State v. Baldridge
| Decision Date | 16 October 2019 |
| Docket Number | 19-158 |
| Parties | STATE OF LOUISIANA v. RANDY KEITH BALDRIDGE, II A/K/A RANDY BALDRIDGE |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana (US) |
Court composed of John D. Saunders, Phyllis M. Keaty, and Jonathan W. Perry, Judges.
CONVICTION AFFIRMED, SENTENCE VACATED, AND REMANDED FOR RESENTENCING WITH INSTRUCTIONS.
Lake Charles, Louisiana 70602-1747
Counsel for Defendant Appellant:
Randy Keith Baldridge, II
Lafayette, Louisiana 70502-3306
Counsel for Appellee:
State of Louisiana
Crowley, Louisiana 70526
Counsel for Appellee:
State of Louisiana
J. Taylor Gray
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70804
Counsel for Other Appellee:
Attorney General of the State of Louisiana
Defendant was convicted of indecent behavior with a juvenile. He was sentenced to twenty-five years at hard labor with at least two years to be served without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence. Defendant appeals his conviction and sentence. For the following reasons, we affirm Defendant's conviction, vacate his sentence, and remand for resentencing, with instructions.
Defendant, Randy Keith Baldridge, II, was charged with the first degree rape of N.M., the eight-year-old daughter of his then girlfriend.1 A jury found him guilty of the responsive verdict of indecent behavior with a juvenile. Defendant's motion for new trial was denied, and he was sentenced to twenty-five years at hard labor with at least two years to be served without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence. The trial court denied Defendant's motion to reconsider sentence and this appeal followed.
After review for errors patent on the face of the record,2 we have discovered two such errors. The first, which involves the trial court's imposition of an indeterminate sentence, was raised by appellate counsel and will be discussed as an assigned error. The second concerns the trial court's failure to advise Defendant of the prescriptive period for filing an application for post-conviction relief. Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure Article 930.8 provides that a defendant has two years after the conviction and sentence become final to seek post-conviction relief. The trial court is instructed to inform Defendant of the foregoing provision at resentencing.
Eight witnesses testified at the three-day trial of this matter. Their testimony is summarized below.
The first witness called by the State was Allison Roy, a forensic interviewer at Hearts of Hope Children's Advocacy Center (CAC). She testified that she interviewed the victim on November 19, 2015. Detective Dennis Fruge of the Acadia Parish Sheriff's Office (APSO) and Rachel Cart with the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) supervised the interview from an observation room. During Ms. Roy's testimony, a videotape of the CAC interview was played for the jury and admitted into evidence as State's Exhibit 1. The substance of that interview follows.
After introducing herself to the victim and asking the victim to tell her a little bit about herself, Ms. Roy asked the victim to tell her about what led to her being there that day. Ms. Roy told the victim that she should tell the truth about everything they discussed. When Ms. Roy initially asked the victim about what had happened to her, the victim answered, She said, The victim later told Ms. Roy that she was raped, which she understood to be something very bad for which one could go to jail to "pay the consequences." She stated that Mr. Randy, her mother's live-in boyfriend, had raped her more than once over the course of one year. When asked to give her definition of what "rape" meant, the victim explained that Defendant put his "private" in her "private," which term she described as "where you use the restroom." She said that when Defendant raped her, he did it so hard her privatewould sting and she would be unable to urinate for three days. Defendant told the victim not to tell anyone, threatening to punish her if she did.
The victim stated that the first time Defendant raped her was in her room when they were staying at her grandmother's rent house. Her brothers were asleep in another room. Defendant asked her if she wanted to stay up late, and he told her to get in his bed and play with his phone. Instead, she went to her room, and Defendant followed her. Defendant shoved a pillow over her face until she could not breathe. She passed out, but she knew Defendant put his body part in hers. She was on her back and Defendant was on his knees, in the middle of her legs. His private was hard, and he put it in her private and in her butt. Another time, when she was sleeping at her grandmother's house, Defendant woke her up, grabbed her hand, and made her touch his private. While that was happening, her mother came home from work. Defendant yanked the victim's arm toward him and slung it down, almost breaking it. He then hurriedly put his clothes on and went to watch television with her mom.
The victim said last time she was raped was on the previous Wednesday at her Uncle Pie's house. She had gone with Defendant to his mother's house earlier in the day. Defendant was drunk, acting "crazy," and running in the house. Her brothers were in their room and her uncle was in his room. She was sleeping in Defendant's room. He had drunk more than six beers. Defendant yanked off her pants and underwear, took some cream from a pinkish-red container in her mother's dresser, rubbed it on his private, and put his private in her private and in her butt. When the victim's mother came home, Defendant put on his pants and put the victim's clothes on her. The victim said numerous similar incidents happened when they lived at Uncle Pie's house. She described in detail two occasions where Defendant tried to"force" his private in her mouth, but was unable to do so because she put a pillow over her face.
On the videotape, the victim relayed several occasions when she told her mother about what Defendant had done to her, but her mother did not believe her. The victim's mother told her she had asked Defendant if the allegations were true, and he denied everything. Thereafter, her mother "kept bugging her," asking if she was sure Defendant had done what she accused him of. Her mother and Defendant punished her when she said anything about it, and Defendant called her a liar. The victim was mad at her mother because she knew what was happening and did nothing.
The victim said "Ms. Gretchen," a friend of her father, had recently asked her if anyone had been hurting her. She told Ms. Gretchen about what Defendant had been doing to her, and when Ms. Gretchen told her father, he got "very, very mad." Her father took her to the hospital where she spoke to a policewoman and had photographs taken of her private and her butt before going to be interviewed at the CAC.
Toward the end of the interview, Ms. Roy asked the victim how she was feeling. The victim said she felt good and hoped she could get the memories of what Defendant had done to her totally out of her mind. When Ms. Roy asked her how she felt about Defendant, the victim replied, "I don't know[,]" and tried to change the subject. She said that Defendant had left belt marks on her and her brothers. The victim said she wanted to live with her father because he was nice and she "didn't get whipped" there. She also said that they went out to eat more often when she lived with her father. When asked what she wanted to happen, the victim responded, "Everything to go back to normal; live with daddy and have a happy life[.]"
Detective Fruge investigated the allegations against Defendant when he worked for the APSO. He received a call on November 7, 2015, to contact a nurse at a Lafayette hospital about the possible molestation of an eight-year-old. Detective Fruge went to the hospital where he learned the last incident allegedly took place on November 4, 2015. He later observed the victim's interview at the CAC. Based on the information he gathered, he arrested Defendant.
Detective Fruge stated that he did not go to the crime scene to collect bedding nor did he gather any clothing from the victim or Defendant because of the time lapse between the date of the last alleged occurrence and when he received the call. No other suspects emerged. Thus, he did not interview anyone about the matter, nor did he get a statement or a DNA sample from Defendant.
Dr. Rebecca Doise, the medical director of the children's emergency room at Women and Children's Hospital, was accepted as an expert pediatric emergency room physician. She stated that the victim went to the emergency room on November 7, 2015. Dr. Doise came into the room during the victim's physical examination by the sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE).3 Dr. Doise did not believe a rape kit was done "because of the time of presentation and the last known contact with her alleged perpetrator." Dr. Doise created a report of the victim's examination. Her primary finding was "sexual assault by bodily force."
Dr. Doise said the victim had ...
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