Perez v. State

• Decision Date: 27 September 2018
• Docket Number: No. 02-17-00226-CR,02-17-00226-CR
• Citation: 562 S.W.3d 676
• Parties: Antonio Parra PEREZ, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

562 S.W.3d 676

Antonio Parra PEREZ, Appellant

v.The STATE of Texas

No. 02-17-00226-CR

Court of Appeals of Texas, Fort Worth.

Delivered: September 27, 2018

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: JARRETT W. NOLL, ASSISTANT PUBLIC DEFENDER, WICHITA COUNTY PUBLIC DEFENDER, WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS.

ATTORNEYS FOR STATE: MAUREEN SHELTON, WICHITA COUNTY CRIMINAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY; JENNIFER PONDER, ASSISTANT CRIMINAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY, WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS.

Before Sudderth, C.J.; Meier and Kerr, JJ.

OPINION

Opinion by Chief Justice SudderthA jury found Appellant Antonio Parra Perez guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual assault and three counts of indecency by contact against two of his grandchildren, Ana and Brianna.¹ See Tex. Penal Code Ann. §§ 21.11, 22.021 (West Supp. 2017). The trial court sentenced him to two life sentences for the aggravated sexual assault convictions and three consecutive twenty-year sentences for the indecency convictions. On appeal, Perez complains of the trial court’s admission of extraneous-offense testimony by two of his younger sisters to incidents of sexual abuse allegedly committed by him in the 1960s and its admission of testimony by a social worker and sex-offender-treatment provider to the characteristics and dynamics of situations of sexual abuse. We affirm.

Background

I. Ana and Brianna’s outcries

Cousins Ana and Brianna spent a lot of time at the home of their grandparents, Perez and his wife, Regina. Perez and Regina often babysat their grandchildren, and the whole family would often gather together at their home for family dinners together.

After one such family dinner on Saturday, May 31, 2014, Brianna’s mother Jennifer was helping Brianna, who was seven at the time, undress for a bath when she noticed that the side of Brianna’s left breast was "puffed." Jennifer testified that upon noticing the mark, Brianna exclaimed, "[O]h, grandpa," and when Jennifer asked her what she meant, Brianna told her that "grandpa like[d] to bite her boobs" and that it made her "a little sore." Jennifer testified that Brianna also said that Perez liked to kiss her and put his tongue in her mouth and she did not like that, and that Perez had recently started taking out his private part and rubbing it "on the front and back of her ... private areas." Jennifer testified that Brianna also mentioned something about her cousin Ana that concerned her.

The next day, Jennifer went to her parents' home and confronted Perez in front of other family members, including one of her sisters and Regina. According to Jennifer, Perez dismissed the allegations and claimed that he just patted Brianna on the leg and occasionally gave her a kiss on the cheek or a peck on the mouth. The family then called Ana’s father, Leo, and told him to bring his wife, Mary, and Ana to the home.

Once they arrived, Jennifer told Leo and Mary about Brianna’s allegations. Leo and Mary took Ana to another room and asked Ana if Perez had touched her inappropriately. Mary testified at trial that Ana "kind of looked at [them] and got teary eyed and said, yes. And she said that he had been touching her and she pointed to her private area." According to Mary, Ana "scooted to the edge of the bed and she opened her legs and said that he had been rubbing her down there and pointed to her private area."

Later, once they were at home, Ana revealed more details of the abuse, telling Mary that Perez "had been touching down there and rubbing her down there in her private area and that he had been making her touch him in his private area" in an up and down motion, that she had seen Perez’s penis and seen "something clear and slimy" come out of it, and that "he would also put his private area to her private area and then she said that he would also put it to her ... butt area." According to Mary, Ana said that "she was scared to say anything but now she felt like everything was fine to talk about." Ana said all of the events happened in the computer room or his bedroom.

On the same day that she confronted Perez about the allegations and shared them with Mary and Leo, Jennifer reported the allegations to police. Within days, the two girls were taken for forensic interviews with Shannon May of Patsy’s House Children’s Advocacy Center. May testified at trial to both girls' descriptions of the abuse. According to May, Ana told her that Perez would make her kiss him in exchange for candy, that Perez "put his pee pee² through her underwear," that Perez’s "pee pee had touched her butt," and that Perez had put his mouth on her vagina. May also recounted Brianna’s descriptions of Perez making her touch his penis at least twice and his direction not to tell anyone.

May also described drawings that each girl made during her interview, and those drawings were admitted into evidence. Ana made two drawings. One drawing included a stick figure and a tongue with an arrow connecting the tongue to the stick figure’s genital area, the words "PeePee," "Balls", and the sentence "[Ana] is sad." Ana’s second drawing included a depiction of two stick figures lying in a bed, a "PeePee" with hair on it, a "little hole" and the word "slim[y]." Brianna wrote on a piece of paper, "My Grapa put hes metal paret in my metal paret [sic]."

Perez was charged with seven counts of aggravated sexual assault and indecency with a child by contact as follows:

• Count 1: Aggravated sexual assault of Ana by penetrating her sexual organ with his;

• Count 2: Aggravated sexual assault of Ana by penetrating her sexual organ with his tongue;

• Count 3: Indecency by sexual contact by touching Ana’s genitals;

• Count 4: Indecency by sexual contact by causing Ana to touch his genitals;

• Count 5: Aggravated sexual assault of Brianna by penetrating her sexual organ with his;

• Count 6: Indecency by sexual contact causing Brianna to touch his genitals; and

• Count 7: Aggravated sexual assault of Ana by penetrating her anus with his sexual organ.

II. Testimony at trial

A. Ana and Brianna

Ana was eight when she testified at trial to Perez’s sexual abuse. She testified, "[W]e would watch cartoons and then he would like start touching me [with] ... [h]is hands." She described how he touched her legs and her "middle part,"³ how he put his "middle part" in hers twice, how he made her touch his "middle part," how he touched her butt with his "middle part," and how he touched her "middle part" with his tongue.

Brianna was ten at the time of trial. She testified that the abuse took place in Perez’s bedroom and in the computer room in his house. Brianna alleged that Perez bit her breast and forced her to put her hand on his penis and move her hand up and down. She also recounted in detail how Perez "put his middle part in [hers]" "a lot of times," and she described it as feeling "weird and sticky" and "[s]limy." Brianna also recalled an instance when Perez put his penis in her anus. According to Brianna, Perez directed her not to tell anybody about the abuse.

B. Sexual assault nurse examiners

Each girl was examined by a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) and both SANEs testified at trial.

Michelle Smith examined Ana. At trial, Smith recounted Ana’s description of the abuse:

Grandpa tells me to go and watch cartoons in his room. He opens my legs, he makes me sit on the edge of the bed. He ... takes out his thing and puts it in mine. He does it every day when I come over. He tries to kiss me, but I don't want to, but he does.

Smith testified that a physical examination of Ana revealed a "possible notch" in her hymen. She explained that she could not make a definitive finding regarding the cause of the notch but that it was consistent with the sexual acts that Ana had described. She estimated that fewer than ten percent, and possibly as low as four percent, of examinations observing physical trauma lead to a definitive finding, and those examinations are conducted immediately after the abusive event.

Heather Lampe examined Brianna. Lampe recounted for the jury Brianna’s description of the abuse: "My grandpa put his middle in my middle. He did it at his house. He did it a lot of times. He unbuttoned his pants and pulled down his underwear, he unbuttoned my pants and pulled down my underwear. Told me don't tell anybody. It felt weird." Lampe also testified that Brianna indicated that the abuse was painful. Lampe testified that during the physical examination she observed a notch in Brianna’s hymen and described the notch as a nonspecific finding that could have been caused by the abuse Brianna described but also could have been caused by a nontraumatic event.

C. Perez’s sisters

The State called two of Perez’s younger sisters, Stacy and Tina, to testify to their allegations of his sexual abuse of them when the sisters were young children. Perez’s counsel objected to their testimony as improper extraneous-offense evidence, and a hearing was held outside the presence of the jury.

Stacy and Tina each described the small home in which their family, of which Perez was the oldest of seven children, lived in Monterrey, Mexico, in the 1960s. Both women described how Perez, the oldest of the seven children, shared an upstairs room with a brother and that the women would regularly clean as part of their chores.

Stacy is fifteen to twenty years younger than Perez and described an incident that took place when she was no older than seven or eight years old, in the mid- to late-1960s. Stacy testified,

What I remember is that I would lay down and be looking at the floor, but he would be over me. I would remember his breathing and ... he was breathing really hard and I remember the pressure of my panties were on my ankles and his - - I guess he had pulled them down and - - and he had his thing in between my legs.

She clarified that his "thing" was his penis and that the area between her legs was her vagina, but could not remember if his penis penetrated her vagina. Stacy testified that she pretended she was not there and that she did not understand what was happening. She did not...