Flores v. State
| Decision Date | 21 March 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. CR 01-1295.,CR 01-1295. |
| Citation | 348 Ark. 28,69 S.W.3d 864 |
| Parties | Bryant M. FLORES v. STATE of Arkansas. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Daniel D. Becker, Hot Springs, for appellant.
Mark Pryor, Att'y Gen., by: Michael C. Angel, Ass't Att'y Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.
Appellant Bryant Flores appealed his conviction of second-degree murder for the murder of Victor Stephens, for which he received a sentence of twelve years, to the Court of Appeals. He raised one issue: the trial court erred in admitting a hearsay statement based on the medical-diagnosis exception to the hearsay rule. The Court of Appeals agreed with Flores and reversed the judgment of conviction and remanded for a new trial. See Flores v. State, 75 Ark.App. 397, 58 S.W.3d 417 (2001). The State petitioned this court for review, and we granted the same. We reverse the judgment of conviction and remand for a new trial.
In March of 2000, Flores was living with his girlfriend, Karen Stephens, in Hot Springs. The couple had been living together for about a year, and two children lived with them. One child was Victor Stephens, Karen Stephens's child from a previous relationship, who at the time was three years old. The other child was Gohan Flores, Karen Stephens's and Flores's child, who was four months old at the time of the events giving rise to this appeal. During the time they were living together in Hot Springs, Flores was employed intermittently. Karen Stephens was unemployed during the entire period of time. In the early afternoon of March 26, 2000, Karen Stephens placed a 911 call requesting ambulance service to their residence. She placed the call from a pay phone at the convenience store across the street from where she and Flores lived. Paramedics were dispatched to the residence at 1:41 p.m. and arrived about six minutes later. Karen Stephens was standing in the front yard holding Victor. The paramedics found Victor to be unresponsive to pain and to their verbal inquiries, and his respiratory rate was severely depressed. The paramedics began treating Victor immediately. They noted bruises and abrasions all over the child's body. They also noted his dilated and unresponsive pupils and a tightly clenched jaw, which indicated that he had suffered a severe head injury.
During this initial treatment, the paramedics questioned Karen Stephens about Victor's medical history. She answered most of the questions by saying "I don't know." She also told them that Victor did not have a doctor and that he had never been to one. She added that she did not know if the child was taking any medication or had had any medical problems in the past. Hill testified that she seemed calmer than most parents in similar situations and that her responses seemed "inappropriate." Flores emerged from the residence briefly during the on-the-scene treatment, and he too appeared calm to Hill. He did not talk with the paramedics or go to the hospital with Karen and Victor.
When Victor arrived at St. Joseph's Hospital, he was in a coma. His treating physician was Dr. Karl Wagenhauser. Dr. Wagenhauser first intubated Victor and then noted his multiple injuries, which were in various stages of healing. Dr. Wagenhauser ordered a CAT scan to determine whether there was hemorrhaging in his brain or abdomen. As Victor was being scanned, Dr. Wagenhauser went to the waiting room to obtain more information from Victor's family and to report the child's status. He found Karen Stephens there and observed that she was calm and was not crying. During this first conversation with Karen, she said that she had been across the street while Victor was "exercising" at their residence. When she returned, she found him unresponsive. She placed Victor in the bathtub and ran water over him to wake him up.
Dr. Wagenhauser testified at trial that the information he gathered during this first encounter with Stephens did not change his treatment or his diagnosis of Victor's condition. At the pretrial Denno hearing, he further stated that he did not consider this account from Karen Stephens to have been truthful. He returned to the radiology area to be on-hand in case Victor's situation worsened during his CAT scan. The scan was completed and showed a traumatic brain injury. Specifically, Victor suffered a subdural hematoma—ruptured blood vessels in the brain causing blood clots and swelling. Dr. Wagenhauser decided to have Victor airlifted to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock for specialized care.
At this point, Dr. Wagenhauser was notified by a social worker that Karen Stephens wanted to speak to him again. At trial, Dr. Wagenhauser testified to the following exchange between Karen Stephens and him:
Garland County Investigator Danny Wilson also spoke with Karen Stephens while Victor was being prepared for the airlift, though Wilson did not testify at trial regarding the content of their conversation. At the pretrial Denno hearing, Wilson indicated that Stephens told him that Flores and she had physically abused Victor for the past five months.
During this time period, Flores remained at home with Gohan. While Karen and Victor were at the hospital, Garland County sheriff's deputies and a representative from the Department of Human Services went to Flores's house to remove Gohan. Flores initially thought that the sheriff's deputies had come there to give him a ride to the hospital. The DHS representative, however, took Gohan into custody, and the deputy sheriffs arrested Flores.
After Flores was transported to the Garland County Sheriff's Department, Investigator Wilson questioned him. In the resulting statement, Flores revealed that Victor had urinated on himself and on the bedroom floor. Flores stated he disciplined Victor by making him do jumping jacks. While Victor was doing jumping jacks, Flores left the bedroom. According to his statement, when he returned to the bedroom, he found Victor on the floor unconscious. Flores thought the child was dehydrated, and so he placed him in the bathtub. As for the head injury, Flores's statement was that he did not know how it occurred, but offered that Victor may have fallen or Flores might have accidentally bumped Victor's head against the bathtub when he placed him in the tub water.
Victor died at Children's Hospital on March 27, 2000. The state charged both Flores and Karen Stephens with capital murder, and later waived the death penalty for Flores. As a result of the pending charges, Karen Stephens invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at all of the Flores proceedings.
On October 4, 2000, the State filed a Motion for Use of Co-Defendant's Statements, in which it sought the admissibility of Karen Stephens's hearsay statement to Dr. Wagenhauser under Arkansas Rule of Evidence 803(4), the medical-treatment exception. Before trial, the trial court held a Denno and motion hearing at which Dr. Wagenhauser testified about the circumstances surrounding Karen Stephens's statement. At this hearing, Dr. Wagenhauser testified that it is his practice to speak with the parents of critically injured children to let them know their child's medical status and to gather any information that may be pertinent to the diagnosis or treatment of the child. Dr. Wagenhauser testified that he spoke with Karen Stephen for both of those reasons. He described the first encounter with Stephens—in which she told him that she had been across the street—as unhelpful and not pertinent to Victor's diagnosis or treatment.
At the pretrial hearing, the prosecutor and he engaged in the following colloquy regarding the second encounter:
This testimony was repeated to a large degree on cross examination at the hearing, and Dr....
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