Smith v. State

• Decision Date: 02 June 2010
• Docket Number: No. 06-09-00094-CR.,06-09-00094-CR.
• Citation: 314 S.W.3d 576
• Parties: Latoya SMITH, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

314 S.W.3d 576

Latoya SMITH, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 06-09-00094-CR.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Texarkana.

Submitted May 10, 2010.

Decided June 2, 2010.

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Craig L. Henry, Texarkana, for appellant.

Michael Shepherd, Jerry D. Rochelle, Samantha Oglesby, Asst. Dist. Attorneys, Texarkana, for appellee.

Before MORRISS, C.J., CARTER and MOSELEY, JJ.

OPINION

Opinion by Chief Justice MORRISS.

The physical abuse suffered by the victim in this case over a period of days was reminiscent of torture reportedly used by rogue captors to break military prisoners. Two attackers repeatedly assaulted the much smaller and weaker victim, sometimes kicking her, sometimes slamming her into the wall, sometimes striking her with belts. They made her stand barefooted and motionless for hours at a time, sometimes atop an overturned plastic milk crate cast using a large open grid pattern, which caused her additional pain. When she faltered, she was further assaulted. As if the victim had not suffered enough, on the final day of the attacks, her female attacker repeatedly pushed the exhausted victim backward onto the floor. Each fall caused the victim's head to hit the floor; the last time hard enough so a witness heard the victim's "brain crack." The victim, River Phoenix Williams, died from her injuries.

River Phoenix was two years old. The attackers were her father and the father's live-in girlfriend.

Just as River Phoenix had been entitled to the protections of the law, her attackers, too, are entitled to all applicable protective provisions of the law.

Latoya Smith, the live-in girlfriend, was convicted in River Phoenix's death, after River Phoenix's father, Neil Patrick Dewitt, had pled guilty to the same crime.

Sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, Smith appeals, urging a number of arguments but making no challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to prove the offense of capital murder. We affirm the trial court's judgment because (1) the State's nondisclosure of certain evidence did not require an in camera inspection of the State's file or a mistrial, (2) no Confrontation Clause violation arose from the trial court's rulings regarding the testimony of Wade and Roberson, (3) admitting River Phoenix's autopsy report did not violate the Confrontation Clause, (4) excluding evidence of Smith's mental health history during the guilt/innocence phase was not error, and (5) admitting evidence of Smith's prior behavior and attitude toward River Phoenix was not error. We address the arguments in that order, after recounting the facts in greater detail.

Before her death, River Phoenix lived with Dewitt, Smith, and River Phoenix's minor sister, K.T. Dewitt admitted that he was party to the abuse that caused his child's death, pled guilty to capital murder, and also received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. He testified against Smith during her trial, consistently said that the two of them killed River Phoenix, and enlightened the jury on the origins of Smith's jealousy, dislike, and abuse of River Phoenix, who was Dewitt's daughter by another woman. Dewitt stated, "When I found out that River Phoenix was my child, Smith had said, well, there's your child you could've had with me." Dewitt also testified that Smith would never accept River Phoenix, and felt that Dewitt "cheated on her because River Phoenix came in after we were together." Smith's journal complained that Dewitt told River Phoenix that Smith was picking on her.

So now whenever I come in the room when she's eating she stops eating and watches me like I'm the TV . . ., so now I don't go into any room that she's in and I don't say anything to her and I leave her and Dewitt alone and they seem to do just fine without me around. Good news, she goes home to her mother on the first of the month. The bad news is today is only the 27th of the month. I have never disliked a child so much in my life. I wish she didn't exist.

For this reason, both Dewitt and K.T. testified, Smith had a "bad" relationship with River Phoenix resulting in child abuse.

Some of Smith's treatment of River Phoenix was described by Kiara Kashawn Wade and her mother, Evelyn Roberson. Smith, a stay-at-home hair stylist, booked an appointment with Wade for hair braiding. When Wade and Roberson arrived, they noticed that River Phoenix was left in the back yard alone. Wade testified:

When Smith started to braid my hair, River Phoenix was standing next to us, and Smith didn't like that. She said, go play with the toys or go play with the dog. And River Phoenix didn't move, she just stood there. And that's when Smith went on saying, we bought her all these toys and she don't play with them, and she ended up siccing the dog on the baby, making the baby cry . . . . Smith was just putting the dog on the baby.

Wade asked Smith to stop, to which Smith replied, "If you don't like it, then you can take her home with you." Smith then forced River Phoenix to stand in a corner for seven hours. "After she put her in a corner, River Phoenix kept crying . . . . But as Smith was talking to me . . . . she was talking about River Phoenix's mother, she was throwing stuff at the baby; hairbrushes, she threw some grease at her, and she threw a shoe at her." Smith reportedly told Wade that she hoped Dewitt "did get custody of the baby, that way she could do what she wanted to with River Phoenix." Wade said, "You could tell River Phoenix wanted to sit down. You know, a baby's legs . . . she was shaking. . . . She had been standing for almost six hours now." At one point, Smith checked River Phoenix's diaper, found it dirty, told her she stank, "smashed" the diaper against her, and "made her sit in it." Smith refused Wade's offer of help to change the diaper. When Wade offered River Phoenix food, Smith "knocked it out of her hand" and offered River Phoenix the food herself. When River Phoenix backed away, Smith said that she had "a nasty attitude towards the people that take care of her, but with everybody else that she don't know she's very friendly." Toward the end of the evening, Dewitt arrived and was instructed not to feed River Phoenix "anything because all the food in the house belonged to Smith." The couple joked and "said they treat the dog better than they treat River Phoenix because her attitude is so messed up." A distraught Wade returned to Roberson's house and reported the day's events. Roberson attempted an intervention with Dewitt and Smith, which resulted in Smith cursing the child and blaming her for her stubbornness. The couple told Roberson that River Phoenix "was the problem."

The problems continued. The day before River Phoenix's death, she "was in her chair and didn't want to eat." Smith became upset, yelled at the child, took her from the dinner table, and gave her a bath instead. Then, River Phoenix was instructed to dress herself. When the two-year-old was unsuccessful at this task, Smith spanked the child with a red leather belt that had a brass buckle, a weapon used regularly by Smith to beat the child. Smith "had beat her for a while, and then she got increasingly frustrated and passed her to" Dewitt, who beat her with a black leather belt. At one point, Dewitt "hit her once over the top of the head with the belt." Dewitt justified his actions by claiming to be supportive of Smith's theory that River Phoenix was coddled.

The couple passed the baby back and forth between themselves for continued beatings over the course of several hours. The whippings ended after Smith grabbed the child by her arms, "rammed her into the wall," "dropped kicked her out of the way," and walked away from her. As if the child had not suffered enough, she was later made to stand, without shoes, on a plastic crate cast with a large grid pattern in its plastic body. After Dewitt nudged her with his foot, River Phoenix fell from the crate, hit her head on a nearby nightstand, climbed back up, and continued to stand throughout the night.

The next morning, Dewitt left for work, and K.T. boarded her school bus. Dewitt had been "cheating on" Smith with another woman whom he met on the Yahoo Singles dating website. Smith discovered the website and called Dewitt at work to inquire about the other woman. He received angry telephone calls all day culminating in threats against River Phoenix's life, including one instructing Dewitt "to be careful when I pulled into the garage because River Phoenix would be lying there dead." Dewitt did not rush home.

Around 1:00 p.m., Karrie Sue McNeil arrived to clean the apartment next door. She noticed the unmistakable sound, coming from the Dewitt-Smith residence, of a baby crying and screaming in pain. The child continued to cry and scream for the entire hour and a half it took McNeil to finish her job. While she contemplated reporting her suspicions, McNeil did not act on that idea.

K.T. testified that she returned from school that day to find River Phoenix "standing in the corner hunched over, and her knees—her legs were swelled up and she had bags under her eyes." Smith sat on the couch and would hit River Phoenix "with the belt on her legs" when the baby would fall down from standing. K.T. was forbidden to intervene. When Smith had her fill of this torture, K.T. was allowed to bathe River Phoenix. K.T. observed "she had whip marks on her legs and on her back" and "nail marks on the back of her ears." After the bath, K.T. took her baby sister to the living room where Smith was watching television. Smith "kneeled down in front of" the baby, and "pushed her down." River Phoenix fell backward, hit her head on the floor, and began to cry. When she stumbled up to a standing position, Smith twice repeated this action. As a result of the third push to the ground, K.T. heard River Phoenix's "brain crack." River Phoenix "laid there looking at the ceiling," and ...