Court Opinion

ID: 9958113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-08 08:11:30.560457+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:51.734765
License: Public Domain

In the
        Court of Appeals
Second Appellate District of Texas
         at Fort Worth
      ___________________________

           No. 02-23-00168-CR
      ___________________________

   PETER HUNG NGUYEN, Appellant

                      V.

          THE STATE OF TEXAS

  On Appeal from the 297th District Court
         Tarrant County, Texas
        Trial Court No. 1733813

Before Sudderth, C.J.; Birdwell and Wallach, JJ.
  Memorandum Opinion by Justice Wallach
                           MEMORANDUM OPINION

      Appellant Peter Hung Nguyen challenges his conviction for sexual assault of a

child and indecency with a child. In one issue, he argues that the trial court abused its

discretion by admitting extraneous offense evidence because the evidence’s admission

was not authorized by Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 38.37 and was more

prejudicial than probative. Because the trial court did not abuse its discretion, we will

affirm.

                                     Background

I. The Charged Offenses

      The complainant in this case was M.P. (May).1 At trial, May testified that she

met Nguyen on a social media app when she was around fourteen and then met him

in person. They continued to keep in touch by meeting in person and by calls through

Discord. When May was in 9th grade, Nguyen came to her house four times. When

he visited during the daytime, there were no adults in the house, and May let him in

through the front door. When he came over at night, however, he entered the house

through May’s bedroom window. On one of those occasions, May’s grandfather

caught him trying to get into the house and chased him away. In August 2020,

      1
       We use pseudonyms when referring to people discussed in this opinion who
were minors during their encounters with Nguyen. See Tex. R. App. P. 9.10(a)(3). To
further protect these minors’ identity, we also use pseudonyms when referring to the
minors’ adult family members. See Tex. Const. art. I, § 30(a)(1); McClendon v. State,
643 S.W.2d 936, 936 n.1 (Tex. Crim. App. [Panel Op.] 1982).

                                           2
however, Nguyen was able to enter the house without being caught, and May testified

that on that occasion, Nguyen touched her breast and put his fingers and then his

penis in her vagina.

      Nguyen came to the house on another date in April 2021 while May was

dogsitting. Nguyen kissed May, touched her breast, and removed his pants. However,

the dog was blocking May’s body, and while Nguyen was trying to move the dog,

May’s grandmother (Grandmother) arrived home. Grandmother knocked on May’s

door, but the door was locked, and May did not open right away. May finally opened

the door after about ten minutes, and Grandmother found Nguyen hiding in May’s

closet. Grandmother yelled at Nguyen and hit him, but he pushed Grandmother and

ran away, and May ran out after him. However, Grandmother took a picture of

Nguyen’s license plate before they drove away. Grandmother then called May’s

mother, who called 911; the person May’s mother spoke with said to report May as

missing because she was underage.

      May returned home about ten minutes later, and she admitted to her mother

that she had had sex with Nguyen. Mother later reported this fact to the police when

they followed up on her report.

      Arlington Police Detective Mary Almy investigated the case after it was

assigned to her in January 2022.2 She spoke with May’s mother and then arranged for

      2
       After May’s mother’s phone report, May had been entered into the police
department’s system as a runaway, but a clerical error had led to the runaway report’s

                                          3
May to be interviewed by a forensic interviewer at a child advocacy center. Based on

that interview, May underwent a medical exam by a sexual assault nurse examiner at

John Peter Smith Hospital.

       Almy also interviewed Nguyen, and during that interview, Nguyen nodded in

response to the detective asking him, “So, prior to April of last year, y’all had sex

more than one time, right?” Further, when Almy asked him, “Ok, so, [on the date he

had been found by Grandmother], Grandma came in, that was a year ago, so how

many months was it before that [date] that [you] had sex with her,” Nguyen

responded that it had been less than six months. The video of that interview was

played for the jury.

       The State indicted Nguyen on two counts of sexual assault and three counts of

indecency with a child. On the second day of trial, the State amended the indictment

to drop one of the indecency counts and renumber the remaining counts. Thus, the

trial court submitted to the jury two counts of sexual assault (counts I and II) and two

counts of indecency with a child by contact (counts III and IV). The jury found

Nguyen guilty on one count of sexual assault of a child (count I) and one count of

indecency by contact (count III) and acquitted him of the other two charges. The jury

assessed punishment of seventeen years’ confinement in the Institutional Division of

not being properly entered into the police department’s system. In January 2022,
Almy received an email that May had been located, but when she pulled up the report,
she saw that “it wasn’t a runaway report. It was an assault report.”

                                           4
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for count I and seven years’ confinement

for count III. The trial court sentenced Nguyen in accordance with the jury’s verdict

and ordered his sentences to run concurrently.

II. The Extraneous Offense Evidence

        Nguyen’s issue on appeal focuses on evidence admitted at trial of a prior

offense against a minor. After the State advised the trial court that it intended to call

the minor’s mother, M.Z. (Minh), and a police officer to provide evidence under Code

of Criminal Procedure Article 38.37, Section 2, the trial court held a hearing outside

the jury’s presence. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.37. For purposes of the hearing,

Minh testified about a time when she had found Nguyen in the bedroom of her pre-

teen daughter N.S. (Nga). The police officer who had responded to a 911 call made by

Nga’s mother testified about the officer’s interactions with Nguyen in response to that

call.

        According to Minh, on June 13, 2020, at about 2:00 a.m., she heard a loud

noise from upstairs, so she went up to Nga’s upstairs bedroom. When she opened the

door, she saw Nguyen on top of Nga simulating sex. Nga was twelve at the time.

Minh described to the jury what she saw:

              Q. . . . Now, you said that you saw a guy on top of your daughter
              on the bed?

              A. (Nods head up and down.)

              Q. What were they doing?

                                           5
             A. Sexing.3

             ....

             Q. Do you think they were engaged in sex?

           A. Yes, but they still had clothes on. And I got—I went one
      time—if I wait a little bit, I don’t know what can happen.

            Q. And I’m sorry. I know this is hard, but when you said that they
      were—they had their clothes on but it looked like they were having sex,
      were they touching each other?

              A. Yes. He’s between my daughter’s leg. . . . He’s between in my
      daughter’s leg, and my daughter leg was open, and he’s between—like,
      he’s top on her.

            Q. (BY [Prosecutor]) So you said that he was on top of her and he
      was between your daughter’s legs, like, your daughter’s legs were open?

             A. Yes.

             Q. Okay. And were their bodies touching each other?

             A. (Nods head up and down.)

             Q. Once you saw that—

            A. He’s like—his body was moving back and forth. [Emphasis
      added.]

      Minh testified that she screamed, called for her husband, and separated her

daughter and Nguyen. She also called the police, who responded and picked up

Nguyen. On cross-examination, she again stated that Nguyen and her daughter had

      3
       Minh’s phrasing throughout her testimony suggests that English is not her first
language.

                                          6
their clothes on during the incident: “He—they sexing, only the clothes stay on. He’s

back and forth, like, doing the sex to my daughter. I saw it with my eyes.” [Emphasis added.]

       The trial court then followed up with more clarifying questions:

              THE COURT: On his question, to be clear, you said their clothes
              were on. Were their clothes completely on?

              THE WITNESS: Yes.

              THE COURT: So pants were buckled, no skin was exposed. Was
       clothes covering all of their skin?

              THE WITNESS: Yes. They both clothes stay on.

              THE COURT: All clothes on, including on their genital area.

              THE WITNESS: Yes.

              THE COURT: And their crotch area.

              THE WITNESS: Yes.

              THE COURT: So what you’re saying, you saw them pushing and
       rubbing against each other, but there was no skin-to-skin contact. Is that
       what you’re saying?

              THE WITNESS: Yes. [Emphasis added.]

       The State also called Fort Worth Police Officer Dallas Goldring, who had

responded to Minh’s 911 call. Goldring testified that Nguyen originally said his name

was Stephen Nguyen and provided a 2007 birth date, which would have made Nguyen

thirteen years old. Based on the age given by Nguyen, Goldring had him call his

mother, but after speaking with the woman whom Nguyen had called, Goldring

                                              7
determined that the woman was not Nguyen’s mother.4 Goldring eventually learned

Nguyen’s actual first name and that Nguyen was twenty-one. Goldring also stated that

although the other officer on the scene may have spoken to Minh, she “mostly spoke

with [Nguyen]” and did not remember speaking to Minh or Nga, and she “never

learned that there was anything other than kissing that happened.” Goldring stated

that Nguyen was arrested for failing to identify himself.5

       After the testimony of those two witnesses, Nguyen objected that “[a]s far as

the 38.37, the testimony is only that there was kissing. . . . It doesn’t fit into indecency

fondling” and that “if the girl is not going to testify, . . . it’s more prejudicial than

probative to allow this to come in, and it’s certainly highly prejudicial to him when

she’s not here.” After hearing the parties’ arguments, the trial court ruled,

       Based on the motions of the 12-year-old child’s mom, based upon the
       sexing, based on her movements, based upon legs spread, moving up
       and down, what I would say is thrusting-type motions, if I were to
       describe what is said from the Court’s interpretation of evidence, on the
       indecency issue, contact the genitals by any means with intent to arouse
       or gratify, over, under clothing, I think there is evidence thereby which
       that could have been done, and the fact that a police department did or
       didn’t see it that way, it’s the issue does the jury see it or not see it that
       way.

       In her testimony before the jury, Goldring said that the woman admitted to
       4

being Nguyen’s ex-girlfriend.

       During Goldring’s testimony after the jury trial resumed, she stated that the
       5

other officer at the scene reported the incident to a detective in the crimes against
children unit, and Goldring had no more involvement in the case after that.

                                             8
             The jury—based on the nature of this particular charge, too, it’s
      not offered out of context; there’s multiple counts of the same contact.
      The information and offense has been discussed thoroughly by two
      good sets of lawyers during the jury selection process of the
      understanding. So I find that, for statutory purposes, the conduct would
      be legally sufficient to sustain a charge of indecency with a child.

The trial court then ruled that the evidence could be admitted as evidence of

Nguyen’s character and of “whether acts are performed in conformity with said

character at the time and place of the offenses on trial.”

      After the jury trial resumed, Minh and Goldring both testified. During

Goldring’s testimony, the State published the body camera video from Goldring’s

encounter with Nguyen. After the testimony, the State rested. The defense rested

without presenting evidence.

                                      Discussion

      In Nguyen’s sole issue, he argues that the trial court erred by admitting the

evidence about the incident with Nga under Article 38.37. He additionally argues that

the evidence should have been excluded under Rule of Evidence 403.

I. Standard of Review

      We review the trial court’s decision to admit or deny evidence for abuse of

discretion. Perkins v. State, 664 S.W.3d 209, 217 (Tex. Crim. App. 2022); Martinez v.

State, 327 S.W.3d 727, 736 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). “The trial court does not abuse its

discretion unless its determination lies outside the zone of reasonable disagreement.”

Martinez, 327 S.W.3d at 736.

                                            9
II. Article 38.37 Admissibility

          If a defendant is prosecuted for indecency with a child or sexual assault of a

child, then under Article 38.37, the trial court may admit evidence that the defendant

has committed a separate offense of indecency with a child or sexual assault of a child.

Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.37 § 2(a), (b). That evidence may be admitted

notwithstanding Texas Rules of Evidence 404 and 405 and may be admitted “for any

bearing the evidence has on relevant matters, including the character of the defendant

and acts performed in conformity with the character of the defendant.” Id. art.

38.37 § 2(b). However, before the evidence may be introduced, the trial court must

conduct a hearing outside the jury’s presence and, based on that hearing, “determine

that the evidence likely to be admitted at trial will be adequate to support a finding by

the jury that the defendant committed the separate offense beyond a reasonable

doubt.” Id. art. 38.37 § 2-a. Further, the evidence may be excluded under Texas Rule

of Evidence 403 if, after a balancing test, the trial court determines that the evidence’s

probativeness is outweighed by one of the dangers listed in the rule. Tex. R. Evid.

403; see Trotti v. State, No. 14-21-00536-CR, 2023 WL 5208815, at *6 (Tex. App.—

Houston [14th Dist.] Aug. 15, 2023, pet. ref’d); Castaneda v. State, No. 14-22-00206-

CR, 2023 WL 3743316, at *7 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] June 1, 2023, pet.

ref’d).

          In this case, the separate offense presented was indecency with a child by

contact. For purposes of the indecency-with-a-child statute, “sexual contact” may

                                            10
occur if the person, acting with the intent to arouse or gratify the person’s sexual

desire, (1) touches a child’s breast, anus, or any part of the child’s genitals or

(2) touches any part of a child with the person’s breast, anus, or genitals. Tex. Penal

Code Ann. § 21.11(c). Touching includes touching through clothing. Id. Nguyen

argues that “the trial court failed to identify exactly what the indecent act was[,] only

describing it generally” and that “[t]he evidence was simply to[o] vague and

unspecific” to support the trial court’s conclusion that “there is evidence thereby

which [the indecency offense] could have been done.”

      We disagree with Nguyen that the evidence adduced at the hearing did not

support the trial court’s ruling. First, the trial court did not have to find that the

hearing evidence established the extraneous offense beyond a reasonable doubt;

rather, the trial court was required to determine based on what had been presented at

the hearing that the evidence likely to be admitted at trial would be adequate to support

such a finding by the jury. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.37 § 2-a. Second,

because a factfinder is permitted to make reasonable inferences from testimony, Minh

did not have to specifically state that Nguyen’s genitals were touching Nga or that

Nguyen was touching Nga’s breast, genitals, or anus if the evidence was sufficient to

allow the jury to make a reasonable inference that such contact had occurred. See

Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9, 16 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). Minh’s and Goldring’s

testimony were sufficient to support such an inference.

                                           11
       Minh testified that she found Nguyen on top of her daughter on her daughter’s

bed. Nguyen’s body was between her daughter’s open legs. Minh described what she

saw as Nguyen’s body “pushing and rubbing” against Nga, “moving back and forth”

between Nga’s legs, “engaged in sex” though with clothes on. As the trial court

pointed out, even though they were fully clothed, Nguyen committed an offense

against Nga if, with the requisite intent, his genitals touched any part of Nga or any

part of him touched any part of Nga’s genitals. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 21.11(c).

Additionally, Goldring testified that when speaking to her, Nguyen lied about his

name and his age and then pretended to call his mother but called someone else

instead, and a factfinder could consider Nguyen’s lies as consciousness of guilt. See

Padilla v. State, 326 S.W.3d 195, 201 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) (“A rational trier of fact

could also consider such untruthful statements by appellant, in connection with the

other circumstances of the case, as affirmative evidence of appellant’s guilt.”); Perales v.

State, 622 S.W.3d 575, 582 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2021, pet. ref’d) (stating

that appellant’s actions around the time of his planned meetup with a person he

believed was underage showed consciousness of guilt); cf. King v. State, 29 S.W.3d 556,

565 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000) (stating that the appellant’s false statements to the media

“indicat[ed] consciousness of guilt and an attempt to cover up the crime”).

       Between Minh’s description of what she witnessed and Goldring’s testimony

about Nguyen’s behavior with her, the evidence presented at the hearing was

sufficient for the trial court to find that the evidence likely to be admitted at trial

                                            12
would be adequate to support a jury’s finding beyond a reasonable doubt that Nguyen

had committed the offense of indecency with a child by contact against Nga. See Tex.

Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.37 § 2(a). We overrule this part of Nguyen’s issue.

      Nguyen further argues that the scenario presented by the extraneous offense

evidence raised multiple possible offenses—touching the child’s anus, touching the

child’s breast, and touching the child’s genitals with the requisite mental state—and

that because each act constitutes a different criminal offense, juror unanimity was

required as to the commission of any one of these acts. Nguyen recognizes that this

court has previously rejected a jury unanimity challenge to Article 38.37 allegations, see

Swegheimer v. State, No. 02-17-00095-CR, 2018 WL 1528477, at *7 (Tex. App.—Fort

Worth Mar. 29, 2018, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication), but he

states that he has raised the issue to preserve it for discretionary review by the Court

of Criminal Appeals. We decline to depart from the holding in Swegheimer on this issue,

but we acknowledge that Nguyen has preserved the argument.

III. Rule 403 Admissibility

      Nguyen next argues that Minh’s testimony should have been excluded under

Rule 403. As we will explain, we disagree.

      A. Rule 403

      Rule 403 provides that the trial court “may exclude relevant evidence if its

probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the

following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, or

                                             13
needlessly presenting cumulative evidence.” Tex. R. Evid. 403. In determining

whether a trial court abused its discretion by admitting evidence over a Rule

403 objection, this court must “measure the trial court’s ruling against the relevant

criteria by which a Rule 403 decision is made.” Perkins, 664 S.W.3d at 217.

      The Court of Criminal Appeals has explained what each of the key phrases in

Rule 403 means for purposes of our analysis. The phrase “probative value” means

“the inherent probative force of an item of evidence—that is, how strongly it serves

to make more or less probable the existence of a fact of consequence to the

litigation—coupled with the proponent’s need for that item of evidence.” Gigliobianco

v. State, 210 S.W.3d 637, 641 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). “Unfair prejudice” means “a

tendency to suggest decision on an improper basis, commonly, though not necessarily,

an emotional one.” Id. “Evidence might be unfairly prejudicial if, for example, it

arouses the jury’s hostility or sympathy for one side without regard to the logical

probative force of the evidence.” Id. “Confusion of the issues” means “a tendency to

confuse or distract the jury from the main issues in the case.” Id. “Misleading the jury”

“refers to a tendency of an item of evidence to be given undue weight by the jury on

other than emotional grounds”—for example, scientific evidence that could mislead a

jury “that is not properly equipped to judge the probative force of the evidence.” Id.

The phrases “undue delay” and “needless presentation of cumulative evidence” are

“self-explanatory and concern the efficiency of the trial proceeding rather than the

threat of an inaccurate decision.” Id.

                                           14
         B. Analysis

         With these explanations of Rule 403 in mind, we now apply the rule to the

evidence in this case. To start, both offenses involved a sexual offense alleged to have

been committed against a girl, in the girl’s bedroom, without the adults who lived

there knowing of Nguyen’s presence in the home. Nguyen argues that the State had

no need for the evidence because the prosecutor “was able to present [the

complainant], her mother, her grandmother, the SANE, and the investigating

detective.” However, May’s testimony was the only direct evidence of what actually

happened during both alleged encounters with Nguyen. At trial, in an effort to arouse

the jury’s sympathy, Nguyen directly attacked May’s credibility, questioning her

general propensity for truthfulness and specifically suggesting that she had lied to

Nguyen about her age. See Hammer v. State, 296 S.W.3d 555, 568 (Tex. Crim. App.

2009) (discussing probativeness of extraneous offense testimony in he-said/she-said

sexual offense cases). For example, during voir dire, Nguyen’s attorney stated that it is

“a little bit weird” for the law to make it illegal for a 20-year-old person to have sex

with a sixteen-year-old child. He further stated that “there’s just a lot of ways, would

you agree, that you can deceive people a little bit as to how old you are,” that boys’

brains develop slower than girls’ brains, and that he “kind of wonder[ed] when they

do these age things [e.g., enact age-of-consent laws] if they wouldn’t consider some of

that.”

                                           15
       On cross-examination, Nguyen prompted May to acknowledge that she had

been on the Tinder app, even though Tinder requires users to be eighteen years old,

meaning that she had misrepresented her age to join. On re-direct, she stated that she

had joined Tinder when she was seventeen, but on re-cross examination, Nguyen

elicited her admission that she had joined Tinder when she was fifteen or sixteen.

Then, in questioning Almy, Nguyen attempted to get her to agree that if May had said

something that turned out to be a lie, “then she’s really not that believable.”

       In Nguyen’s attorney’s questioning of the SANE nurse who examined May two

years after Nguyen’s encounters with May, he suggested that May had been angry at

Nguyen. 6 He then elicited the nurse’s admission that she had no personal knowledge

that what May told her about what Nguyen had done was true.

       Then, in his closing argument, Nguyen argued that May “knew exactly what she

was doing, but there’s still no proof that anything actually happened,” and that May

“g[o]t up here and g[a]ve the sweet, innocent act and the crocodile tears.” He

explicitly called May a liar:

       [E]very time I had a question about something that would actually hurt
       her case or dispute what she says, it always became, I don’t know, I don’t
       remember. But, man, she remembered every detail that helped her, every
       detail.

       6
        Nguyen asked the nurse, “Good way to get back at somebody if you said he
sexually assaulted you. Would you agree?” The trial court sustained the State’s
objection to that question.

                                           16
              In fact, even at one point when the State came back and asked her
      about being on Tinder, she says, no, I wasn’t, when she had just got
      done saying maybe 30 seconds before that to me that she was. And I
      said to her, you just lied. And she’s like, well, yeah. That’s who you’re
      judging by. And according to—according to Detective Almy, hey, if you
      lie, then you shouldn’t be believed at all. But I guess she kind of picks
      and choose[s] when she wants to lie and not to lie.

             ....

             When it comes down to it, what proof do they actually have? And
      there’s none. There’s no proof that any acts even happened, except for
      the word of [May]. That’s it. And we know she lies, and we know she’s
      lied about multiple things.

      The State had a need for evidence to counteract Nguyen’s defense that May

was a liar who had made up the allegations against him out of anger. The extraneous

offense evidence showed that what Nguyen had been accused of doing to May was

not out of character for him. Accordingly, the evidence had a high probative value. See

Castaneda, 2023 WL 3743316, at *7.

      Nguyen concedes that the evidence did not take an undue amount of time to

elicit, and we agree. Further, the evidence was not cumulative of other evidence.

These factors weigh against excluding the evidence and in favor of admission.

      Minh’s testimony was straightforward and easy to understand, as was

Goldring’s testimony, and the evidence was relevant to the question of whether

Nguyen had committed the charged offense, which was the only issue in the case. For

those reasons, and because the evidence did not take an undue amount of time, the

evidence was unlikely to confuse the jury or distract from the main issue. Additionally,

                                          17
because the evidence “concerned matters easily comprehensible by laypeople,” Gaytan

v. State, 331 S.W.3d 218, 228 (Tex. App.—Austin 2011, pet. ref’d), it was unlikely to be

given undue weight. These factors weigh against exclusion.

         Regarding whether the evidence tended to suggest a decision on an improper

basis, we recognize that “[e]vidence of a sexual nature involving children . . . is

inherently inflammatory and prejudicial.” Roe v. State, 660 S.W.3d 775, 785 (Tex.

App.—Eastland 2023, pet. ref’d). However, although Nga was younger than May

when her grandmother caught Nguyen in her house, the evidence of what happened

with Nga was “no more inflammatory than the charged offense and was presented

through fewer details than the charged offense.” Bittick v. State, No. 05-22-00882-CR,

2024 WL 655673, at *9 (Tex. App.—Dallas Feb. 16, 2024, no pet. h.) (mem. op. not

designated for publication). Further, when the trial court admitted the evidence, it

stated that it would include a limiting instruction in the jury charge, and it did so. We

presume the jury obeyed the trial court’s instruction. See Roe, 660 S.W.3d at 785.

         In summary, the evidence was prejudicial, but on balance, it was not more

prejudicial than probative. Consequently, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by

overruling Nguyen’s Rule 403 objection. We overrule the remainder of Nguyen’s

issue.

                                       Conclusion

         Having overruled Nguyen’s sole issue, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                            18
                                /s/ Mike Wallach
                                Mike Wallach
                                Justice

Do Not Publish
Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)

Delivered: April 4, 2024

                           19