Court Opinion

ID: 9682618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:14:54.572198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:40.436988
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
On original submission, this Court reversed and remanded for new trial that portion of the judgment arising out of the prosecution of indictment number 34981 (injury to a child) due to a variance between the allegation in the indictment and the charge to the jury. We affirmed the judgment as it related to conviction under indictment number 34980 (injury to a child) which had been consolidated with the other for trial.
Appellant’s Ground of Error No. Seven alleged error in the court’s refusal to charge the lesser included offense of reckless or criminally negligent omission of a parental duty to obtain or provide prompt medical treatment for the Appellant’s child. This theory of liability had originally been pled by the State as Count Four of the indictment. It was quashed before trial due to failure to plead the degree of injury sustained by the child. Thus, the trial commenced with three allegations of liability: (1) intentional or knowing causation of disfigurement; (2) reckless or criminally negligent causation of disfigurement; (3) intentional or knowing omission of parental duty to provide medical care. At the close of the evidence, the defense requested that reckless or criminally negligent omission of duty be submitted to the jury as a lesser included offense of the third allegation described above. Tex.Penal Code Ann. sec. 22.04(a) and (c) (Vernon Supp.1982). The requested instruction was refused. The jury found Appellant not guilty as to the causation by act counts but guilty as to the one omission count.
Appellant’s original brief offered support for the ground of error by reference to testimony concerning her state of mind at the time she placed her child in the scalding bath water. We overruled the ground of error, finding that this testimony related only to the active causation of the injury and not any failure to promptly obtain medical assistance. Our attention has now been directed to other portions of the record which cause us to conclude that the requested charge was supported by the evidence and should have been submitted for jury consideration.
The child was burned in the bath water at approximately midday on September 6, 1979. According to the Appellant’s testimony, she removed the child from the water and observed some reddening of the skin. Later, a blister formed. She applied a home remedy of egg white and peroxide. The child went to sleep that afternoon. Appellant testified on direct and cross-examination that two factors led her to not take the child immediately to the hospital.
I thought that I could treat Angelica because we didn’t have enough money and doctors is expensive. (R. Ill 630)
On cross-examination:
Q. I think you stated that one of the reasons you hadn’t taken Angelica to the hospital, two reasons — first of all, you thought you could treat the burn and also, you didn’t have much money.
A. Yes.
The next day the child would not eat and was vomiting. Appellant then took her to the emergency room of a local hospital.
*661In determining whether or not a lesser included offense should be submitted to the jury, the credibility of the evidence is not a factor. Briceno v. State, 580 S.W.2d 842 (Tex.Crim.App.1979). The determinative prerequisites are that the elements of the lesser offense be within the scope of the pleadings and be supported as an alternate theory of guilt by some evidence in the record. See: Tex.Code Crim.Pro.Ann. art. 37.09(3) (Vernon 1981). The inconsistencies in the Appellant’s various explanations of her conduct, the variance between her versions and the physical evidence, and the initial false report to medical personnel as to the time the burn injury was sustained are matters of credibility to be evaluated by the jury. Branham v. State, 583 S.W.2d 782 (Tex.Crim.App.1979). If we were dealing with a failure to promptly obtain medical treatment which was based wholly or primarily on economic excuses, our result might well be different. The evidence as elicited by the defense and the State, however, revealed that economic consideration was only one factor. The other, more frequently repeated reason for delay was Appellant’s alleged belief that the bum was not that serious and that she could take care of the injury herself. Her own testimony presented such a lesser culpable mental state, consonant with the requested charge. Emergency Room Nurse Rawls testified that when Appellant first brought the child in she stated that she thought the burn was not that bad and could relieve it with a home remedy (R. II 110). Pediatric Nurse Isaacs observed signs of the home remedy (R. II123). Officer Ross Frankfort and Sergeant Paul Saucedo testified that Appellant thought the burn would go away and that the home remedy would suffice (R. II 127, 128, 137). This hearsay evidence was admissible for the truth of the matter stated since it revealed the declarant’s state of mind at the time of the conduct in question. Dr. Charles Lyon, Director of the Sun Towers Hospital Bum Unit, testified that he had frequently seen burn patients who were ultimately brought to the hospital after unsuccessful use of home remedies. This evidence supports a separate interpretation of the Appellant’s conduct consistent with the lesser mental states of recklessness or criminal negligence defined in Sections 6.03(c) and (d) of the Texas Penal Code. Consequently, we conclude that it was error to refuse the requested charge. Ground of Error No. Seven is now sustained.
The judgment is therefore reversed as to both causes, Indictment Nos. 34980 and 34981, and the causes are remanded for new trial.