Thompson v. State

227 S.W.3d 153, 2006 WL 3628888
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided June 20, 2007·No. 01-05-00694-CR, 01-05-00704-CR·Published·Cited by 19 cases

Opinion

OPINION

EVELYN V. KEYES, Justice.

A jury convicted appellant, Warren Eugene Thompson, of injury to a child (appellate cause number 01-05-00694), 1 a third degree felony, and sentenced him to ten years’ imprisonment. The jury also convicted appellant of injury to a child by omission (appellate cause number 01-05-00704), 2 and sentenced him to 10 years’ community supervision. The jury made an affirmative finding that appellant used a *156 deadly weapon during the commission of both offenses. The jury also assessed a $10,000 fine in each case. In four issues, appellant argues that (1) the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to support his conviction for injury to a child by omission; (2) the evidence is factually insufficient to support his conviction for injury to a child; and (3) the trial court erred in refusing to charge the jury on the lesser included offense of recklessly causing bodily injury to a child.

We affirm.

Facts

At the time of the offense, appellant lived with his girlfriend, Sheila Crowder, and her five-year-old daughter, R.C., in an apartment in Pearland, Texas. Around 5:00 p.m. on February 27, 2004, Ronald Weidman, an investigator for Child Protective Services, arrived at appellant’s apartment to investigate a call about R.C. Only appellant and R.C. were at home; Crow-der was at work. Weidman explained why he was there and asked to speak to R.C. in private; appellant consented. As Weid-man and R.C. walked to her bedroom, he noticed that the way she walked indicated that she was in pain.

Once in R.C.’s bedroom, Weidman conducted a tape recorded interview. After asking some preliminary questions, Weid-man asked R.C. what had happened to her feet. She initially stated, “I turned the water on, and it got hot. I got in the shower, and it got hot.” A few questions later, when Weidman asked whether appellant had been involved, R.C. answered that he had held her feet under the water because she had lied. Weidman then tried to take off her socks, but R.C. resisted, saying, “It hurts — I hurt bad.” Afraid that he might aggravate her injuries, Weidman decided to wait and let someone else remove her socks. When Crowder arrived at the apartment, she took off R.C.’s socks, and Weidman saw that R.C.’s feet had been “burned very badly; and one of the blisters on one of the feet appeared not to have closed completely.” Weidman took some photographs of R.C.’s feet, which were later admitted at trial.

After speaking with his supervisors, Weidman asked Crowder to voluntarily place R.C. with a friend or relative; Crow-der agreed. That evening, R.C. was placed with her grandmother, Mrs. Burk-ett. The next morning, Crowder, Burkett, and Weidman took R.C. to the emergency room at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston where topical treatment was recommended. Up to that point, according to Weidman, there was no evidence of any treatment in the approximately two months since the burns had occurred, except socks being used as bandages.

Almost two weeks later, R.C. was taken to the ABC Clinic in Galveston, a facility for examining children who may be the victims of abuse and neglect. Eva Novak Blight, a nurse practitioner, performed a head-to-toe physical examination of R.C., noting that R.C. had difficulty walking and was in pain while doing so. Scar tissue had also begun to form, tightening the skin on the tops of R.C.’s feet and pulling up her toes. Blight testified that, if the burns had been properly treated from the beginning, the pulling of the toes would not have been a concern. While this is something that can be corrected, according to Blight, it is “not a simple one-time done deal,” but “a serial procedure.” Blight also noticed that the bottoms of R.C.’s feet had not been burned, there were no splash marks, and there were lines of demarcation on her feet — all signs of abuse. When Blight asked R.C. how her feet had been burned, she responded, “My daddy held my feet in *157 the water, and I burned my feet. I was being bad.”

Blight further testified that Burkett had told her that some wet-to-dry dressings and burn ointment had been applied by R.C.’s mother. This treatment, according to Blight, had not enhanced the injury, but had done nothing to aid the healing process; the burns had required immediate emergency care. She also testified that, while socks are used to hold dressings in places, they are not used alone. Gauze, or something non-adherent that comes off easily without taking new skin with it, should have been used for R.C.’s burns. When asked to look at the pictures Weid-man had taken of R.C.’s feet, Blight noticed that a significant piece of tissue was missing from the top of her left foot, hypothesizing that any new skin that had formed kept getting pulled off.

While at the ABC Clinic, Dr. Lukefahr also examined R.C., noting that the bottoms of her feet had not been burned, there were no splash marks, and there were sharp lines of demarcation on her feet. These were all signs of a forced immersion, Dr. Lukefahr testified, because under normal circumstances, R.C. would have reflexively tried to get her feet out of the water. The medical evidence, according to Dr. Lukefahr, did not support the conclusion that R.C. had injured herself. Ultimately concluding that the burns to R.C.’s feet were so severe'that she required the care of a burn specialist, he immediately made arrangements for her to be treated at Shriners Burn Hospital in Galveston.

A few days later, R.C. saw Dr. Sanford at Shriners Burn Hospital. After examining her feet, he prescribed topical treatment for the open wound on her left foot and several different treatments for scar management. When asked about the lack of medical care for R.C. and whether this lack of care had influenced her recovery, Dr. Sanford replied that skin grafting is recommended for wounds taking longer than two weeks to heal. During his testimony, Dr. Sanford — also emphasizing that the bottoms of R.C.’s feet were not burned, there were defined lines of demarcation, and there were no splash marks— concluded that her case had “many of the hallmarks of a forced immersion.” Dr. Sanford further testified that at 120 degrees Fahrenheit — the maximum temperature of the water at appellant’s apartment — it would take approximately six and one-half minutes for a five-year-old child, like R.C., to suffer third-degree burns. Upon seeing the pictures Weidman had taken, Dr. Sanford noted “an area on the top of her left foot that [was] open and ... that was probably originally a full thickness burn ..--i.e., a third-degree burn.

Weidman and C. Arnold, a detective in the Pearland Police Department, both testified about appellant’s explanation for the burns to R.C.’s feet. Weidman testified that when he asked appellant how R.C. had burned her feet, appellant said that he had gone into the bathroom and found her straddling the spigot with the hot water on. He had then, put her on the side of the tub and she burned her feet while sitting there as the water rose. Appellant later told Detective Arnold that R.C. went into the bathtub to prepare her water. When he later walked by, he saw her standing in the tub, near the faucet, with her feet spread out to the edges of the tub. When appellant asked her what was wrong, she answered that the water was hot.

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Thompson v. State, 227 S.W.3d 153, 2006 WL 3628888 (Tex. Ct. App. 2007).

227 S.W.3d 153 (Thompson v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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