Lara v. State

513 S.W.3d 135, 2016 WL 6990041, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 12594
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 29, 2016
DocketNO. 14-15-00581-CR, NO. 14-15-00582-CR, NO. 14-15-00583-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 513 S.W.3d 135 (Lara 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
Lara v. State, 513 S.W.3d 135, 2016 WL 6990041, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 12594 (Tex. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

OPINION

William J. Boyce, Justice

Appellant Luis Eduardo Lara appeals his convictions for sexual assault of a child,1 indecency with a child,2 and continuous sexual abuse of a child.3 He argues that the trial court erred by allowing the State to (1) introduce extraneous offense evidence without providing notice to appellant; and (2) “consolidate all three cases for trial.” We affirm.

[138]*138Background

Appellant was about 20 years old when he met complainants John Jenkins, John Doe, and John Smith at a skate park in Galveston.4 Complainants were young teenagers at the time they met appellant. They all became friends with appellant and spent a lot of time with him and other Mends skating at the skate park and attending skating competitions and other events. After the three complainants accused appellant of sexual abuse, the police started investigating the complainants’ allegations.

Appellant was indicted on October 23, 2014, in trial court cause number 14CR2148, for the offense of sexual assault of a child; the indictment alleged that appellant caused the “sexual organ of John Jenkins (a pseudonym), a child who was then and there younger than 17 years of age, to contact or penetrate the mouth of the defendant.”

Appellant was indicted on October 23, 2014, in trial court cause number 14CR2149, for the offense of indecency with a child. The indictment alleged that appellant “did then and there, with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of [defendant] or John Smith (a pseudonym), intentionally or knowingly engage in sexual contact with John Smith (a pseudonym) by touching the genitals of John Smith (a pseudonym), a child younger than 17 years of age, with the Defendant’s hand.”

Appellant was indicted on October 23, 2014, in trial court cause number 14CR2150, for the offense of continuous sexual abuse of a child. The indictment alleged that appellant “did then and there, during a period that was 30 or more days in duration,” from December 1, 2013, to March 29, 2014, “when the defendant was 17 years of age or older, commit two or more acts of sexual abuse against a child younger than 14 years of age, namely ... intentionally or knowingly contact the sexual organ of John Doe (a pseudonym) with the Defendant’s hand” in December 2013; “intentionally or knowingly contact the sexual organ of John Doe (a pseudonym) with the Defendant’s hand” in February 2014; and “intentionally or knowingly cause the sexual organ of John Doe (a pseudonym) to contact or penetrate the Defendant’s mouth” in March 2014.

The trial court granted the State’s motion to consolidate the three causes pending against appellant. A jury trial was held for all three causes from June 1, 2015, to June 5, 2015.

At trial, appellant objected to the State introducing evidence of extraneous offenses pursuant to Code of Criminal Procedure article 38.37,5 arguing that the State did not provide notice to appellant of all of the extraneous offenses it wanted to introduce through the testimony of John Jenkins. Appellant argued that the State provided notice only that Jenkins would testify regarding two instances of sexual abuse by appellant when it intended to introduce evidence of three additional and later-disclosed instances of sexual abuse. The trial court ruled that the State substantially complied with the notice requirement and “allow[ed] testimony of ... the additional three extraneous offenses in addition to the two that [Jenkins] was originally going to testify to.”

Jenkins testified that appellant sexually abused him five times over seven to eight [139]*139months. He testified that the first incident occurred at appellant’s house in 2013 when Jenkins was 15 years old. Jenkins testified that he fell asleep on appellant’s bed but “remember[s] waking up -with [appellant’s] hand around my genitalia and him going down and actually giving me oral sex.” Jenkins stated that he told appellant to stop and pushed appellant away.

Jenkins testified that the second incident occurred at appellant’s house several months after the first incident. Jenkins testified that he was asleep on appellant’s bed and woke up to see appellant touching his genitalia under his clothing. Jenkins testified that he pulled appellant’s hand out of his underwear and pants and told appellant to stop.

The third incident took place at the home of Jenkins’s friend John Gray. Jenkins testified that he fell asleep on the couch in Gray’s house after he believed appellant had fallen asleep. Jenkins woke up when he realized that appellant was trying to grab his genitalia through the hole of his boxers. Jenkins told appellant to stop.

The fourth incident occurred at the home of Jenkins’s friend John White in Marble Falls where Jenkins, appellant, and a few other friends spent the night after attending a car show. Jenkins testified he was asleep' on the couch in the living room. Jenkins stated, “I had a blanket over me’ and [appellant], like, tried to grab my genitalia through my pants and, like, kept trying to fondle it. And I woke up to him doing that, and I told him to stop.”

The last incident took place at the home of Jenkins’s friend John Black. Jenkins testified that he was asleep on the couch but woke up when appellant tried to “grab [his] genitalia through the pants. And, again, I told him to stop, and he kept saying, like, Please, come on. Let’s try this. All of the other kids are doing it, or I did it with [complainant John Smith]

Complainant John Doe also testified at trial that appellant sexually abused him. Doe testified that the first incident occurred at appellant’s house in 2013 when he was 12 years old. Doe testified he was asleep on appellant’s bed but woke up and saw appellant had unzipped Doe’s pants, taken out Doe’s penis and started stroking it with his hand. Doe testified that appellant then stopped stroking him. He stated, “I turn myself over and zip my pants up and I act like I woke up. And so I checked my phone. It was 4:28. And I was—I was just so, like—I don’t know. I couldn’t believe it. I—I just was denying it in my head and didn’t know what to think. I was in shock. I was sweating. I was scared.”

Doe testified that the second incident occurred in 2014 when he spent the night at appellant’s house. Doe was sleeping on the floor this time but woke up when appellant tried to open his pants. Doe stated that appellant could not open his pants but touched his penis over his clothing. Doe testified, “I left his house, and I was text-ing him, and he was telling me he was sorry. And I told him, I was, like, [yo]u can get in really big trouble for this.”

Doe testified that the third incident occurred a few months later at appellant’s house. Doe was asleep on appellant’s bed but woke up and saw appellant unzipping his pants and exposing his penis. Appellant then touched Doe’s penis with his hands and put the penis in appellant’s mouth. Doe testified that he tried to act as if he was asleep because he did not know if appellant would hurt him. Appellant then stopped touching Doe, and Doe “turned over to the side, acted like [he] was still sleeping, zipped [his] pants back up, and went to sleep.”

[140]*140Complainant John Smith testified that appellant had touched his “private parts” once when he slept over at appellant’s house in 2014. Smith testified that he was 15 years old at the time.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
513 S.W.3d 135, 2016 WL 6990041, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 12594, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lara-v-state-texapp-2016.