Hranicky v. State, No. 13-00-431-CR (TX 8/12/2004)
| Decision Date | 12 August 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 13-00-431-CR,13-00-431-CR |
| Parties | BOBBY LEE HRANICKY, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Texas |
On appeal from the 24th District Court of DeWitt County, Texas.
Before Justices RODRIGUEZ, CASTILLO, and WITTIG.1
Bobby Lee Hranicky appeals his conviction for the second-degree felony offense of recklessly causing serious bodily injury to a child.2 A jury found him guilty, sentenced him to eight years confinement in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and assessed a $5,000 fine. On the jury's recommendation, the trial court suspended the sentence and placed Hranicky on community supervision for ten years.
In seven issues, Hranicky asserts: (1) the trial court should have quashed the indictment; (2) the evidence is legally insufficient; (3) the evidence is factually insufficient; (4) the trial court improperly interlineated amending language on the face of the indictment; (5) the amended indictment did not give him the statutory ten days' notice before trial and charged a different offense than the original; (6) the trial court submitted an erroneous jury charge; and (7) the trial court abused its discretion by allowing autopsy photographs into evidence. The trial court has certified that Hranicky has the right of appeal.3 See TEX. R. APP. P. 25.2(a)(2). We affirm.
This is a memorandum opinion not designated for publication. The parties are familiar with the facts. We will not recite them here except as necessary to advise the parties of our decision and the basic reasons for it. See TEX. R. APP. P. 47.4.
A newspaper advertisement offering tiger cubs for sale caught the eye of eight-year-old Lauren Villafana. She decided she wanted one. She expressed her wish to her mother, Kelly Dean Hranicky, and to Hranicky, her stepfather. Over the next year, the Hranickys investigated the idea by researching written materials on the subject and consulting with owners of exotic animals. They visited tiger owner and handler Mickey Sapp several times. They decided to buy two rare tiger cubs from him, a male and a female whose breed is endangered in the wild. They brought the female cub home first, then the male about a month later.
Sapp trained Hranicky in how to care for and handle the animals. In particular, he demonstrated the risk adult tigers pose for children. Sapp escorted Hranicky, Kelly Hranicky, and Lauren past Sapp's tiger cages. He told the family to watch the tigers' focus of attention. The tigers' eyes followed Lauren as she walked up and down beside the cages.
The Hranickys raised the cubs inside their home until they were six or eight months old. Then they moved the cubs out of the house, at first to an enclosed porch in the back and ultimately to a cage Hranicky built in the yard. The tigers matured into adolescence. The male reached 250 pounds, the female slightly less. Lauren actively helped Hranicky care for the animals.
By June 6, 1999, the tigers were two years old. Lauren was ten. She stood 57 inches tall and weighed 80 pounds. At dusk that evening, Lauren joined Hranicky in the tiger cage. Suddenly, the male tiger attacked her. It mauled the child's throat, breaking her neck and severing her spinal cord. She died instantly.
The record reflects four different versions of the events that led to Lauren's death. Hranicky told the grand jury4 Lauren and he were sitting side-by-side in the cage about 8:00 p.m., petting the female tiger. A neighbor's billy goat cried out. The noise attracted the male tiger's attention. He turned toward the sound. The cry also caught Lauren's attention. She stood and looked at the male tiger. When Lauren turned her head toward the male tiger, "that was too much," Hranicky told the grand jury. The tiger attacked. Hranicky yelled. The tiger grabbed Lauren by the throat and dragged her across the cage into a water trough. Hranicky ran after them. He struck the tiger on the head and held him under the water. The tiger released the child.
Kelly Dean Hranicky testified she was asleep when the incident occurred. She called for emergency assistance. Through testimony developed at trial, she told the dispatcher her daughter had fallen from a fence. She testified she did not remember giving that information to the dispatcher. However, police officer Daniel Torres, who responded to the call, testified he was told that a little girl had cut her neck on a fence.
Hranicky gave Torres a verbal statement that evening. Torres testified Hranicky told him that he had been grooming the female tiger. He asked Lauren to come and get the brush from him. Lauren came into the cage and grabbed the brush. Hranicky thought she had left the cage because he heard the cage door close. Then, however, Hranicky saw Lauren's hand "come over and start grooming the female, start petting the female cat, and that's when the male cat jumped over." The tiger grabbed the child by the neck and started running through the cage. It dragged her into the water trough. Hranicky began punching the tiger in the head, trying to get the tiger to release Lauren.
Justice of the Peace James Dawson performed an inquest at the scene of the incident. Judge Dawson testified Hranicky gave him an oral statement also. Hranicky told him Lauren went to the cage on a regular basis and groomed only the female tiger. He then corrected himself to say she actually petted the animal. Hranicky was "very clear about the difference between grooming and petting." Hranicky maintained that Lauren never petted or groomed the male tiger. Hranicky told Dawson that Lauren asked permission to enter the cage that evening, saying "Daddy, can I come in?"
Sapp, the exotic animal owner who sold the Hranickys the tigers, testified Hranicky told him yet another version of the events that night. When Sapp asked Hranicky how it happened, Hranicky replied, "Well, Mickey, she just snuck in behind me." On the day of Hranicky's grand jury testimony, Hranicky admitted to Sapp he had allowed Lauren to enter the cage. Hranicky told Sapp he had lied because he did not want Sapp to be angry with him.
Hranicky told the grand jury that Sapp and other knowledgeable sources had said "there was no problem in taking a child in the cage." He did learn children were especially vulnerable because the tigers would view them as prey. However, Hranicky told the grand jury, he thought the tigers would view Lauren differently than they would an unfamiliar child. He believed the tigers would not attack her, he testified. They would see her as "one of the family." Hranicky also told the grand jury the tigers' veterinarian allowed his young son into the Hranickys' tiger cage.
Several witnesses at trial contradicted Hranicky's assessment of the level of risk the tigers presented, particularly to children. Sapp said he told the Hranickys it was safe for children to play with tiger cubs. However, once the animals reached forty to fifty pounds, they should be confined in a cage and segregated from any children. "[T]hat's enough with Lauren, any child, because they play rough, they just play rough." Sapp further testified he told the Hranickys to keep Lauren away from the tigers at that point because the animals would view the child as prey. He also said he told Lauren directly not to get in the cage with the tigers. Sapp did not distinguish between children who were strangers to the tigers and those who had helped raise the animals. He described any such distinction as "ludicrous." In fact, Sapp testified, his own two children had been around large cats all of their lives. Nonetheless, he did not allow them within six feet of the cages. The risk is too great, he told the jury. The Hranickys did not tell him that purchasing the tigers was Lauren's idea. Had he known, he testified, He denied telling Hranicky that it was safe for Lauren to be in the cage with the tigers.
Charles Currer, an animal care inspector for the United States Department of Agriculture, met Hranicky when Hranicky applied for a USDA license to exhibit the tigers. Currer also denied telling Hranicky it was permissible to let a child enter a tiger's cage. He recalled giving his standard speech about the danger big cats pose to children, telling him that they "see children as prey, as things to play with."
On his USDA application form, Hranicky listed several books he had read on animal handling. One book warned that working with exotic cats is very dangerous. It emphasized that adolescent males are particularly volatile as they mature and begin asserting their dominance. Big cat handlers should expect to get jumped, bit, and challenged at every juncture. Another of the listed books pointed out that tigers give little or no warning when they attack. The book cautioned against keeping large cats such as tigers as pets.
Veterinarian Dr. Hampton McAda testified he worked with the Hranickys' tigers from the time they were six weeks old until about a month before the incident. McAda denied ever allowing his son into the tigers' cage. All large animals present some risk, he testified. He recalled telling Hranicky that "wild animals and female menstrual periods . . . could cause a problem down the road" once both the animals and Lauren matured. Hranicky seemed more aware of the male tiger, the veterinarian observed, and was more careful with him than with the female.
Robert Evans, the Curator of Mammals at the San Antonio Zoo, testified that it is zoo policy to enter a tiger's cage only after anesthetizing the animal. Otherwise, entering the cage is too dangerous. However, Evans conceded on cross-examination, these zoo policies are not known to the general public.
...
To continue reading
Request your trial