits outcry statements by certain victims of child abuse to be admitted during trial, despite the hearsay rule, if the provisions of that article are met. See Tex.Code CRIm. PROC. Ann. art. 38.072 (West Supp. 2011). The only provision of Article 38.072 about which appellant complains is the provision that requires that before a witness can qualify as a proper outcry witness, the person must have been at least eighteen years old and must have been the first person to whom the victim made statements about the offense. Id. § 2(3). We note that the child must have described the alleged offense in some discernible way and that the outcry must be more than a general allusion to sexual abuse before a person is a proper outcry witness. Garcia v. State, 792 S.W.2d 88, 91 (Tex.Crim.App.1990); Sims v. State, 12 S.W.3d 499, 500 (Tex.App.-Dallas 1999, pet. ref'd). There may be more than one outcry witness provided that each one testifies about different instances. Lopez v. State, 343 S.W.3d 137, 140 (Tex.Crim.App.2011); Broderick v. State, 35 S.W.3d 67, 73-74 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 2000, pet. ref'd).

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Bluebook (online)
381 S.W.3d 554, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 5166, 2012 WL 2454069, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kylie-lorraine-michell-aka-kylie-brown-v-state-of-texas-texapp-2012.