Martin v. Martin

2015 Ark. App. 93, 455 S.W.3d 360, 2015 Ark. App. LEXIS 98
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedFebruary 11, 2015
DocketCV-14-621
StatusPublished

This text of 2015 Ark. App. 93 (Martin v. Martin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Martin v. Martin, 2015 Ark. App. 93, 455 S.W.3d 360, 2015 Ark. App. LEXIS 98 (Ark. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

WAYMOND M. BROWN, Judge

| Appellant Jesse Martin appeals from the January 21, 2014 divorce decree and findings of facts and conclusions of law entered by the Hot Spring County Circuit Court. Appellant argues that the circuit court erred in limiting his visitation with his daughter to “an average of 4.5 hours per week and in requiring that all visitation be supervised.” We affirm.

Appellant and appellee Jeri Martin were married on August 7, 2010, and lived together as husband and wife until they separated on or about February 5, 2013. One child, W.M., was born during the marriage on April 4, 2012. Appellee filed for divorce on February 15, 2013. 1 Appellant answered appellee’s complaints on March 6, 2013, seeking to have them |2dismissed. He filed a counterclaim for divorce on April 9, 2013. 2 A temporary order was entered on May 13, 2013, 3 awarding appel-lee temporary custody of W.M., and granting appellant a total of sixteen hours’ supervised visitation with the child a month. Appellant was also ordered to undergo a full psycho/sexual examination. Appellant filed a motion for psychological evaluation and modification of visitation on June 22, 2013.

A hearing on the motion took place on July 30, 2013. At the hearing, appellant testified that his visitation with W.M. was always distracted by appellee and her family. He asked that supervision be eliminated and that he receive more time with W.M. According to appellant, not only had his access to W.M. been “cut off,” but his family’s access had been as well.

Arthur Wayne Chupik testified that he performed appellant’s psycho-biosexual assessment. He stated that he interviewed appellant and most of his family members as part of the assessment. He also said that appellant was requited to take a polygraph. Chupik testified that he reviewed text messages and Facebook pages, which he used in his assessment. Chupik opined that appellant would not be a danger to his child or any child. He stated that he saw no reason for appellant’s visitation with his daughter to be restricted or supervised.

On cross-examination, Chupik stated that he did not speak to appellee about her concerns during the assessment of appellant. He said that he did not ask appellant about his comment to appellee that he wished to have sex with their daughter when she was older so Rthat he could train her because he (Chupik) did not know anything about the comment. He stated that appellant’s text message about sexual interactions with his siblings consisted of true events and “simply fantasy-like thinking.” Chupik acknowledged that in Exhibit 5, appellant was talking about looking at his then-thirteen-to-fourteen-year-old half-sister’s breast. 4 He further acknowledged that appellant reported that he was sexually attracted to fourteen-to seventeen-year-old teenage girls and adult females. He testified that to him, a child for purposes of his report was six years old and younger. He also stated that appellant’s attraction to adolescents was not an issue unless acted upon. Chupik stated that he would consider appellant’s asking his half-sister to send him a photo of her breast acting upon an impulse; however, he stated that this was a one-time incident and did not show a pattern of behavior. He testified that appellant was acting on an impulse if appellant stated that he would have sex with his daughter when she is older and if he made a request to get a fifteen-year-old girl to his house so that he could get a photograph of her breasts; however, he stated that he did not have this information at the time of the assessment. He further stated that he did not bring the information he received from appellee to court with him because it “would have been too much to carry.” Chupik concluded that appellant would have to “act upon it” (his impulses toward young females) before he changed his opinion as it relates to the safety of W.M.

Appellee testified that she received text messages asking her to “sext” appellant because she was no good at talking dirty during sex. She stated that she wanted supervised visitation to continue because she feared for W.M.’s safety. She said that while she was pregnant with |4W.M. appellant told her that his fantasy was to have sex with young kids. In regard to her fifteen-year-old niece, appellee stated:'

Mr. Martin told me that he has seen up her shorts, that she would sit on his lap and that he would become aroused, and that she had put her hand on him knowing what it was. He requested that I show pictures of himself to her. His private area, to her. He sent me the picture, and I denied to show it to her. He also requested that she come to the house and that he could walk out of the shower naked so that he could see the look on her face. I did not do that. That was the only time he’s ever requested that I set something up like that.

She stated that appellant continued to have sexual relations with his brother and neighbor until appellant was twenty-one. She testified that in 2010, appellant tried to “set something up with the brother and the sister-in-law.”

On cross-examination, appellee stated that she participated in “sexting” when appellant “badgered” her into it. However, she denied ever “sexting” anything about her and her father or her and her uncle. Appellee acknowledged that she sent appellant a picture of her aunt with a bra on. She admitted that when she was seven or eight, she and a girl from her neighborhood would rub and kiss on each other; however, she denied insertion or ejaculation. Appellee stated that appellant never bathed alone with W.M. before they separated, but that he would sometimes keep W.M. for two to three hours at a time without supervision.

Appellant testified that he was alone with W.M. during the first year of her life. He stated that appellee never said or did anything to indicate to him that she thought he was “a danger or weird.” He said that appellee responded to his “sexts” throughout their marriage.

The court issued a letter opinion on August 2, 2013, denying appellant’s motion. A temporary order was entered on August 21, 2018, stating in pertinent part:

IfiThe Court at this time does not change the supervised visitation rights of the Defendant. This finding is based upon several key factors that were presented in evidence to the Court. First of all, Plaintiffs Exhibit Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7 are direct text messages by the Defendant, Jesse Odean Martin, to the Plaintiff, Jeri Lin Martin. The text messages were not all fantasy texts, but were text messages directly concerning the conduct and the inability of the Wife to satisfy her Husband and/ or discussions concerning conduct that the Defendant, Jesse Odean Martin, had during his own childhood^ and during his life involving other members of his family. The Court finds that the text messages are truly disturbing and [bizarre]. The Defendant’s dirty text messaging about the Wife’s inability to satisfy him shows he does have some strange sexual tendency. The statement of the Defendant Jesse Odean Martin, to the Plaintiff, Jeri Lin Martin, “he would when the child was old enough, train his daughter on sexual matters” shows he has a potential deviant sexual problem.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Alphin v. Alphin
219 S.W.3d 160 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2005)
Winn v. WINN ENTERPRISES, LTD. PARTNERSHIP
265 S.W.3d 125 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2007)
Williams v. Ramsey
270 S.W.3d 345 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2007)
Hicks v. Cook
288 S.W.3d 244 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2008)
Robinson v. Ford-Robinson
208 S.W.3d 140 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2005)
Hunt v. Perry
162 S.W.3d 891 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2004)
Sharp v. Keeler
256 S.W.3d 528 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2007)
Phillips v. Phillips
2014 Ark. App. 486 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2014)
Stills v. Stills
2010 Ark. 132 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2010)
Baber v. Baber
2011 Ark. 40 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2011)
Boudreau v. Pierce
384 S.W.3d 664 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2011)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2015 Ark. App. 93, 455 S.W.3d 360, 2015 Ark. App. LEXIS 98, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/martin-v-martin-arkctapp-2015.