Hernandez v. State
| Decision Date | 16 May 2019 |
| Docket Number | NUMBER 13-16-00696-CR |
| Parties | SANDY PEREZ HERNANDEZ, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
On appeal from the 139th District Court of Hidalgo County, Texas.
Before Chief Justice Contreras and Justices Benavides and Hinojosa
Appellant Sandy Hernandez was convicted of one count of manslaughter, a second-degree felony, and one count of injury to a child, a first-degree felony. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. §§ 19.04, 22.04(e) (West, Westlaw through 1st C.S. 2017). She challenges her conviction by what we construe to be thirty-one issues and subparts. Hernandez complains on the following general grounds: double jeopardy, sufficiency of the evidence, error in the jury charge, admission of expert testimony, jury unanimity, ineffective assistance of counsel, and denial of her motion for new trial. We affirm.
Hernandez gave birth to a full-term baby boy at home in Weslaco in the early morning hours of October 17, 2014. She was a twenty-two-year old college student who lived with her parents and siblings.
Hernandez explained the events of the morning to hospital staff as recorded in her medical records. She felt fine until about two a.m. when she developed diarrhea. She went to the bathroom several times and was "in and out of sleep." She thought she was going to have a bowel movement in bed but instead delivered an eight-pound baby. She got up with the baby and went to the kitchen to find scissors to cut the umbilical cord. Hernandez explained that she went outside so she would not make a mess.1 After she cut the cord, she felt the placenta come out, and she saw a lot of blood. Hernandez described wrapping the baby in a towel2 and leaving the baby in the yard before crawling back to the house to ask for help. Hernandez did not know she was pregnant, denied weight change, and stated she had menstrual spotting in August.
At trial, Hernandez's mother Virginia Hernandez testified that she awakened sometime before 6:00 a.m. when she heard a "faraway cry, 'mom'" and she found her daughter in the dining room. Hernandez was on the floor with "a lot of blood around her."According to Virginia, Hernandez kept saying, "my baby, my baby." Virginia woke her husband and instructed him to call 911, explaining that "Sandy had a miscarriage." Virginia testified that Hernandez began getting hysterical and then went limp. Virginia had not known her daughter was pregnant. Virginia further testified that Hernandez told her that she slipped and fell with the baby on the tile floor before Virginia found her.
Virginia testified that she and her husband sleep with their door closed and locked. They also use room air conditioners in the bedrooms that are noisy. Virginia testified that Sandy had a boyfriend named Joel Jimenez.
Hernandez's father Lionel Hernandez testified at trial that he called 911 and then went outside to open the gate to the property. He noticed a "trail of blood" on the driveway and carport but did not follow it. After the paramedics arrived, he and Lieutenant Efrain Bautista followed the blood and found the baby in the yard.
At trial, Sally Hernandez, Hernandez's older sister, testified that she was awakened by Virginia's voice early that morning. Sally also testified that she sleeps with her bedroom door closed and locked. When Sally came out of her room, she saw Virginia trying to pull Hernandez up onto a dining room chair. Hernandez was very pale, and Sally thought she was dying because of her paleness and the blood around her. Sally heard Hernandez saying, "my baby, my baby" and did not understand what she meant. Sally testified that Hernandez told her she slipped and fell with the baby in the house and also fell with the baby outside.
Sally further testified that she arrived at the hospital a couple of hours after Hernandez. Sally described Hernandez as Sally testified that Hernandez told her that she named the baby Julian Lionel Jimenez.
The paramedics, Lt. Bautista and Florentino Vela, testified at trial. According to Lt. Bautista's testimony, he arrived first; Lionel directed him into the house to see Hernandez. Lt. Bautista began to attend to Hernandez and asked about the baby, but she did not respond. Lt. Bautista explained that about five minutes after he arrived, Lionel told him the baby was outside and took him to find the baby. It was dark, and they used Lt. Bautista's flashlight. Lt. Bautista saw the baby who appeared to be full term lying in the grass next to a towel. The baby was cold to the touch and barely breathing. The baby had some swelling on the side of his head. Lt. Bautista picked the baby up, took him to the ambulance, took vital signs, and started to warm the baby. He also called for another ambulance.
Florentino Vela, Lt. Bautista's partner, took over Hernandez's care. He noticed the blood on and around her and wanted to transport her to deal with the blood loss. Vela asked her what happened and in part of her response, she said Vela was also concerned about her mental status; he had the impression "that she was not all there . . . she wasn't acting completely the way a normal person that just delivered a baby would have acted."
Deputy Joe Black with the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Department (HCSO) testified at trial that he interviewed Hernandez at the hospital. She was in a hospital room when Deputy Black spoke to her and she seemed "calm and sad." Hernandez told him she did not know she was pregnant, that her last menstrual period was in mid-August, andthat Joel Jimenez was her boyfriend and the father of her child. Hernandez also told Deputy Black that she picked up Joel from work around midnight, took him home to Mercedes, and then went back to her house. After Hernandez got home, she did not feel well and was having stomach pain. She told Deputy Black that she had the baby around 4:30 that morning. Afterwards, she got scissors to cut the umbilical cord, and then she went outside to set off the alarm on the car to alert her parents that she needed help. Hernandez told Deputy Black that once she got outside, she realized she did not have her keys, so she needed to go back inside. She collapsed with her son outside, then wrapped him in a towel, left the baby on the lawn, and went in to tell her parents. Hernandez explained that she was dizzy and might not have been able to open the door with the baby in her arms. She described collapsing again when she got inside and that woke her parents. Hernandez seemed worried about her son and told Deputy Black she did not intend to hurt him.
Jennifer Almonte Gonzalez, M.D., the obstetrician and gynecologist on call, testified at trial that she treated Hernandez at the hospital. Hernandez was in good physical condition except for a midline perineal laceration that Dr. Hernandez repaired under local anesthesia. The tear is a very common result of giving birth. Dr. Gonzalez testified that she has delivered thousands of babies in normal vaginal births and none has ever had a skull fracture. Hernandez did not tell Dr. Gonzalez that she fell or that she injured the baby by falling. Hernandez's doctors ordered a mental health evaluation that she refused. She checked out of the hospital against medical advice at approximately 3 p.m. the next day.
Baby Hernandez was admitted to the hospital at 7:26 a.m. on October 17, 2014. He died at approximately 8:00 p.m. that day.
Norma Jean Farley, M.D., a board-certified forensic pathologist who contracts with Hidalgo County, performed the autopsy on Baby Hernandez. Dr. Farley described the baby as a "term newborn infant." According to Dr. Farley, Baby Hernandez or Julian Jimenez's cause of death was blunt force head trauma.
Dr. Farley described the infant's condition during the autopsy. His right eye, especially the lower eyelid, had a "dark purple contusion with a little scrape on it . . . [and] little bits of a bruise on the lateral part of the upper eyelid." There was also a contusion "extending all the way down to [the right] side of the face going into the scalp." The bruising went back behind the ear, included the ear, down to the neck and back up to the face. There was a large area of bruising along the back of the neck into the occipital scalp that was blue to maroon. There were multiple areas of bruising on both sides of the back of the infant, but larger on the left side. On internal examination, Dr. Farley noted a thick hematoma or hemorrhage within the scalp, between the scalp and the thin membrane on top of the skull. Baby Hernandez's brain was swollen due to his injuries. In addition to swelling caused by his injuries, Dr. Farley explained that swelling may have occurred because the baby did not get enough oxygen after birth, had low blood pressure, and went into cardiac arrest.
Baby Hernandez had multiple skull fractures, including some that went entirely through the bone. Once Dr. Farley opened the skull to get to the brain, she saw bloodin almost the "whole cerebral hemisphere." The infant had retinal hemorrhages as well as optic nerve injury.
The infant also had fractures of the fifth, sixth, and seventh posterior ribs on the left side. Dr. Farley opined that all of the baby's injuries could not have been caused by a single trauma because there were different sets of contusions which led her to conclude there were two impact sites in addition to the rib fractures on the baby's back.
Dr. Farley testified that the trauma she observed could not have occurred as a result of a difficult childbirth. In Dr. Farley's experience and from her research, a fall onto grass likewise could not have caused these injuries; short falls ordinarily do not kill babies.3 In her opinion, the...
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