State of Missouri, Plaintiff/Respondent v. Hermes Mendez

487 S.W.3d 66, 2016 WL 1442437, 2016 Mo. App. LEXIS 336
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 12, 2016
DocketED101892
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 487 S.W.3d 66 (State of Missouri, Plaintiff/Respondent v. Hermes Mendez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State of Missouri, Plaintiff/Respondent v. Hermes Mendez, 487 S.W.3d 66, 2016 WL 1442437, 2016 Mo. App. LEXIS 336 (Mo. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

SHERRI B. SULLIVAN, P.J.

Introduction

Hermes Mendez (Appellant) appeals from the trial court’s judgment entered upon a jury verdict convicting him of forcible sodomy arid- felonious restraint and sentencing him to a total of twelve years in prison. We affirm and remand for correction of clerical error. r !

Factual and Procedural Background

Twenty-year-old Victim and twenty-five-year-old Appellant were married with a one-year-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter at the time of the events leading up to the charges against Appellant for second-degree domestic assault, forcible sodomy, and felonious restraint. Appellant was charged with second-degree domestic assault for attempting to cause physical injury to Victim by holding her head under water, forcible sodomy for having deviate sexual intercourse with Victim by forcible compulsion, and felonious restraint for restraining Victim without her consent and exposing her to a substantial risk of serious physical injury.

The facts supporting these charges are as follows. On March 16, 2012, Appellant and Victim were home watching TV, when Appellant accused Victim of being a slut and a whore and punched her in the head. Appellant then went into ■ the bathroom, where he filled the bathtub with water and assembled the following items: a hammer, cell phone chargers, shoelaces, and a strip of cloth torn from a pair of their daughter’s pants.

Appellant called Victim into the bathroom and proceeded to tie her hands behind her back with the shoelaces, tie her feet with the cell phone chargers, tie the strip of pants around her mouth, and told her to get- into the bathtub. Victim got into ■ the bathtub. Appellant then asked her who she had been sleeping with. Victim did not answer. Appellant started repeating the question, and every time Victim did not .answer, he dunked her head under water. Victim finally told Appellant she had slept with someone so he would stop putting her head under water. Appellant then untied and released her.

Later that evening, when Victim went into, the .bathroom, she saw Appellant had assembled' some cucumbers and had spread Vaseline petroleum jelly on them as well as the hammer. Appellant then accused Victim of being a whore and said he was going to treat her like one. Appellant held the hammer in a threatening manner and told her to bend over. Appellant tried *68 to put the hammer into Victim’s anus, and Victim protested and said it was dirty. Appellant then retrieved one of the cucumbers and put it into Victim’s anus. Victim said it was very painful and she screamed for Appellant to stop. Appellant tried to put the other cucumber in Victim’s anus as well. Appellant then told Victim to take a shower because she smelled like “poop” and disgusted him.

Still later that evening, Victim tried to call 911 on their shared cell phone, but Appellant stopped her and took the battery out of the phone. Victim then tried escaping the house but Appellant grabbed her and choked her. When the three-year-old daughter told Appellant to leave Victim alone, Appellant hit her.

The next morning, before he left the house to go to the store, Appellant told Victim he wished he had killed her the night before. Once Appellant left the house, Victim took her daughters and ran out the back door. A passerby motorist stopped and took them to the police station, where Victim told Detective Michael Myers (Detective Myers) what Appellant had done to her. Victim was transported to the hospital for a sexual assault examination. The attending nurse took photographs of Victim’s injuries, which included a bruised and swollen eye; scratches on the back of her neck, shoulder and left hand; a bite mark on her back; bruises on her shoulder, arm, knees, and ankles; linear marks on her wrists; abrasions on her ankles; and bruising to Victim’s anal area.

At Appellant and Victim’s home, police found Appellant and arrested him. In the bathroom Detective Myers and two accompanying police officers found shoelaces; coaxial cable; a hammer with a Vaseline-coated handle; a wet towel with a cucumber, wrench, and phone charger inside; a cucumber in the trashcan; a half-empty jar of Vaseline; scissors; and a pair of pink children’s pants, with a portion cut off. Both cucumbers had a significant amount of Vaseline on them. A DNA analysis of the cucumbers revealed Victim’s DNA on one and Victim’s and Appellant’s DNA on the other. The DNA analyst observed brown stains on one of the cucumbers consistent with fecal material.

Appellant was charged by indictment with second-degree domestic assault (Count I), forcible sodomy (Count II), and felonious restraint (Count III). A jury trial was held June 2, 2014, through June 4, 2014. The jury found Appellant guilty of forcible sodomy and felonious restraint (Counts II and III), and not guilty of second-degree domestic assault (Count I). Appellant was sentenced to nine years on Count II and three years on Count III, to be served consecutively for a total of twelve years. This appeal follows. Additional facts pertinent to the points on appeal will be adduced as necessary.

Points on Appeal

In his first point, Appellant claims the trial court abused its discretion in admitting evidence of his alleged prior abuse of Victim because, as evidence of uncharged crimes or prior bad acts, its admission violated his right to be tried only on the charged offenses.

In his second point, Appellant asserts the trial court erred in overruling his motion for judgment of acquittal of felonious restraint at the close of all of the evidence because the evidence was insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt Victim was exposed to a substantial risk of serious physical injury, as evidenced by the jury’s acquittal on the domestic assault charge.

In his third point, Appellant maintains the trial court made a clerical error in its written judgment of conviction and sen *69 tence on Counts I and II because he was convicted and sentenced on Counts II and III and acquitted of Count I.

Standards of Review . .

The trial court has broad discretion to admit or exclude evidence at trial and this Court will reverse only upon a showing of a clear abuse of discretion. State v. Chaney, 967 S.W.2d 47, 55 (Mo.banc 1998).

This Court reviews the denial of a motion for acquittal to determine if the State adduced sufficient evidence to make a sub-missible case. State v. Moore, 432 S.W.3d 779, 781 (Mo.App.E.D.2014). We will affirm a trial court’s denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal if, at the close of evidence, there was sufficient evidence from which reasonable persons could have found the defendant guilty of the charged offense. Id In considering whether the evidence is sufficient to support the jury’s verdict, we must look to the elements of the crime and consider each in turn to determine whether a reasonable juror could find each of the elements beyond a reasonable doubt. Id.

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Related

State v. Davis
533 S.W.3d 853 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 2017)

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Bluebook (online)
487 S.W.3d 66, 2016 WL 1442437, 2016 Mo. App. LEXIS 336, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-missouri-plaintiffrespondent-v-hermes-mendez-moctapp-2016.