Gomez v. State
| Decision Date | 19 June 2017 |
| Docket Number | S17A0266,S17A0265 |
| Citation | 801 S.E.2d 847 |
| Parties | GOMEZ v. The STATE. Huitron v. The State. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
James Edward Bischoff, Fayetteville Office of the Public Defender, 175 Johnson Avenue, Fayetteville, Georgia 30214, for Appellant in S17A0265.
Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Elizabeth A. Baker, Deputy Chief A.D.A., Tracy Graham Lawson, District Attorney, Clayton County District Attorney's Office, Harold R Banke Justice Center, 9151 Tara Boulevard, Jonesboro, Georgia 30236, for Appellee in S17A0265 and S17A0266.
John Walter Kraus, Office of the Public Defender, 146 N. McDonough Street, Jonesboro, Georgia 30236, for Appellant in S17A0266.
Appellants Margarita Gomez and Alejandro Martinez Huitron challenge their convictions for felony murder and other crimes related to injuries to and the resulting death of their three-year-old daughter, Esmerelda. We vacate three of each Appellant's convictions (Counts 4, 11, and 16) to correct sentencing errors, but we reject Appellants' many other contentions and affirm their remaining convictions.1
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. On May 31, 2010, Gomez and Huitron spent the day at their apartment in Forest Park with their two daughters, Esmerelda and two-year-old Perla. Joseph, Gomez's younger son by another man, did not live with them. Around 8:00 p.m., Esmerelda suffered a severe head injury
, resulting in a skull fracture and brain and retinal hemorrhaging. After Appellants called 911, Esmerelda was taken to Hughes Spalding Children's Hospital and later flown to Egleston Hospital, where she died on June 3.
Gomez and Huitron were interviewed separately several times by officers from the Forest Park Police Department, first on the night of Esmerelda's injuries, again a few days later, and finally on June 10, when they each participated in a re-enactment of how they supposedly found Esmerelda. Each time, a Spanish-speaking police officer or interpreter was used.2 Initially, Gomez and Huitron both said that when Esmerelda was injured, they were washing dishes or about to start washing dishes together in their kitchen while the two girls were playing in the back bedroom. They heard a scream from one of the girls and ran to the bedroom. In another version given later by Gomez, Huitron was on the back patio grilling and she was in the kitchen when they heard the scream.
Both parents claimed that they found Esmerelda lying on her back on the floor between a small child's table and one of the two beds in the room.3 According to Gomez, Esmerelda looked as if she was struggling to speak or get up, but then she fainted. According to Huitron, Esmerelda was unconscious and having trouble breathing, with a small amount of blood on her face. They moved Esmerelda into the living room, and one or both of the parents performed CPR while an ambulance was called. Gomez then carried Esmerelda out to wait for the ambulance. Both parents claimed that they did not see what caused Esmerelda's injuries but hypothesized that she had fallen while jumping on the bed, because she liked to play on the bed. Dr. Jordan Greenbaum, who was the medical director of the Center for Safe and Healthy Children at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and had been called to consult on Esmerelda's case at Egleston because the treating doctors suspected child abuse, called Gomez on June 2 to get a medical history for Esmerelda. The doctor asked Gomez specifically about a big bruise Esmerelda had on her abdomen, which Gomez attributed to the child hitting herself on furniture. Dr. Greenbaum, who noticed numerous bruises on Esmerelda's belly, also asked Gomez if she could think of any injuries she had seen on Esmerelda's skin and Gomez said she could recall only one bruise; she had not noticed any other bruising.
The next day, Officer Karen Henry, who was assigned to investigate in Esmerelda's case because she specialized in child abuse cases, interviewed Gomez. Gomez said that she never saw any bruises or marks on Esmerelda, that the only other injury Esmerelda had suffered was eight days earlier when she fell in the bath tub, and that Esmerelda had fallen out of bed while sleeping but had not injured herself. Officer Henry testified, however, that the pictures she saw of Esmerelda showed bruises on the side of her abdomen, from her armpit to her diaper area, that had begun to heal.
When examining Appellants' apartment about three hours after the 911 call, investigators found clumps of dark hair in the bathroom and outside, one to two feet from the concrete patio.4 They also found spots of dry blood on the floor in the front bedroom, in the hallway between the bathroom and bedrooms, and on the floor in the back bedroom. The swabbings taken from these spots matched Esmerelda's DNA. Several officers testified that the apartment was very neat, including the kitchen and back bedroom, and the beds looked like they had recently been made; although the comforter on one of the beds looked a little disheveled, that was not the bed next to which the parents said they found Esmerelda.
At trial, four medical experts testified for the State. Dr. Amita Shroff, who treated Esmerelda at Hughes Spalding and was qualified as an expert in pediatric emergency medicine, testified that Esmerelda had a "Battle's sign"—bruising on the side of her face, behind her ear, and tracking down her neck—which indicates a skull fracture
, and fixed and dilated pupils, which indicate brain damage. She also had blood in her ear and on her nose, as well as bruises on her nose, chin, back, and abdomen. The child's abdomen was distended and she had an abrasion on her left flank. The doctor testified that there was no way a fall from a bed could have caused these injuries; they could be caused only by something traumatic like a car accident, falling off a 15 to 20 story building, or having her head slammed onto a hard object like concrete or a bathtub.
Dr. Rajamani Iyer testified that she was Esmerelda's pediatrician, and at all her visits, including the last visit four weeks before the incident, Esmerelda seemed normal. A year before trial, the prosecutor had shown Dr. Iyer an autopsy photograph of Esmerelda's head, and Dr. Iyer, who was qualified as an expert in pediatric medicine, testified based on that photograph that Esmerelda's injuries were not consistent with a fall from the bed and looked like child abuse. Dr. Iyer also testified that the injuries could have been caused by a chair, concrete, or other hard object.
Dr. Greenbaum, who was qualified as an expert in forensic pathology and child abuse medicine, also was present at the re-enactment. Dr. Greenbaum testified that Esmerelda had a complex Y-shaped skull fracture
and subdural and sub-retinal hemorrhages. She explained that the sub-retinal hemorrhaging was so severe that it could only be caused by a few things, including major head trauma and leukemia (and there was no evidence that Esmerelda had leukemia ). Dr. Greenbaum further explained that Esmerelda's injuries involved high acceleration and deceleration forces of the sort seen in a high-speed car accident, a fall from three or more stories, or by a person much bigger than Esmerelda slamming her head on the floor. Dr. Greenbaum also testified that Esmerelda had numerous injuries to her torso and two rib fractures
which had begun to heal, meaning they were at least seven to ten days old. Dr. Greenbaum concluded from all of this information that Esmerelda's injuries were caused by abuse.
The State's final witness was Dr. Lora Darrisaw, the GBI medical examiner who performed Esmerelda's autopsy and who was qualified as an expert in forensic pathology and pediatric forensic pathology. Dr. Darrisaw testified about scattered bruises on the child's body, including a collection on the right side of her body and one on her jaw, which would normally be seen after forceful grabbing of the head; although it was possible, but not likely, that the bruise on Esmerelda's chin was caused by medical intervention, none of the other bruises could have been. She added that Esmerelda's neck had been "impacted," meaning it had been hyperextended over a curved surface or the corner of a hard object. Dr. Darrisaw, who was also present at the re-enactment by Appellants, examined the chairs in the bedroom and concluded that even though they were metal, they were small, fold-up chairs that could not have caused the injuries. The doctor testified that Esmerelda's injuries could have been caused only by "[h]er head hit[ting] something very, very hard that doesn't move," so the doctor could not see how Esmerelda could have sustained her injuries by falling on anything in the bedroom; the only surface that seemed consistent with the injuries was the concrete patio outside the apartment. Dr. Darrisaw explained that Esmerelda's neck injuries and the bleeding in her eyes indicated that she was moving fast, which could be caused by her falling from a height greater than her own or someone picking her up and moving her body with a lot of force before she impacted a surface. Dr. Darrisaw also noted that there was a build-up of iron in Esmerelda's brain, indicating that she had suffered an earlier head injury
. Dr. Darrisaw ruled the cause of death to be blunt force trauma and concluded that it was non-accidental.
Several witnesses testified about the relationship between Esmerelda and her parents. An officer who talked to Gomez at the hospital on the night Esmerelda was taken there testified that Gomez cried briefly when she was told that Esmerelda might die. Another officer, who spoke to Gomez later that night, testified that when he told her that Esmerelda might die, she said she...
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