Court Opinion

ID: 9958883
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-10 14:02:51.356236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:54.992531
License: Public Domain

Cite as 2024 Ark. App. 243
                   ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
                                        DIVISION I
                                       No. CR-23-539

                                               Opinion Delivered   April 10, 2024
 D’JUAN WILLIAMS
                               APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI
                                         COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT,
                                         SEVENTH DIVISION
 V.
                                         [NO. 60CR-18-4295]

 STATE OF ARKANSAS                        HONORABLE KAREN D. WHATLEY,
                                 APPELLEE JUDGE
                                               AFFIRMED

                         WENDY SCHOLTENS WOOD, Judge

       D’Juan Williams appeals the sentencing order entered by the Pulaski County Circuit

Court convicting him of the first-degree battery of his six-month-old daughter (MC) and

sentencing him to seven years’ imprisonment. Williams’s sole point on appeal is a challenge

to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction. We affirm.

       Williams testified that he and his wife separated on September 13, 2018, and that he

had maintained custody of his three young children since that time. 1 He testified that he

took the children to Michigan from September 18 to 26 to visit his family and that neighbors

visited him during the last week in September, but he said he had been his children’s sole

caretaker during this time. He told detectives who interviewed him that although other

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       MC was born on March 26, 2018; her two brothers were born on January 1, 2017,
and February 8, 2016.
adults had been around his children, no one other than Williams had been alone with them.

Williams said that on the morning of September 25, while he and the children were still in

Michigan, he took MC to get her immunizations.

       On September 30, Williams noticed that MC’s arm was swollen and that she was

“irritated” when he attempted to position her to drink a bottle. He thought perhaps the

swelling was due to the shots MC had gotten in Michigan. The next day, after his attempts

at soothing MC with ice packs and hot towels were unsuccessful and he heard “crunching”

when he moved MC’s arm, he took her to Baptist Health Medical Center. She was later

transferred to Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH).

       Doctors at ACH performed a skeletal survey of MC—“head to toe” x-rays—and

discovered that she had between twelve and fifteen fractures throughout her body. All of the

fractures, except one rib fracture, were acute and showed no signs of healing. These included

multiple fractures in both legs, two fractures in her left arm, 2 and seven rib fractures. She

also had a black eye and some skin abrasions. Williams testified that MC had not had any

falls or accidents, that she was not crawling yet, and that he did not know how she incurred

the injuries.

       Dr. Rachel Clingenpeel, an expert in child-abuse pediatrics and the associate director

of the Team for Children at Risk at ACH, testified that she had been called in as a consultant

for MC because MC had been admitted with unexplained fractures. She described the

       2
       The fracture in MC’s left humerus, the bone between her shoulder and elbow,
required surgery.

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injuries in the skeletal survey and explained that they were caused by “blunt force trauma”

to the part of the body where they existed. She said that MC would have experienced

immediate pain from the arm fractures and would likely have stopped using her arm. Dr.

Clingenpeel also opined that the rib fractures were “extremely unusual and highly associated

with abuse” because infant ribs are flexible, resistant to fracture, and not easy to break. She

opined that MC was subjected to “multiple, violent traumas to different anatomical areas on

at least two occasions” and that the acute injuries likely occurred less than fourteen days

before her admission. Finally, Dr. Clingenpeel testified that MC’s various and numerous

fractures could not have been caused during any sort of normal interaction with MC or by

other small children. Dr. Clingenpeel also testified that someone would have been aware of

the injuries because they were caused by “overwhelming trauma” to MC to which she would

have responded in pain.

       The jury convicted Williams of first-degree battery and sentenced him to seven years

in prison. He has filed this appeal challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his

conviction.

       When reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we must assess the

evidence in the light most favorable to the State and consider only the evidence that supports

the verdict. Collins v. State, 2021 Ark. 35, at 4, 617 S.W.3d 701, 704. We affirm a conviction

if substantial evidence exists to support it. Price v. State, 2019 Ark. 323, at 4, 588 S.W.3d 1,

4. Substantial evidence is evidence of sufficient force and character that it will, with

reasonable certainty, compel a conclusion without resorting to speculation or conjecture. Id.,

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588 S.W.3d at 4. Witness credibility is an issue for the fact-finder, which may believe all or

part of any witness’s testimony and may resolve questions of conflicting testimony and

inconsistent evidence. McKisick v. State, 2022 Ark. App. 426, at 4, 653 S.W.3d 839, 843.

       A person commits the offense of first-degree battery if he or she “knowingly, without

legal justification, causes serious physical injury to a person he or she knows to be . . . twelve

(12) years of age or younger[.]” Ark. Code Ann. § 5-13-201(a)(7) (Repl. 2013). A person acts

knowingly with respect to the person’s conduct “when he or she is aware that his or her

conduct is of that nature” or when he or she is “aware that it is practically certain that his or

her conduct will cause the result[.]” Ark. Code Ann. § 5-2-202(2) (Repl. 2013).

       Williams first argues that the State failed to offer substantial evidence that he caused

the injuries to MC because he denied knowing anything about the injuries, no one witnessed

him injuring MC, and there were other individuals who could have caused the injury. He

claims that investigators failed to contact his neighbors, friends, or family who had been in

contact with him and the children during the two-week period before MC’s admission to the

hospital. Williams cites Snow v. State, 2018 Ark. App. 612, at 5, 568 S.W.3d 290, 293, in

which a first-degree-battery conviction was reversed when there was no direct evidence of

guilt, multiple adults had access to the child, neither adult who had access to the child was

accused by the other, and the appellant offered no improbable explanations regarding the

injuries.

       We do not find Snow persuasive. This court reversed Snow in part because both

parents had exclusive access to the child. Here, MC’s mother had not seen MC in weeks,

                                                4
and Williams testified that MC was not left in the care of any other adult than him during

the period in which the injuries occurred. Moreover, if the injuries occurred in Michigan by

some other party, the jury could have concluded that they would have been discovered when

MC received shots on the morning they left Michigan. Finally, Dr. Clingenpeel testified that

the injuries were caused by “multiple, violent traumas,” that MC would have experienced

immediate pain from the arm fractures and would likely have stopped using her arm, and

that the rib fractures were “extremely unusual and highly associated with abuse” because

infant ribs are not easy to break.

       In light of this evidence, the jury could have determined that Williams would certainly

have noticed MC’s injuries, which is contradicted by his own testimony that he did not

notice any of the injuries until late September and did not know the cause of the injuries.

Particularly in light of Dr. Clingenpeel’s testimony that MC would have experienced

immediate pain and likely would have stopped using her arm, this also may have impacted

the jury’s determination regarding Williams’s credibility. Therefore, we hold that there is

substantial evidence to support the conclusion that Williams caused MC’s injuries because,

according to Williams, MC was never alone with anyone besides him during the relevant

time period.

       Williams also argues that the State failed to present substantial evidence that he

“knowingly” caused MC’s injuries because he testified that he had not noticed anything

unusual with MC until September 30 when he discovered her swollen arm; he immediately

attempted to treat her arm, thinking it was a reaction to the shots MC received while in

                                              5
Michigan; he took her to the hospital when these treatments failed to relieve her; and he

never wavered in his testimony that he did not know how MC had been injured. A person

acts knowingly “when he or she is aware that his or her conduct is of that nature” or when

he or she is “aware that it is practically certain that his or her conduct will cause the result[.]”

Ark. Code Ann. § 5-2-202(2). A defendant’s state of mind is rarely capable of proof by direct

evidence and must be inferred from the circumstances of the crime. Suchey v. State, 2016

Ark. App. 225, at 7, 490 S.W.3d 320, 324. The jury could have reasonably inferred that

Williams acted knowingly from his own testimony—that MC was never alone with anyone

besides him, that Williams was MC’s sole custodian and caretaker during the relevant time,

and that he never noticed anything unusual about MC until September 30—coupled with

Dr. Clingenpeel’s testimony about the violent nature of the injuries and the manner in which

they could have occurred. We hold this constitutes substantial evidence that Williams acted

knowingly.

       Affirmed.

       VIRDEN and KLAPPENBACH, JJ., agree.

       David Sudduth, Public Defender, by: Clint Miller, Deputy Public Defender; and David

R. Raupp, Arkansas Public Defender Commission, for appellant.

       Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: A. Evangeline Bacon, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.

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