Luis Sanchez v. State

460 S.W.3d 675, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 2113, 2015 WL 1138261
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 5, 2015
Docket11-12-00279-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 460 S.W.3d 675 (Luis Sanchez 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
Luis Sanchez v. State, 460 S.W.3d 675, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 2113, 2015 WL 1138261 (Tex. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinions

OPINION

JOHN M. BAILEY, JUSTICE

The trial court found Luis Sanchez guilty of' assault-family violence for assaulting a person with whom he “has or has had” a dating relationship,, a third-degree felony. It assessed Sanchez’s pun[677]*677ishment at confinement for a term of six years and a $7,500 fíne. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.01(a)(1), (b)(2)(B) (West Supp. 2014). In a single issue on appeal, Appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding that he “has or has had” a dating relationship with the victim at the time of the alleged assault, and he also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding that he committed an assault. We affirm.

Appellant and the victim in this case, Rachael Price, lived together in the same household from sometime in 2006 until December 18, 2009, the date of the assault. At some point during that time, Appellant and Rachael became married by virtue of the common law, and they also had a child together.

Rachael testified that, on the afternoon of December 18, she was watching television in her bedroom. The couple’s two-year-old daughter was in a crib next to the bed. Appellant came into the bedroom, “threw” Rachael on the bed, and began “beating” her. Rachael did not know why Appellant was upset, but after he hit her in the head and on her side for a few minutes, he stopped hitting her. Rachael took their child into the bathroom and put her into a small tub to give her a bath. A short time later, Appellant returned. When he returned, Appellant pushed Rachael down to the floor and “started kicking [her] and hitting [her].” Appellant picked her up and held her by the throat with one hand while he held a knife to her throat with the other. Appellant told her that he would stop “if [she] told him the truth and confessed” to the many affairs in which he thought that Rachael was involved. Appellant eventually released Rachael and left'the room.

After the second assault of the day, Rachael finished bathing the child and returned to her bedroom. An hour later, Appellant came back into the bedroom and dragged Rachael by her hair to an empty bedroom. Appellant wanted Rachael to call her coworker because Appellant believed that Rachael had been having an affair with the coworker’s cousin. Appellant wanted Rachael to ask her coworker for the cousin’s phone number. Rachael testified that Appellant wrapped a telephone cord around her neck and forced her to make the phone call. The cord was tight and restricted her breathing. She was short of breath and could hardly speak during the phone call; her coworker asked her what was wrong. After Rachael ended the call with the coworker, Appellant released the phone cord, shoved her into a wall, and then left. These December 18 assaults were not the only times that Appellant had assaulted Rachael. Rachael also described the almost daily abuse that she had suffered at Appellant’s hands in the weeks leading up to the December 18 assaults.

When Appellant finally stopped assaulting her, Rachael “tried to call in” to her employer, but the manager at the Wal-greens store where she worked told her that she would probably be fired if she did not come to work that night; therefore, Rachael took the bus and went to work.

Rachael’s father, Michael Weldon Price, picked her up after work. Because Rachael did not want to go home, she stayed at her father’s house that night. The next morning, Appellant was “pounding on the door,” and Michael called 911. Appellant left before the police arrived. The following day, while Appellant was in jail, he tried to phone Rachael. Michael answered the phone and refused to let Appellant talk to Rachael. During that phone call, Appellant told Michael, “I know. I am sorry. I did those things. I did all of those terrible things, but I still love Rachael and I want us to be a family.”

[678]*678Rachael first reported the assault to police on December 20. At that time, one Odessa police officer took her statement, and another took pictures of her injuries. Detective Angie Reyes interviewed Rachael. Rachael told Detective Reyes about the assault and about the almost daily abuse that she had suffered before the December 18 assaults. Detective Reyes obtained Rachael’s medical records. The records showed that, in addition to the treatment for the December 18 injuries, Rachael was treated at an emergency room in Odessa on December 8 for an assault that she said had occurred on December 3. As a result of the December 3 assault, Rachael suffered significant swelling and bruising to her left hip and thigh, both eyes, and one of her hands; she was prescribed pain medicine. Rachael had claimed that she suffered those injuries when she was attacked on the way to a bus stop. During her interview with Detective Reyes, Rachael admitted that she had lied and that Appellant caused those injuries as well.

Detective Reyes phoned Appellant. When she identified herself as a detective with the Odessa Police Department, the call was disconnected. Appellant later phoned Detective Reyes and agreed to come to the police station for an interview; he neither appeared nor phoned, nor did he reschedule the interview. Because she believed that the evidence was consistent with Rachael’s story, Detective Reyes obtained a warrant for Appellant’s arrest. In March 2010, the grand jury returned an indictment against Appellant for the third-degree felony assault upon Rachael, a person with whom he “has or has had” a dating relationship.

Appellant pleaded not guilty to the charge in the indictment and proceeded to trial on the theory that he did not assault Rachael and that he did not cause her injuries. The trial court disagreed and found Appellant guilty of third-degree felony assault as charged in the indictment.

We first consider Appellant’s argument that the State failed to offer any evidence to prove the elements necessary to increase the assault offense from a Class A misdemeanor to a third-degree felony as alleged in the indictment. To increase the assault in this case to a third-degree felony, the State specifically alleged that Appellant impeded normal breathing or circulation of “Rach[a]el Price, a person with whom [Appellant] has or has had a dating relationship, as described by Section 71.0021(b), Family [C]ode.” See Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 71.0021 (West 2014). Appellant argues that the State presented no evidence at trial that such a “dating relationship” existed between Rachael and him at the time of the assault. Appellant maintains that the evidence conclusively established that he and Rachael were married at the'time of the assault. It is Appellant’s position that, because he and Rachael were married at the time of the alleged assault, Rachael was not a person with whom he “has or has had” a dating relationship. Therefore, Appellant urges that, because he was married to Rachael at the time of the alleged assault and not in a dating relationship with her, the trial court could not convict him of third-degree felony assault as expressly charged in the indictment. We disagree.

Appellant’s position is founded in part on the fact that in June 2010, subsequent to the date of the alleged assault, Rachael filed a petition for divorce. In that petition, she sought a divorce from Appellant and alleged that he was “guilty of cruel treatment ...

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
460 S.W.3d 675, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 2113, 2015 WL 1138261, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/luis-sanchez-v-state-texapp-2015.