State of Maine v. Elfido Marroquin-Aldana

2014 ME 47, 89 A.3d 519, 2014 WL 1202619, 2014 Me. LEXIS 50
CourtSupreme Judicial Court of Maine
DecidedMarch 25, 2014
DocketDocket Lin-12-592
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 2014 ME 47 (State of Maine v. Elfido Marroquin-Aldana) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Judicial Court of Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State of Maine v. Elfido Marroquin-Aldana, 2014 ME 47, 89 A.3d 519, 2014 WL 1202619, 2014 Me. LEXIS 50 (Me. 2014).

Opinion

SILVER, J.

[¶ 1] Elfido Marroquin-Aldana appeals from a judgment of conviction of gross sexual assault (Class A), 17-A M.R.S. § 253(1)(C) (2013), entered in the trial court (Hjelm, J.) after a jury trial. Mar-roquin-Aldana argues that the court erred or abused its discretion in denying Marro-quin-Aldana access to immigration records pertaining to the victim’s mother, in denying Marroquin-Aldana’s motions to continue the trial, in finding the minor victim competent to testify at trial, and in failing to provide adequate interpretation services at trial. We focus on the immigration records and interpretation issues and affirm the judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

[¶ 2] The following facts are drawn from the trial record, viewed in the light most favorable to the State. State v. Mer *521 cier, 2014 ME 28, ¶2, 87 A.3d 700. In 2002, the victim’s mother, Lissette, accepted employment as a housekeeper for the victim’s father, Joseph, who is a dentist. Lissette and her son Joshua moved into Joseph’s Maine home. Eventually, Lis-sette and Joseph’s relationship became romantic, and they were married in 2005. The victim was born in 2006.

[¶ 3] In 2011, Lissette met a woman named Carolina to discuss possible employment in Lissette and Joseph’s home. Lissette and Joseph interviewed Carolina at her home in Massachusetts, where they also met Carolina’s longtime partner, Mar-roquin-Aldana. 1 As a result of that meeting, Carolina came to stay with the victim’s family as a housekeeper in early May 2011.

[¶ 4] At the time of Carolina’s arrival, work was being done on the family’s home and the family was living in a building that also housed Joseph’s dental office. During this period, Marroquin-Aldana made at least one trip to Maine. On one such occasion, Marroquin-Aldana’s car broke down and he stayed at least one night with the family and Carolina in the office building. 2 By June 2011, the family had moved back into their home, and Marroquin-Al-dana had moved in with them. Marro-quin-Aldana and Carolina stayed in a third-floor bedroom with no bathroom of its own. They showered in a bathroom on the second floor, which was connected to Lissette’s and the victim’s bedrooms.

[¶ 5] The victim testified that while she and her family were still staying in the office building, Marroquin-Aldana 3 put his “private part” in her “private part.” 4 The victim testified that this occurred in her bedroom while Carolina was doing laundry in the next room. The victim also testified that Marroquin-Aldana assaulted her on two occasions in the family home. In one instance, Marroquin-Aldana put his “private part” in her mouth in the bathroom connected to her room. In the other instance, Marroquin-Aldana put his “private part” in her “private part” in Carolina and Marroquin-Aldana’s bedroom.

[¶ 6] On June 22, 2011, Marroquin-Al-dana and Carolina took Joshua and the victim to see a movie while Lissette was out with a friend. When Lissette returned home that night, she found the victim asleep in Lissette’s bed, 5 still wearing the clothes that she had worn that day. Lissette then changed the victim into her pajamas. As she was removing the victim’s shorts and underwear, Lis-sette observed a dark stain on the victim’s underwear and discharge from the victim’s vagina, which she described as looking “like dead blood.” Lissette cleaned off the discharge using the victim’s shorts. Lissette learned through an internet search that the discharge could be an in *522 fection or a sign of sexual abuse. She then rolled up the victim’s underwear and shorts and put them in her bedside table. Lissette spoke to Carolina about the discharge, and Carolina said she had never seen anything like that. Lissette did not talk to the victim or Joseph about the incident at that time.

[¶ 7] Several days later, 6 while watching a movie with Lissette in Lissette’s bedroom, the victim told Lissette that her “private part” hurt. Lissette asked whether someone had touched her private part; the victim said yes, and told her who it was. The victim then told Lissette that “he put it in my mouth.” Lissette asked what it looked like, at which point the victim drew a picture that was later admitted in evidence. The victim identified the picture as a drawing of Marroquin-Alda-na’s “private part.”

[¶ 8] Lissette informed Joseph of what had happened, and the next day they confronted Marroquin-Aldana and accused him of assaulting the victim. Marroquin-Aldana denied it. Lissette and Joseph asked Marroquin-Aldana to leave, and he and Carolina moved out. Marroquin-Al-dana and Carolina later gave Lissette and Joseph an address in Chicago where they could be reached so that Lissette and Joseph could send them the title to a car.

[¶ 9] Lissette and Joseph did not immediately call the police in part because Lissette was concerned that she might be deported if she involved the authorities. Lissette, born in Guatemala, arrived in the United States in 1992 as a legal immigrant with a work permit and Social Security number. In 2002 or 2003, Lissette was ordered to return to Guatemala. Lissette testified that she had hired an immigration attorney but represented herself at the hearing before an immigration court. She hired another attorney and unsuccessfully pursued an appeal. She received a final deportation notice in 2003, which she ignored. 7 Lissette testified that, in June 2011, she was facing the same immigration issues that she had faced for the past nine years, and denied receiving any communications from immigration authorities that year. On July 21, 2011, after the confrontation with Marroquin-Aldana, Lissette again consulted an immigration attorney.

[¶ 10] Marroquin-Aldana repeatedly called Lissette and Joseph regarding the title to the car, and on July 25, 2011, called Lissette names and said that they had nothing on him and could not prove anything. Lissette became convinced that they needed to call the authorities, which Joseph did the next day. Later, in February 2012, Lissette filed an application for a “U visa” based on her participation in Marroquin-Aldana’s prosecution. 8 Lis- *523 sette testified that she believes that obtaining a U visa would solve her immigration issues, but maintained that she did not know that U visas were available until after she called the police.

[¶ 11] Lissette put the shorts and underwear that she had kept in the bedside table into a plastic bag and gave the bag to the police. She also gave the police several tissues that she had found while cleaning Marroquin-Aldana and Carolina’s old room and had stored in a sealed plastic bag in her bureau. The tissues appeared to Lissette to have been used by someone “cleaning themselves,” and Lissette thought that they might help “identify somehow.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2014 ME 47, 89 A.3d 519, 2014 WL 1202619, 2014 Me. LEXIS 50, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-maine-v-elfido-marroquin-aldana-me-2014.