State v. Paredes

• Decision Date: 18 September 2009
• Docket Number: No. 07-0237.,07-0237.
• Citation: 775 N.W.2d 554
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Edwin Bello PAREDES, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

775 N.W.2d 554

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Edwin Bello PAREDES, Appellant.

No. 07-0237.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

September 18, 2009.

Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Martha J. Lucey, Assistant State Appellate Defender, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Darrel L. Mullins, Assistant Attorney General, Janet M. Lyness, County Attorney, and Anne M. Lahey, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.

APPEL, Justice.

Edwin Paredes appeals his conviction for child endangerment resulting in serious injury. The charges arose after his infant child was diagnosed with shaken-baby syndrome. Paredes claims that the district court erred in excluding hearsay statements made by the child's mother that she "may have" caused the baby's injuries. The court of appeals affirmed Paredes' conviction. For the reasons expressed below, we vacate the decision of the court of appeals, reverse the judgment of the district court, and remand the case for a new trial.

I. Background Facts and Prior Proceedings.

Paredes and Cassidy Millard are the parents of a young infant. At the time of the events relevant to this proceeding, Paredes was twenty-four years old, Millard was sixteen years old, and the baby was two months old. The family was living in the home of Paredes' sister, Wendy Jimenez, in Coralville, Iowa.

After being seen by a physician on Saturday, April 23, 2005 for what appeared to be a routine ear infection, the baby's condition deteriorated. On Sunday, after consulting with the child's physician, Millard called for an ambulance to take the infant to a local hospital. Police officers arrived at the residence shortly thereafter. Upon arrival of the police officers, Paredes was defensive, asking the officers, "What are you doing here?" and declaring, "This is not a domestic." Paredes remained at home while Millard accompanied the child to the hospital.

At the hospital, medical personnel diagnosed the baby with shaken-baby syndrome. The fact that the infant was not properly diagnosed on Saturday when the child was seen by a physician was explained by the developing nature of shaken-baby syndrome symptoms. At first, the symptoms are general irritability, excessive crying, and trouble feeding. These symptoms then progress to more severe problems, including periodic seizures. Based on the onset of the seizures, medical personnel determined that the injury occurred sometime between late Friday and early Saturday morning. As mandatory reporters, hospital staff contacted the Iowa Department of Human Services (DHS) to report the suspected abuse.

On Sunday evening, Chad Bollweg of DHS and Coralville Police Detective Robbie Swank met with Paredes and Millard. Both denied any knowledge of how the child was injured. They did admit, however, that they were the child's only caregivers during the period in question, except for a brief fifteen-minute period when Paredes' sister cared for the baby.

On Monday, Bollweg and another social worker, Vicky Leau, met with the couple. Leau informed the parents that all future visits with the child would have to be supervised. Upon hearing this, Paredes declared that supervised visits would not be necessary—he caused the injuries. Leau wondered whether Paredes "was just saying that so that Cassidy could be unsupervised and spend more time at the hospital." Millard commented that Paredes should not say something simply for her sake.

Paredes, nevertheless, claimed he was watching the child while Millard was outside smoking and shook the baby when it would not stop crying. He later performed a reenactment. Paredes repeated the story to Detective Swank and Bollweg and signed a written statement detailing the incident and declaring his remorse. He was not immediately arrested.

On Tuesday, Paredes again met with Detective Swank. At that time, Paredes asked Swank whether anyone ever testified falsely in order to protect someone else and whether the detective thought he had hurt the baby. Swank responded by asking Paredes if he was denying shaking the baby. Paredes then denied shaking the infant. Swank told Paredes he did not appreciate him "treating this like a game" and asked for the truth.

At this point, Paredes returned to his initial claim and once again asserted that he injured the child. He stated he was afraid of going to jail. Paredes suggested that he and Millard should not have admitted they were the only caregivers and instead should have pointed the finger at some of the older kids in the home. Paredes apologized for his inconsistencies.

On May 1, Millard called a social worker, Susan Gail, with whom she had prior contact. Because of the nature of the call, Gail memorialized the contents of the conversation. According to Gail's memorandum, Millard told her that Millard's child had shaken-baby syndrome. When Gail asked Millard what had happened, Millard responded:

She said she did not know, but her boyfriend (Edwin, I think) was in jail for it. She said that he did not do it, though. She then asked me if her diagnosis was Multiple Personality Disorder, because sometimes she doesn't remember what she does. I asked her if she meant like the time she threatened to kill/stab me. (This was when she was in Valley Shelter 2 years ago.) She said yes, that's what I mean.

Gail told Millard that she did not believe Millard had been diagnosed as having Multiple Personality Disorder, but questioned Millard as to why Millard would pose such a question. According to the Gail memorandum, Millard responded:

She told me she knows Edwin would not hurt the baby and hinted around that maybe she did it, but didn't remember. I asked about the day that it happened. I asked her if the baby was crying. She told me that he cried all the time, he was colicky [sic]. She said that she just yelled at him to "shut up", but never hit him. She then said that she had started spanking him lately, but that it did not hurt him since he had on a big diaper.

The Gail memorandum further states:

Cassidy was afraid that if she told that she might have done it, she would go to prison when she is 18. I told her that she needed to talk to her attorney. I told her that she would not get the baby back and she said that she knew that. She asked me what would happen to her if it was found that she did hurt the baby. I told her that I didn't know, but more than likely she would go to Toledo until she turned 18.

After discussing the condition of the child, the Gail memorandum indicates that she and Millard further discussed Millard's situation:

Cassidy told me that she has been crying for a week because she does not want her boyfriend to take the fall for this. She said that he is not that kind of guy, not violent. She said that Edwin didn't even take care of the baby that much. She kept saying, "if I did it."

At this point, Gail continued to talk to Millard as if she did do it and was not contradicted. Gail again advised Millard to contact her attorney.

Gail contacted her supervisor about the conversation and forwarded a copy of the memorandum by e-mail to her. The e-mail was then forwarded to Detective Swank. Although Detective Swank spoke with Gail by telephone, he did not interview Millard again. On May 5, the State charged Paredes with child endangerment resulting in serious injury in violation of Iowa Code section 726.6(1)(b) (2003).

On the day of trial, the State filed a motion in limine to exclude Gail's testimony regarding her conversation with Millard as impermissible hearsay. The motion in limine was considered in chambers, with only a brief record made after the fact. On the record, the State argued that Gail's testimony would constitute inadmissible hearsay. Paredes' counsel did not specifically respond to the State's argument. The court orally sustained the motion.

The next day, Paredes filed a motion to reconsider. Paredes urged that he be allowed to question Detective Swank and DHS employee Bollweg about the memorandum, its contents, and their responses to it. Paredes stated that he was not presenting the evidence for the truth of the matter asserted, but instead argued that the actions of Swank and Bollweg in response to the Gail memorandum revealed the existence of another suspect in the case.

After allowing oral argument on the motion to reconsider, the district court denied it. In a ruling on the record, the district court held that the statements made by Millard in the memorandum were out-ofcourt statements by a declarant who was unavailable to testify. The district court further concluded that the statements did not meet the hearsay exception for statements against interest under Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.804(b)(3).

In support of its conclusion, the court found that the statements attributed to Millard would not subject her to criminal liability, but were statements about hypothetical guilt or hypothetical punishments if guilt were established or an admission were made. Further, the district court ruled that there were insufficient corroborating circumstances under rule 5.804(b)(3) to allow admission of the statements.

Paredes was convicted at trial. On appeal, the court of appeals affirmed his conviction. The court of appeals concluded that because the district court ruled on the issue, the admissibility of Millard's statements was preserved. On the merits of the claim, however, the court of appeals concluded that Paredes failed to show that Millard was unavailable for trial, a prerequisite for admission of statements against interest under rule 5.804(b)(3). We granted further review.

II. Standard of Review.

A district court's decision to admit or exclude evidence is generally reviewed for an abuse of discretion. State v. Jordan, 663 N.W.2d 877, 879 (Iowa 2003). This court, however, reviews hearsay claims for correction of errors at law. State v. Newell, 710 N.W.2d 6, 18 (Iowa 2006). This standard of review extends to determining whether statements come within an exception to the...