State v. Alvarez-Abrego

225 P.3d 396, 154 Wash. App. 351
CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedFebruary 2, 2010
DocketNo. 38151-6-II
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 225 P.3d 396 (State v. Alvarez-Abrego) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Alvarez-Abrego, 225 P.3d 396, 154 Wash. App. 351 (Wash. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinions

Van Deren, C.J.

¶1 Jose AIvarez-Abrego appeals his conviction for second degree child assault,1 arguing that the trial court erred by admitting double hearsay evidence that the child victim was thrown against a wall, thus violating his Sixth Amendment2 right to confrontation under Crawford,,3 and that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. In his statement of additional grounds for review,4 he contends that his counsel was ineffective and argues other facts outside the record. We hold that any error is harmless and affirm.

FACTS

I. Incident and Investigation

¶2 On August 29, 2007, at approximately 1:30 pm, Kristina Rondeau left her apartment in Centraba, Washington, with her 10 year old son, BEC, for a doctor’s appointment.5 Rondeau’s boyfriend, AIvarez-Abrego, periodically lived with her and often cared for the children while she was away. That afternoon, Rondeau left her four other children, including her four year old daughter RRR and six month old son MJS, in Alvarez-Abrego’s care. RRR was the oldest child remaining at the apartment. No other adults were present and MJS was uninjured when Rondeau left.

¶3 Between 6:00 and 6:30 pm, Rondeau returned home and saw MJS sleeping in his baby seat. She told AIvarez-Abrego to accompany her to the store. At that point, “[AIvarez-Abrego] grabbed [MJS] and put him in the stroller and went downstairs real fast” while she readied [356]*356the other children. Report of Proceedings (RP) (June 9, 2008) at 79-80. Alvarez-Abrego pushed MJS in the stroller on their way to and from the store. Rondeau thought that Alvarez-Abrego was acting unusually attached to MJS.

¶4 When they returned to the apartment, Rondeau noticed that the side of MJS’s head was swollen behind his left ear. Rondeau immediately took MJS to a neighbor, who drove them to the Centraba hospital. Hospital staff decided to transfer MJS to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma.

¶5 At Mary Bridge, Dr. Yolanda Duralde examined MJS twice over the period of several hours. She determined that MJS had suffered a complex skull fracture behind his left ear and that he had significant bleeding under his scalp. Duralde also diagnosed a healing fracture to MJS’s rib and chip fractures to his wrist and ankles. Rondeau told Dr. Duralde that RRR said that Alvarez-Abrego had thrown MJS against the wall.

¶6 While Rondeau and MJS were at the hospital, Centraba Police Officer Ruben Ramirez interviewed AlvarezAbrego at the apartment. Ramirez asked if Alvarez-Abrego knew what had happened to MJS. Alvarez-Abrego responded that, earlier the previous day, while he was putting on his shoes and socks in the bedroom, he heard MJS begin to cry. When Alvarez-Abrego found MJS, he was on the carpet with his siblings, crying. Alvarez-Abrego also told Ramirez that he took MJS and the other children to the store while Rondeau was away but that he did not see anything happen to MJS.

¶7 Centraba Police Officer Carl Buster arrested Alvarez-Abrego. When Buster asked Alvarez-Abrego if he had thrown MJS against the wall, Alvarez-Abrego paused and then in a soft voice denied throwing MJS. AlvarezAbrego suggested that one of the other children may have caused MJS’s injuries.

¶8 The State charged Alvarez-Abrego with second degree child assault by either (1) “recklessly inflicting substantial [357]*357bodily harm” or (2) “causing] bodily harm that was greater than transient physical pain or minor temporary marks” after “having previously engaged in a pattern or practice of either assaulting the child which had resulted in bodily harm that was greater than transient pain or minor temporary marks, or causing the child physical pain or agony that was equivalent to that produced by torture.” Clerk’s Papers at 92-93; see RCW 9A.36.130(1)(b).

II. Trial

¶9 On the morning of trial, the State asked the trial court to rule under the ER 803(a)(4) medical hearsay exception6 on the admissibility of Duralde’s likely testimony that Rondeau told her that RRR said that AlvarezAbrego threw MJS against the wall. Alvarez-Abrego objected, arguing that (1) the State chose to forgo a competency hearing for RRR, (2) the statement was hearsay upon hearsay without a hearsay exception for RRR’s statement to her mother, and (3) identification of the alleged perpetrator did not further Duralde’s medical diagnosis under the hearsay exception. The State chose not to call RRR as a witness on the advice of her counselor, not because RRR was an incompetent witness.

¶10 Impliedly overruling the threshold issue of double hearsay, the trial court ruled that Duralde could not name who purportedly threw MJS against the wall but that she could testify that MJS sustained his injuries after being thrown against a wall because the means by which the injury occurred was reasonably pertinent to the doctor’s diagnosis and treatment.7

¶11 At trial, Duralde testified that MJS suffered a “stelly fracture” with multiple fractures radiating from the impact [358]*358point on his skull. RP (June 9, 2008) at 41-42. She explained that, unlike simple, straight linear fractures that occur when children fall from short heights, the amount of blunt force trauma necessary to cause MJS’s fracture was equivalent to a fall from 10 to 20 feet — likely more force than a five year old sibling8 could cause by dropping MJS in the apartment.

[THE STATE:] So based on your training and experience, do you think that a five-year-old child could hold a 16- to 18- pound infant and generate enough force to that infant to cause the kind of fracture you saw in [MJS]?

[DURALDE:] I think it - that’s quite a heavy child for a little kid to pick up, and depending - I don’t think they could pick them up high enough. The only way they could probably generate enough force is if they hit them against something specific, a corner of something or a toy of some sort. Even then, they probably wouldn’t have enough force to actually make that fracture occur. So that would be difficult just because the kid weighs so much in comparison to the five-year-old.

RP (June 9, 2008) at 44-45.

¶12 She also explained that, because an infant’s skull is still pliable, it is harder to fracture than an adult’s skull; therefore, MJS’s head likely hit a hard surface, such as a wall or a concrete or wood floor. When children are dropped, roll off furniture, or experience similar short falls, Duralde saw “skull fractures or clavicular fractures about one percent of the time.”9 RP (June 9, 2008) at 42.

[359]*359¶13 According to Duralde, MJS would definitely have experienced pain following his skull injury comparable to a bad headache followed by a low, dull ache:

[THE STATE:] ... So if a child were to suffer a fracture like the one you saw in [MJS], would you expect that child to continue crying for a long period of time or to cry and then cease crying after some short period of time?

[DURALDE:] I’d expect him to keep crying until someone soothed him, unless there was something else going on with him.

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Bluebook (online)
225 P.3d 396, 154 Wash. App. 351, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-alvarez-abrego-washctapp-2010.