State v. Dorantes
| Decision Date | 07 October 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. M2007–01918–SC–R11–CD.,M2007–01918–SC–R11–CD. |
| Citation | 331 S.W.3d 370 |
| Parties | STATE of Tennesseev.Genaro DORANTES. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Benjamin A. Ball and John H. Bledsoe, Assistant Attorneys General; Victor S. Johnson, III, District Attorney General; Katrin N. Miller and Brian Holmgren, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellant, State of Tennessee.Jeffery Allen Devasher (on appeal), Nashville, Tennessee, and Amy D. Harwell and Ross Alderman (at trial), Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellee, Genaro Dorantes.
The defendant, who was extradited from Mexico to face charges for aggravated child abuse and felony murder by aggravated child abuse, was convicted for each offense. The trial court imposed sentences of twenty-two years and life, respectively, to be served consecutively. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction for aggravated child abuse, finding the evidence to be insufficient, but upheld the felony murder conviction. This Court granted applications for permission to appeal by both the State and the defendant. Because the circumstantial evidence was sufficient to support the convictions for both aggravated child abuse and felony murder, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is reversed in part and affirmed in part. More specifically, the conviction for felony murder is affirmed, and the conviction for aggravated child abuse is reinstated. No other issues warrant the grant of a new trial on either offense. The sentences imposed by the trial court for each of the two offenses are affirmed.
Luis Osvaldo Cisneros (the “victim”) was born in Mexico on July 16, 1998, the fourth child of Jose Luis Cisneros Servantes (“Cisneros”) and his wife, Martha Patlan–Cano (“Patlan”). Shortly after the victim's birth, the parents separated, and Cisneros moved to Houston, Texas, leaving his family in Mexico. In 2001, the victim and the three other children joined Cisneros in Houston. On June 18, 2002, one of the children, Martha Bernece Cisneros Patlan, observed Patlan and Genaro Edgar Espinosa Dorantes (the “defendant”) abduct the victim from Cisneros' yard, place him in a black vehicle, and drive away. At the time, the victim, not yet four years of age, was described as “normal and healthy.” He no longer wore diapers. Cisneros reported the abduction to the Houston police and, about two months later, traveled to Nashville in an unsuccessful effort to find the victim.
Patlan, who had given birth to a son fathered by the defendant on October 20, 2001, in Nashville, was “supposedly” staying at the apartment of the defendant's mother, but much of her time involved travel with the defendant. They had no established residence. In February of 2003, Patlan visited the apartment of her sister, Antonia Patlan (“Antonia”),2 who had lived in Nashville for some nine years. Appearing concerned about the victim, Patlan asked Antonia for “money to buy a cream” to treat his injuries, explaining that while she was in the bathroom, “she heard her child crying out” when he “burned himself with some corn cobs that she was cooking.” Antonia gave Patlan forty dollars to purchase medicine. One week later, Patlan returned to the apartment and asked Antonia for permission to store some toys, stating that she was about to take a trip to Florida. When Antonia asked to see the victim, Patlan led her to a white van parked outside and driven by the defendant. Antonia entered the van and saw the victim lying on his side in an apparent effort to protect the area around his buttocks—“in a position like maybe not to hurt himself.” She touched his head and asked, “what happened to you, my child?” The victim provided an unintelligible response. At that point, the defendant interrupted, saying “let's go, let's go woman, let's go, woman” to Patlan before driving away. In consequence, Antonia was unable to determine the nature or extent of the victim's injuries.
A few days later, on February 20, 2003, Patlan approached another one of her sisters, Maria Patlan–Cano (“Maria”), at the Nashville restaurant where she worked, claiming that the victim “was very sick” and in need of medication. Patlan was accompanied by the victim, her baby by the defendant, and her ten-year-old daughter by Cisneros, who by that time was somehow in Patlan's physical custody. After tearfully explaining that the victim had been burned while she had been cooking corn on the cob, Patlan expressed her fear to Maria that the victim might die. In response, Maria gave Patlan food and two hundred dollars, but insisted upon seeing the victim. When Maria went outside, however, the defendant, who was driving the white van, was reluctant to allow her to see the victim, claiming that he was blocking traffic. After the defendant moved the vehicle out of the street, Maria opened the door, observed the victim, and screamed, “why [is] the child like that?” Maria, who had described the victim as “chubbier” and “very happy” when she had last seen him in Mexico, noticed that he was very thin and that a foot was bandaged. He was positioned “[o]n his knees with his feet behind him” but did not move. When Maria asked the defendant why he had not provided medicine to the victim or taken him to the doctor, the defendant replied that “since he wasn't his father[,] he didn't have any reason to want to make him get better.” Maria then asked why the defendant had taken the victim away from his father if he did not intend to provide for his care. According to Maria, the defendant replied that “he didn't want to bring him[,] but that bitch [Patlan] wanted it to happen.” At that point, Patlan directed Maria to get out of the van because the defendant was angry. When Maria complied, the defendant drove away “really fast.”
Maria tried to get the license plate number in order to provide it to the police, but, because of the defendant's sudden departure, was unable to do so. Afterward, she asked her brother-in-law, Juan Sanchez (“Sanchez”), to contact the police and report her observations about the victim's health. Sanchez called 911; however, because of the language barrier, there was a delay in the processing of the information to the proper authorities within the department. Initially, in addition to an unidentified male child, Patlan was also thought to be a victim. After the report, patrol officers were notified, but the matter was not immediately assigned as a high priority.
Detective Sara Bruner of the Youth Services Division of the Metro Police Department had the responsibility for investigating child abuse and neglect cases and deaths of children twelve and under. She contacted Sanchez, who provided her with the victim's name and urged her “to find him.” As a result of their conversation, on February 21, 2003, Detective Bruner issued a notice for officers to be on the lookout for the van being driven by the defendant. Her investigation was to include not only the victim, but also the other two minors in the custody of Patlan and the defendant.
On February 23, 2003, three days after the initial report to the police, Jerry Moore of the Metropolitan Park Police was approached by a visibly shaken woman who had observed the body of a child on a grassy surface behind a mound of dirt in West Park in Nashville. The mound blocked the view of the body from the road and parking lot. Officer Moore found the body and secured the scene before Metro Police Detective Brad Corcoran of the Homicide Division arrived to conduct the investigation. No shoes were on the body, which was otherwise clothed. Because no grass stains were on the socks or pants and the body was not covered by the snow that had fallen during the night, Detective Corcoran deduced that the body had been placed at that location only a short time before its discovery. Later, Sanchez identified the body as that of the victim. On the following day, arrest warrants were issued for the defendant and Patlan. Despite substantial media coverage, including the mention of the crime on the “America's Most Wanted” television show, which resulted in several tips, the police were unable to locate either the defendant or Patlan.
Dr. Amy McMaster, the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner for Davidson County, who had special training in the interpretation of injuries, performed the autopsy the day after the body was found. She discovered that the victim was wearing a diaper at the time of his death and had bandages and a piece of cloth wrapped around his feet. The autopsy indicated that the victim had received “multiple, multiple” injuries to “virtually every surface of [his] body,” and had also suffered serious burns to entire areas of his feet, which were wrapped in elastic bandages and covered by socks. The nature of the numerous injuries, including horrific burns of “full and partial thickness,” 3 was illustrated by graphic photographs taken during the autopsy. After examining the contents of the diaper, which concealed the more severe burns, Dr. McMaster speculated that its primary purpose was to absorb blood that was probably caused by the scabbing and infection of the extreme burns to the entire area of the buttocks, rear upper thighs, and genitals.
According to Dr. McMaster, the burns were altogether inconsistent with injuries caused by a cooking accident and were consistent with “burn [im]mersion,” the result of the victim, likely in a sitting position with knees raised, having been intentionally forced into a liquid over 150 degrees for at least one second. The pattern of some of the “satellite” or splash burns suggested that the victim kicked and resisted as his buttocks and feet entered the water. In Dr....
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