Woodruff v. State

• Decision Date: 26 July 2012
• Docket Number: NO. 02-11-00340-CR,NO. 02-11-00338-CR,NO. 02-11-00343-CR,NO. 02-11-00341-CR,NO. 02-11-00339-CR,NO. 02-11-00337-CR,NO. 02-11-00342-CR,02-11-00337-CR,02-11-00338-CR,02-11-00339-CR,02-11-00340-CR,02-11-00341-CR,02-11-00342-CR,02-11-00343-CR
• Citation: Woodruff v. State, NO. 02-11-00337-CR, NO. 02-11-00338-CR, NO. 02-11-00339-CR (Tex. App. Jul 26, 2012)
• Parties: CHARLES FRANKLIN WOODRUFF, APPELLANT v. THE STATE OF TEXAS STATE
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

CHARLES FRANKLIN WOODRUFF, APPELLANT

v.THE STATE OF TEXAS STATE

NO. 02-11-00337-CR

NO. 02-11-00338-CR

NO. 02-11-00339-CR

NO. 02-11-00340-CR

NO. 02-11-00341-CR

NO. 02-11-00342-CR

NO. 02-11-00343-CR

COURT OF APPEALS SECOND DISTRICT OF TEXAS FORT WORTH

Dated: July 26, 2012

FROM THE 90TH DISTRICT COURT OF YOUNG COUNTY

MEMORANDUM OPINION¹

In five issues, appellant Charles Franklin Woodruff appeals his convictions for three counts of indecency with a child by contact, two counts of sexualassault, one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child.² We affirm.

Background Facts

Rebekah Woodruff and Paul N. are the parents of C.N. (Courtney), who was born in December 1989, and B.N. (Brandy), who was born in September 1992.³ Rebekah and appellant are the parents of W.W. (Whitney), who was born in July 2004. When Rebekah and Paul divorced, Courtney and Brandy lived with Rebekah, and they eventually also lived with appellant and Whitney. Paul married another woman, Mindy N.

Courtney, who was twenty-one years old at the time of the trial in July 2011, is autistic and is mildly mentally retarded. Rena Fore, who worked with special needs students for Graham ISD, developed a relationship with Courtney when Courtney became a freshman in high school. Fore knew that Courtney was autistic, but Fore did not believe that Courtney had trouble separating fantasy from reality. Michelle McGee also worked with special needs students in Graham, and she had known Courtney since Courtney was in elementary school. According to McGee, Courtney was a "high-functioning autistic child."

On April 17, 2008, when Courtney was eighteen years old and was a junior in high school, she acted poorly at school. Fore and McGee talked to Courtney about her behavior. Courtney told them that she had been sexually abused by appellant. McGee called Rebekah. Rebekah came to the school, and Courtney told her, in much more detail, what she had said to McGee and to Fore. Rebekah asked Courtney questions, and during those questions, according to Fore, Courtney pointed to "[h]er breast area and her bottom." To Fore, Rebekah appeared to be startled and disturbed. Rebekah eventually left the school, and McGee called a law enforcement hotline.

The next day, Adult Protective Services (APS) contacted Jeff Smith, an investigator with the Graham Police Department, about Courtney's outcry of sexual abuse. Officer Smith learned that Rebekah was not being cooperative with APS's investigation into the abuse and that Rebekah did not believe that Courtney's allegations were true. In fact, on April 18, 2008, Rebekah and Courtney both signed a document stating that Courtney did not want to be questioned by authorities without Rebekah's consent and without Rebekah's presence.

Between April 17 and April 22, 2008, Courtney left the house where Rebekah and appellant lived and moved in with her biological father, Paul, and her stepmother, Mindy. Shortly after Courtney moved in with Paul and Mindy, Mindy took Courtney back to Graham so that Courtney could attend a prom. On the way to Graham, Courtney talked to Mindy about appellant's putting his penisin Courtney's "hole." After the prom, Mindy took Courtney to a Domino's Pizza restaurant to meet appellant because appellant had said that he wanted to take a picture of Courtney. At the store, Mindy heard appellant asking Courtney about "her body parts" and about whether she wanted to talk to the police.

Mindy brought Courtney to an interview about her allegations of sexual abuse. Upon the request of APS, Dr. Brandon Bates, a licensed clinical psychologist, performed a psychological evaluation of Courtney in June 2008. Dr. Bates explained that prior to his evaluation of Courtney, he knew, based on records that he had received from another doctor and from Courtney's school, that she was autistic,⁴ that she was mildly mentally retarded, and that she had been enrolled in special education programs throughout her school years.

Based on his evaluation, Dr. Bates concluded that Courtney's "adaptive functioning age" was seven years and three months, although Courtney was actually eighteen years old at the time of the evaluation. Nonetheless, Dr. Bates opined that Courtney was able to speak in a logical and coherent manner, that she responded to questions appropriately, that she had the capacity to rememberevents and narrate facts, and that she was capable of knowing the difference between the truth and a lie. Dr. Bates opined that Courtney's autism and mental retardation rendered her incapable of consenting to a sexual encounter.

At trial, Courtney testified that appellant, who she called "Charlie," had touched her with his penis on her "boobs," vagina, and "butt." Specifically, she testified that appellant had put his penis in her "butt," which hurt her badly.

For years, Brandy denied, on several occasions, that appellant had sexually abused her or Courtney. But Brandy eventually told her fiancé, Dalton, about being sexually abused by appellant. Dalton committed suicide in March 2010 after he and Brandy broke up. It was Dalton's last wish for Brandy to tell someone about the abuse, so Brandy called Matt Pruitt, a deputy with the Young County Sheriff's Office.⁵ Deputy Pruitt and his wife, Tracy, went to a park to meet with Brandy. Brandy told them that appellant had sexually abused her, and she revealed details about an incident that had occurred with appellant and "Mack," her boyfriend before she was engaged to Dalton.

At trial, Brandy said that she had initially denied appellant's sexual abuse of her because she was scared of appellant,⁶ she thought that she was the only one being abused, and she believed that she was protecting her sisters.Brandy testified that over the course of several years while she lived with appellant, he had touched her vagina and her breasts with his hands, had put his penis in her vagina on more than one occasion, and had also put his penis in her mouth. Brandy also said that appellant had forced her to watch pornography with him.

Brandy and Mack each testified about a night in 2008 when they met appellant at Brandy's stepgrandmother's empty house. At the time, Brandy and Mack were fifteen years old. Appellant let them drink alcohol.⁷ Appellant told them to exchange the alcohol between each other's mouths as they were kissing. Later, appellant told Mack to take off his shirt so that appellant could perform an Indian healing ritual.⁸ After appellant started chanting over Mack and Mack pushed appellant off of him, appellant pulled out a gun and asked Mack if he was scared. At that time, Mack said that he was not scared (although Mack testified at trial that he was scared). Appellant rubbed the gun around Mack's head, face, and shoulder.

Later that night, appellant and Mack went outside and sat in a pickup, where appellant again pointed the gun at Mack. Appellant told Mack that he wanted Mack and Brandy to have sex while appellant watched. Mack initiallyresisted. But because Brandy was in the house, because Mack was scared for her well-being, and because appellant had said that he would go get her only if Mack got "hard," Mack took off his shorts and tried to arouse himself. When Mack could not do so, however, appellant "reached over and put his hand on the base of [Mack's] penis and moved his fingers around kind of in a stroking motion." Mack still could not become aroused, and appellant asked Mack whether appellant needed to "use [his] mouth," which angered Mack. Mack shoved appellant, and Mack and appellant began yelling at each other. Appellant went back into the house and told Mack that if he got out of the truck, a "banshee" would attack him. Appellant "let two or three rounds off in the air and disappeared into the house." Eventually, Mack went back into the house, and he and Brandy stayed in a locked bedroom the rest of the night. Mack later told Deputy Pruitt what had happened.

Whitney eventually left appellant and Rebekah's home, and she began living with Donna Dragoo, a foster parent, in April 2010. While living in Dragoo's home, Whitney told Dragoo that appellant had sexually abused her.

Grand juries indicted appellant for three counts of indecency with a child by contact (for touching Whitney's genitals, Mack's genitals, and Brandy's genitals while intending to arouse or gratify a person's sexual desire), two counts of sexual assault (for penetrating Courtney's anus by his sexual organ without her consent when she was an adult and for penetrating Brandy's mouth with his sexual organ when she was under seventeen years old), one count ofaggravated assault with a deadly weapon (for intentionally or knowingly threatening Mack with imminent bodily injury while using a gun), and one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child (for penetrating Brandy's sexual organ with his own sexual organ when she was younger than fourteen years old). Before appellant's trial began, he agreed to allow the cases arising from his acts in Stephens County to be tried in Young County together with the cases that arose there.

Appellant pled not guilty to each charge. At his trial, after the jury heard evidence and arguments from the parties, it deliberated for less than an hour before convicting him of each offense. In the punishment phase of the trial, appellant pled true to a repeat offender paragraph that six of his indictments contained; he therefore admitted that he had been previously convicted of indecency with a child. The jury assessed twenty years' confinement for appellant's sexual assault of Courtney and confinement for life for each of the six other offenses. The trial court sentenced appellant in accordance with the jury's verdicts, and it ordered all of the sentences, except for the sentence for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, to run consecutively. Appellant brought these appeals.

Evidentiary Sufficiency

In his second and fourth issues, appellant argues...