Ronie Wayne Smith v. State

439 S.W.3d 451, 2014 WL 2958274, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 7108
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 30, 2014
Docket01-12-00485-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 439 S.W.3d 451 (Ronie Wayne Smith 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
Ronie Wayne Smith v. State, 439 S.W.3d 451, 2014 WL 2958274, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 7108 (Tex. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

OPINION

MICHAEL MASSENGALE, Justice.

A jury convicted appellant Ronie Wayne Smith of aggravated sexual assault of a child less than 14 years old. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.021 (West 2011). The trial court determined punishment, sentencing Smith to 25 years in prison. The judgment also reflects $484.00 in statutory court costs. On appeal, Smith argues that the trial court erred by permitting the State to question him about a misdemeanor conviction for indecent exposure that was more than 10 years old. He also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the assessment of $484.00 in statutory court costs. We affirm, as modified to correct the spelling of Smith’s name and the assessment of mandatory statutory costs of court supported by the record.

Background

The indictment in this case alleged that Ronie Wayne Smith unlawfully, intentionally, and knowingly caused the sexual organ of the 13-year-old female complainant to contact his own sexual organ. The evidence showed that late one night after buying a snack at a convenience store, the complainant encountered Smith. She saw him before she climbed over a fence on her way to an apartment complex. Smith held her bag as she climbed over the fence. Once she was on the other side, he returned the bag and then began touching her breasts and genitals over her clothing. The complainant cried, kicked, and screamed for him to stop, but he grabbed her, forced her to the ground, and raped her. The complainant then returned to the apartment where she was staying. She testified that the assault was painful and that she bled for several days afterward.

*454 The complainant did not immediately report the assault. More than a week later, she told her teacher about the rape, and the teacher referred her to a school counselor. The counselor spoke with her, called her mother, and reported the outcry to the police. Houston Police Department Officer F. Medina met with the complainant and her family at their home. At first she was embarrassed to speak with him in front of her family, but when he pulled her aside, she was “extremely detailed” in describing the assault. She described the attacker’s clothing, and she noted that “he had several marks on his face,” “very bad teeth,” and “one of his toenails was missing.” She told Officer Medina that she would be able to recognize him.

Officer Medina contacted the counselor, who “basically gave the same statement but in less detail” as had the complainant. The complainant’s parents took her to Texas Children’s Hospital where she underwent a sexual assault examination, which revealed internal and external abrasions in her genital area that were consistent with her outcry. However, because of the passage of time since the assault, no DNA evidence was collected.

The day after the complainant’s outcry, her family members told her that they thought they knew the identity of her attacker and that they had seen him near the place where the assault occurred. They drove her to the location, where she saw Smith and identified him as the man who raped her. When she left with her mother to call the police, several of her relatives attacked Smith in retaliation for the rape.

H.P.D. Sergeant D. Schlosser was on patrol when he was dispatched to the scene of the assault on Smith. He described the scene as “tremendously chaotic” with people “yelling, screaming, [and] hollering” “various things,” including “he’s a rapist.” Sgt. Schlosser testified that the complainant and her mother were present and that he understood the crowd to consist of her friends and family. Smith was sitting in front of a house, and he was injured and bleeding. Sgt. Schlosser accessed a copy of the police report regarding the sexual assault, which included the complainant’s detailed description. Sgt. Schlosser asked Smith to remove his shoes, and he observed that Smith’s feet were “very unkempt,” had a “very putrid, pungent smell,” and “the pinky toes almost appeared as though they didn’t have a toenail.” Suspecting that Smith was the alleged assailant, Sgt. Schlosser contacted the Juvenile Sex Crimes investigators while Smith was treated by a Houston Fire Department ambulance crew. 1

H.P.D. Officer E. Hanson with the Juvenile Sex Crimes Division followed up with the complainant and her mother. She also prepared a photographic lineup from which the complainant identified Smith. In addition, the complainant gave a statement that was consistent with what she had previously told other officers.

Officer Hanson interviewed Smith, who waived his rights to remain silent and to an attorney and gave a recorded statement. In the statement, he initially denied having come into contact with the complainant, but when Officer Hanson mentioned the possible existence of DNA evi *455 dence, Smith said he had helped her with her bag.

Prior to trial, the State filed a notice of its intent to use evidence of Smith’s 29 prior convictions, ranging in date from January 1994 through January 2010. The offenses included: 10 convictions for criminal trespass; three convictions for terror-istic threat; three convictions for theft crimes; three convictions for possession of a controlled substance; two convictions for unlawfully carrying a weapon; and one conviction each for assault, indecent exposure, evading detention, evading arrest, resisting arrest, criminal mischief, delivery of a controlled substance, and public intoxication.

Trial was held in May 2012. The complainant, the police officers, and the sexual assault nurse examiner all testified. The nurse recounted what the complainant had told the doctor when she was seen at the hospital, and this recollection was consistent with the complainant’s own trial testimony. The nurse testified that there was physical evidence of sexual trauma, but on cross-examination she conceded that she could not determine if it was caused by consensual or nonconsensual sexual intercourse.

Before Smith testified, the court held a hearing outside the presence of the jury to determine which of his prior convictions would be admissible for impeachment. The State sought to introduce for the purpose of impeachment all of Smith’s felony offenses from the 10 years prior to trial (two felony convictions for possession of a controlled substance, a felony conviction for theft as a third offender, a felony conviction for theft from a person, and a felony conviction for delivery of a controlled substance) and two convictions from more than 10 years prior to trial (felony theft from a person in 2001 and misdemeanor indecent exposure in 1999). Smith did not oppose the use of the 2001 conviction for theft from a person or the felony convictions that were within the 10-year time frame.

However, he objected to the admission of the 1999 misdemeanor conviction for indecent exposure. The State characterized that offense as a crime of moral turpitude that was “highly relevant” to this case. Smith’s attorney argued:

I believe it’s highly prejudicial. I mean, it’s over ten years old. Just the fact, you know, the nature of the description of the offense is prejudicial.

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Bluebook (online)
439 S.W.3d 451, 2014 WL 2958274, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 7108, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ronie-wayne-smith-v-state-texapp-2014.