Mead v. State
| Decision Date | 16 December 2021 |
| Docket Number | 02-20-00041-CR |
| Parties | Ryan Jefferson Mead, Appellant v. The State of Texas |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Do Not Publish Tex.R.App.P. 47.2(b)
On Appeal from the 371st District Court Tarrant County, Texas Trial Court No. 1573226D
Before Birdwell, Wallach, and Walker, JJ.
This case concerns the serious bodily injury suffered by four-week-old Ora.[1] A jury convicted her father, Appellant Ryan Mead, of committing injury to a child by omission and aggravated assault of a family member with a deadly weapon.[2] Tex. Penal Code. Ann. §§ 22.02(a)(1), 22.04(a). The jury assessed his punishment at twenty-five years' confinement on each count, and the trial court sentenced him accordingly, ordering the sentences to run concurrently. Id. §§ 22.02(b)(1) 22.04(e). Mead brings four issues: (1) the trial court abused its discretion by limiting the testimony of his expert witnesses, (2) the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the State to testify outside the record about the opinions of four of its expert witnesses who did not testify at trial, (3) the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction for injury to a child by omission, and (4) the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction of aggravated assault of a family member. Because we hold that the evidence is sufficient to support Mead's convictions and that the trial court did not reversibly err, we affirm the trial court's judgments.
In late September 2018, Ora was four weeks old. She lived with her parents, Mead and M.O. (Mother), and her eighteen-month-old sister, Ophelia, in Arlington, Texas. Mother's pregnancy with Ora was normal, and Ora's birth was natural with no complications. According to Mother, Ora cried and spat up frequently.
On Saturday, September 29, 2018, Mother left the apartment twice: she picked up food at Panera during the day and went to Target that night. On both occasions, she left Mead alone with the children. Ora fed normally on Saturday and when Mother fed her at approximately 7:00 a.m. on Sunday morning.
At around 10:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, Mother left the apartment to pick up breakfast, again leaving Mead alone with the children. She returned to the apartment around 11:30 a.m. or noon and attempted to feed Ora. However, Ora projectile vomited all of the breastmilk immediately after consuming it. Mead later described the vomit in a police interview as the most he had ever seen. Ora had thrown up a few times before but would always behave and feed normally afterwards. Mother cleaned her up, and the family went to the park, where Ora projectile vomited again after Mother attempted to feed her. The family soon left the park to return home. Ora projectile vomited in the car. After returning home, Mother took Ophelia back to the park, leaving Mead to bathe Ora.
While bathing Ora, Mead noticed that she was making grunting sounds and breathing irregularly. He also noticed that Ora was sucking in her stomach so hard that he could see the outlines of her intestines. He thought that she may have been constipated.
After spending about an hour in the park with Ophelia, Mother returned home. She did not try to feed Ora again. The family then drove to Kennedale. Ora did not throw up on the trip. By the time they returned home, it was 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. Mother was concerned that Ora had not eaten anything that day, was acting sluggish, and appeared pale. Mother called her mother to ask for advice and gave Ora gripe water. Mother attempted to feed Ora again without success. Ora would not take any breastmilk and threw up again. Mother noticed that Ora was breathing irregularly. Mother considered taking Ora to an urgent care center, but Mead told her they should wait for Ora's unrelated appointment with the pediatrician that was already scheduled for the following afternoon.
Mead told the police that he had stayed with Ora through Sunday night and into the early hours of Monday, October 1. He had tried to feed her a few more times but told the police that she had been unable to keep anything down. He had noticed that Ora was not very alert and was making a strange cry.
On the morning of October 1, Mother took Ora to her pediatrician in Arlington. Upon examining Ora, the pediatrician immediately became concerned and told Mother to take the baby to the emergency room at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth (Cook Children's). Mother complied. Soon after arriving at Cook Children's, Ora began decompensating and had to be intubated.
The doctors at Cook Children's performed a physical exam of Ora. She had no broken bones but did have bruises on her right forearm and lower left leg. A CT scan revealed acute bleeding all over her brain, a lack of oxygen in her brain, and brain swelling so severe that the growth plates in her skull were pushed apart. A cervical-spine MRI revealed ligament injuries in Ora's neck and blood in her spinal subdural area that the doctors believed was "tracking down from the brain." Dr. Michael Hunt, a pediatric ophthalmologist, examined Ora and determined that she had retinal hemorrhages throughout her right eye, an injury consistent with traumatic or inflicted injury to one side of the head. It was later revealed that Ora had also suffered a stroke[3] and had been having seizures. The doctors at Cook Children's suspected that these were the products of a traumatic injury and subsequent lack of oxygen in the brain.
After reviewing Ora's symptoms, doctors diagnosed her injury as abusive head trauma caused by either a violent shake, jerk, or hit. All of her symptoms were consistent with abusive head trauma. In coming to this conclusion, the doctors reviewed her birth and pediatric records and determined that she had no underlying disorders that may have caused these injuries.
Due to a lack of oxygen, almost all of Ora's brain died, leaving her unable to see, walk, speak, or eat on her own. She will never recover.
Dr. Jamye Coffman, the medical director of Cook Children's child abuse team, reviewed Ora's information and talked to Mother and Mead, seeking a possible explanation for Ora's injuries. Neither Mother nor Mead was able to provide a likely explanation. Both parents mentioned an incident that had occurred about a week earlier. Ophelia had accidentally head-butted Ora, splitting open Ora's lip. Ora did not display any other symptoms after the head-butt. Dr. Coffman explained at trial that she did not believe that a toddler's accidentally head-butting Ora could have caused her injuries. When Dr. Coffman asked Mead about the bruises on Ora, he suggested that Ophelia may have caused them "because she like[d] to pull on the baby."
After Ora's injuries were diagnosed as abusive head trauma with no known cause, Detective Jonlee Martinez from the Arlington Police Department opened an investigation. He interviewed Mother and Mead separately on the afternoon of October 1, but neither told him anything that could explain Ora's injuries.
The next day, Tuesday, Mead revealed a potential explanation for the injuries. Mead explained to Detective Martinez that on the previous Saturday night, while Mother was at Target, Ora fell off the couple's bed, which was a mattress sitting on top of a box spring on the carpeted floor. Mead stated that at around 9:45 p.m., he was lying in bed with Ora when Ophelia woke up. He placed Ophelia in the bed with Ora and him and fell asleep, waking up again sometime between 10:00 and 10:15 p.m. to see Ophelia pulling Ora off the bed. Ora's head was already hanging off the bed, and she was beginning to fall. Mead told the detective that he quickly grabbed Ora's leg, caught her midair as she fell from the bed, and jerked her back up to his chest. He said that when he pulled her up, he "felt her neck jerk," and then she "slumped back forward." Mead told Detective Martinez that he may have caused the bruise on Ora's leg when he grabbed her. Mead denied ever violently shaking Ora or hitting her against any objects.
When Detective Martinez asked Mead why he had not told anyone about this incident earlier, Mead initially said that he forgot because he was so tired and did not think the incident could have caused her injury. Mead also claimed that he was scared and "didn't know how to tell" Detective Martinez and the doctors at Cook Children's. Mead said several times in his interviews with Detective Martinez that he "did this" and was responsible for what happened to Ora but that he had not injured her purposely. Detective Martinez testified at trial that he believed that Mead was "minimizing" his actions and "altering the truth" by telling a story of how he saved Ora from falling to the ground.
The doctors at Cook Children's did not believe that the incident Mead reported could have caused Ora's injuries. First, the doctors did not believe that the motions, as Mead described them, were forceful enough to cause the injuries. Second, Ora fed normally twice after the alleged incident on Saturday night and did not begin to exhibit symptoms until Mother fed her between 11:30 a.m. and noon on Sunday morning. Because of how dramatically the symptoms began and how quickly Ora deteriorated, the doctors believed that the traumatic event must have happened on Sunday morning, sometime between the 7 a.m. feeding and the lunchtime feeding, when Ora projectile vomited for the first time that weekend.[4]
Ultimately the doctors and Detective Martinez concluded that Ora's injuries were the result of abuse. Detective Martinez issued an arrest warrant for Mead, and a grand jury...
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