STATE OF LOUISIANA VERSUS HECTOR LEYVA-MARTINEZ AKA HECTOR L. MARTINEZ AKA HECTOR LEYVA AKA HECTOR LAZARO LEYVA MARTINEZ

Louisiana Court of Appeal·Decided April 30, 2008·No. KA-0007-1255·Unknown

Opinion

STATE OF LOUISIANA

COURT OF APPEAL, THIRD CIRCUIT

07-1255

STATE OF LOUISIANA VERSUS

HECTOR LEYVA-MARTINEZ AKA HECTOR L. MARTINEZ AKA HECTOR LEYVA AKA HECTOR LAZARO LEYVA MARTINEZ

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APPEAL FROM THE

FOURTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF CALCASIEU, NO. 13551-04 HONORABLE ARTHUR J. PLANCHARD, DISTRICT JUDGE

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OSWALD A. DECUIR

JUDGE

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Court composed of Sylvia R. Cooks, Oswald A. Decuir, and Michael G. Sullivan, Judges.

AFFIRMED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.

John F. DeRosier District Attorney Carla S. Sigler Assistant District Attorney Fourteenth Judicial District Court 1020 Ryan Street Lake Charles, LA 70601 (337) 437-3400 Counsel for Appellee:

State of Louisiana

W. Jarred Franklin Louisiana Appellate Project 3001 Old Minden Road Bossier City, LA 71112 (318) 746-7467 Counsel for Defendant/Appellant:

Hector Leyva- Martinez

Hector Leyva- Martinez In Proper Person Louisiana State Penitentiary Walnut-3 Angola, LA 70712

DECUIR, Judge.

Hector Leyva-Martinez was charged by amended indictment with aggravated rape, a violation of La.R.S. 14:42, and carjacking, a violation of La.R.S. 14:64.2. After a jury trial, the Defendant was found guilty on both charges. After the Defendant’s motion for post verdict judgment of acquittal was denied, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence on the conviction for aggravated rape, and ten years at hard labor on the carjacking conviction. The sentences were ordered to be served consecutively.

On appeal, the Defendant raises four assignments of error: 1) insufficient evidence to prove the offenses of aggravated rape and carjacking beyond a reasonable doubt; 2) trial court error in the denial of a motion to suppress; 3) erroneous jury instructions on intent; and 4) excessive sentences. For the following reasons, we affirm. FACTS:

On the evening of May 29, 2004, the victim, M.S.,1 was with friends at the night club Yesterdays, located on Common Street in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Sometime during the night, feeling a little drunk and sick, she left the club and went out to her truck which was parked in the parking lot next to the street. She got into the truck, rolled down the windows to get some fresh air, and fell asleep. Upon awakening, the victim found herself being sexually attacked and held down by an unknown assailant. Her pants were pulled down and her sweater was pulled over her head. The assailant penetrated her vaginally and anally. He then threw her out of the truck and drove away. The victim discovered she did not know where she was and ran to the first house she saw for help. The Defendant was apprehended the next day when he returned to Yesterdays’ parking lot to pick up his car. Shortly thereafter, the

1 In accordance with La.R.S. 46:1844(W), the victim’s initials are used to protect her identity.

victim’s truck was found at his residence. Sperm samples were taken from the victim’s rectum. The DNA samples were consistent with the DNA profile obtained from the Defendant. ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR NUMBER 1:

The Defendant does not deny that he was the rapist. He argues, however, that the evidence was insufficient to sustain a verdict of aggravated rape. He contends the evidence can only support a conviction for simple rape because there was a “lack of evidence that M.S. resisted the act to the utmost or that her resistance was overcome by force.” Moreover, the Defendant argues, she was intoxicated at the time of the rape. In the alternative, the Defendant argues he was guilty only of forcible rape.

Under Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), the proper standard of appellate review for a sufficiency of evidence claim is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

State v. Bellamy, 599 So.2d 326 (La.App. 2d Cir.), writ denied, 605 So.2d 1089 (La.1992).

State v. Hanson, 41,195, p. 4 (La.App. 2 Cir. 8/23/06), 938 So.2d 1147, 1150, writ denied, 06-2318 (La. 4/20/07), 954 So.2d 158.

At trial, the victim testified as follows:

On Memorial Day, May 29, 2007, in the early evening she went with a friend to a bar in Lake Charles. She had a beer and played pool. About an hour later, she and her friend went to Yesterdays and met up with several other friends. M.S. stated she parked her Ford F-150 truck in the parking lot, next to the street and under a street light. She went in and drank five to six more beers. Early in the morning she began to feel woozy and went out to her truck to get some fresh air. She stated she threw-up, got into the driver’s side of the truck, took off her shoes, and fell asleep.

She said she must have left the keys to the truck either on the center console or in the ignition.

The victim testified that the next thing she knew, she was bent over the center console of the truck. Her knees were on the passenger seat and she was shoved between the front seats with her face pushed into the back seat. She said she could not breathe:

A. I fought and I screamed for him to stop; and like every time I could get my -- my arm free, I would try to hit and fight, but I mean, like my head was being pressed, and -- and I was being, like, choked.

Like he had his hand on my neck pushing me into the seat. I fought as much as I could. I--I mean, like I was bent over the seat.

....

Q. Did you fight back the whole time?

A. Yes, sir, the whole time. I -- I think I hit him -- I know I hit him once whenever like I got my arm loose, because he was holding me.

That’s where all those bruises and stuff are from. And I -- I hit him once, like swinging behind me.

Q. And what did he do in retaliation?

A. That’s whenever he hit me and that -- that mark’s on my behind.

A videotape of an interview with M.S., conducted on the day following the attack, was shown to the jury. On the tape, M.S. stated that she was pressed between the front seats. She tried to turn around in order to see his face, but every time she attempted to, he would push her face into the back seat by her neck. She stated she felt as if she could have overpowered him if she had not been effectively locked in by the position she was in. She stated that he penetrated her several times vaginally and anally. She stated that she was very afraid and begged for her life. She tried to tell him she could not breathe, but he kept hitting her because she would not stop struggling.

The Defendant argues he could not have committed aggravated rape because the victim was unconscious when the rape commenced. According to the Defendant, this scenario fits the definition of simple rape not aggravated rape.

Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:42(A) defines aggravated rape as a rape “where the anal, oral, or vaginal sexual intercourse is deemed to be without lawful consent of the victim” under any one or more of the following pertinent circumstances:

(1) When the victim resists the act to the utmost, but whose resistance is overcome by force.

(2) When the victim is prevented from resisting the act by threats of great and immediate bodily harm, accompanied by apparent power of execution.

Conversely, the victim’s intoxication can be a factor in simple rape, which is defined at La.R.S. 14:43(A), in pertinent part:

[A] rape committed when the anal, oral, or vaginal sexual intercourse is deemed to be without the lawful consent of a victim because it is committed under any one or more of the following circumstances:

(1) When the victim is incapable of resisting or of understanding the nature of the act by reason of a stupor or abnormal condition of mind produced by an intoxicating agent or any cause and the offender knew or should have known of the victim’s incapacity.

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STATE OF LOUISIANA VERSUS HECTOR LEYVA-MARTINEZ AKA HECTOR L. MARTINEZ AKA HECTOR LEYVA AKA HECTOR LAZARO LEYVA MARTINEZ, (La. Ct. App. 2008).

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