State v. Martinez
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
NO. COA10-885 NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS Filed: 21 June 2011 STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. Granville County No. 08 CRS 52997-53000 LUIS BERBER MARTINEZ Appeal by Defendant from Judgments entered 21 January 2010 by Judge Orlando F. Hudson, Jr., in Granville County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 12 January 2011. Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General Laura E. Crumpler, for the State. Russell J. Hollers III for Defendant-appellant. HUNTER, JR., Robert N., Judge. Luis Berber Martinez ( Defendant ) appeals from Judgments imposing an active sentence after a jury found him guilty of three counts of indecent liberties with a child and one count of statutory rape. Defendant argues, inter alia, the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of a social worker that an allegation of sexual abuse made against Defendant substantiated by the Department of Social Services. had been Defendant argues this testimony was admitted in error, was prejudicial, -2and he seeks a new trial. For the reasons stated below, we agree and grant Defendant a new trial. I. Factual & Procedural Background The State s evidence tended to establish the following. In 2008, Nadia1 and her sister Sara were living with their legal guardian and Defendant. aunt Sharon Martinez ( Mrs. Martinez ) and Nadia testified that on 27 June 2008, when Nadia was 13 years old, she had some friends sleeping over from the night before. Mrs. That morning, Mrs. Martinez woke Nadia to look after Martinez s errand. infant daughter while Mrs. Martinez ran an Nadia testified that she was sitting in the living room watching the infant and the television when Defendant came into the room and sat beside her on the sofa. Defendant then allegedly sexually molested Nadia before being interrupted by one of Nadia s friends walking into the room. Nadia testified that Defendant grabbed his clothes and ran out of the room. Nadia s friend encouraged Nadia to tell someone what had happened; the friend, however, did not testify. Nadia called a family friend who called the police. A social worker from the Granville County Department of Social Services ( DSS ) took Nadia to the hospital where she was examined and hospital staff collected physical evidence using a 1 Pseudonyms are used to protect the identity of juveniles. -3rape kit. When Nadia was released from the hospital, DSS placed her and her sister in a foster home. On 1 December 2008, a Granville County Grand Jury indicted Defendant with three counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor and one count of statutory rape. In June 2009, Judge Henry W. Hight, Jr., reviewed, in camera, confidential records pertaining to Nadia s allegations. In an Order entered 2 July 2009, Judge Hight concluded the confidential records did not contain material exculpatory evidence and need not be disclosed to Defendant. In January 2010, Defendant filed motions in limine seeking: to exclude evidence from a then-pending DSS investigation into whether Defendant neglected one or more of his children; and to exclude testimony by the State s expert witness as to the expert s opinion of whether Nadia and Sara were sexually abused children in the absence of physical evidence of abuse. Both Motions were denied. Defendant s case came on for trial before Judge Orlando F. Hudson in the 19 January 2010 Criminal Session of Granville County Superior Court. At trial, Nadia testified to two other incidents of alleged sexual abuse by Defendant, and stated that such abuse happened continuously. In one incident, Nadia and Defendant were cleaning his car in the garage when Defendant came up behind her, rubbed her buttocks, breasts, and vaginal -4area before Defendant attempting to stop and to unbutton opened her the pants. garage Nadia door. told Defendant allegedly told Nadia not to tell anyone, as she would not like the consequences. Nadia told Mrs. Martinez, who ignored her allegations. Nadia also admitted, however, that she accused Defendant of raping her in 2006, but the accusation was false. Nadia testified that she recanted the 2006 allegation after DSS began to investigate because Mrs. Martinez and Defendant told her to do so. The State called as a witness Cassandra Putney ( Putney ), the social allegations worker of assigned abuse. by Putney DSS to testified investigate to her Nadia s credentials, including her position with DSS, her work experience, and her educational background. In response to the State s question as to how Putney became familiar with Nadia and her sister, Putney stated, The first time I met them was in 2006. investigation added.) was done and substantiated for . A case and (Emphasis Defendant s counsel objected to any substantiation testimony. The trial court overruled the objection and Putney continued: Our agency regards to [Nadia]. substantiated a case of sex abuse in And that was in 2006. (Emphasis added.) Defendant s counsel objected again and moved to strike the testimony. When Defendant s counsel cited case law for the -5proposition that substantiation testimony was not permitted, the trial judge stated he did not believe that was correct and overruled the objection. On cross-examination, Putney admitted that after Nadia confessed that her 2006 allegation was not true, DSS closed that investigation. The State called as a witness Scott Snider ( Snider ), the Clinical Coordinator at the Duke Child Abuse and Neglect Medical Evaluation Clinic. Snider testified that he interviewed Nadia in July 2008 and that Nadia confirmed she recanted her prior allegations of sexual abuse by Defendant, because Defendant and Mrs. Martinez told her to say that nothing happened. The State also called Dr. Karen St. Claire to testify as to her physical examination of Nadia s genitals on 14 July 2008. Dr. St. witness Claire, on child qualified sex by abuse, the trial concluded court that as an Nadia s expert genitals looked very typical for an adolescent, and such non-specific findings could be consistent with repeated penile-vaginal penetration. The jury found Defendant guilty on all charges. The trial court entered consecutive judgments imposing 399 to 491 months imprisonment. The trial court further found Defendant had been classified as a sexually violent predator and ordered Defendant, upon his release from prison, to register as a sex offender and -6be subject to satellite based monitoring for the remainder of his life. Defendant gave notice of appeal in open court. II. Jurisdiction & Standard of Review As Defendant entered a plea of not guilty and appeals from the final judgment of a superior court, an appeal lies of right with this Court pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-27(b) (2009). When the preserved admissibility for review by court s decision de novo. of an evidence by objection, the we trial review court the is trial See State v. Capers, __ N.C. App. __, __, 704 S.E.2d 39, 45 (2010), appeal dismissed, disc. review denied, __ N.C. __, 707 S.E.2d 236 (2011) ( [W]e review a trial court s ruling on the relevance of evidence de novo . . . . ). III. Analysis A. Voucher of Victim s Credibility Defendant first argues the trial court erred in admitting DSS social worker Putney s testimony that she substantiated Nadia s 2006 claim of sexual abuse by Defendant. Defendant contends the admission of this testimony was an error of law as it unfairly bolstered the victim s credibility. We agree. In State v. Giddens this Court concluded similar testimony to be an impermissible expression credibility of the accuser. of opinion as to the 199 N.C. App. 115, 123, 681 S.E.2d 504, 509 (2009), aff d, 363 N.C. 826, 689 S.E.2d 858 (2010) (per curium). At issue in Giddens was the testimony by a DSS -7investigator that he substantiated the victim s sexual abuse allegation after an investigation into the claim. Id. Because the investigator s testimony was based, in part, on the DSS investigation and not solely on the children s accounts of what happened, the testimony was Court a rejected prior the consistent corroborated the victims testimony. at 507-08. State s argument statement that and the merely Id. at 120-21, 681 S.E.2d Rather, the testimony amounted to an impermissible voucher of the victims credibility. Id. at 121, 681 S.E.2d at 508 ( Our case law has long held that a witness may not vouch for the credibility of a victim. (citing State v. Freeland, 316 N.C. 13, 340 S.E.2d 35 (1986) and State v. Teeter, 85 N.C. App. 624, 355 S.E.2d 804, appeal dismissed, cert. denied, 320 N.C. 175, 358 S.E.2d 67 (1987))). The Giddens Court concluded the investigator s testimony, that DSS substantiated the allegations of sexual abuse, essentially told the jury that DSS determined the defendant was guilty of sexually abusing the victims and the trial court erred in admitting the testimony. Id. at 121-22, 681 S.E.2d at 508 (stating the testimony amounted to a statement that a State agency had concluded Defendant was guilty ). The State argues the present case is distinguishable. In Giddens, the State s witness testified to the thorough nature of the investigation that led DSS to conclude the victims -8allegation was substantiated. Id. at 121, 681 S.E.2d at 508. Here, Putney did not testify to the thoroughness of the DSS investigation, but merely stated that DSS substantiated the claim after conducting an investigation. On this basis, the State contends it would be disingenuous to equate the present case with the facts of Giddens. In Giddens, investigation the DSS included a We cannot agree. investigator global testified assessment, in that her which she inquired about more than the child s specific allegations, but also inquired as to the child s mental needs and supervision. Giddens, 199 N.C. App. at 121, 681 S.E.2d at 508. Based on this information, the DSS investigator stated she had no information to substantiate that the child s other caregivers were abusive or neglectful. present case, allegations, Giddens. Id. that is any We cannot conclude the testimony in the DSS less substantiated prejudicial Nadia s than the sexual abuse testimony in As we explained in Giddens, although the social worker was not qualified as an expert witness, the jury likely gave the witness opinion more weight than the opinion of a lay person. Id. The trial court erred in admitting Putney s substantiation testimony. We also note the striking similarity of the evidence in Giddens and the present case. physical evidence of sexual Here, as in Giddens, there was no abuse. See id. at 119-20, 681 -9S.E.2d at 507 (noting physical exams of the children were normal and revealed no injures). The State s expert medical witness, Dr. St. Claire, testified to Nadia s non-specific genital exam results she looked like a very typical adolescent. Thus, the State s case rested solely on Nadia s testimony and additional corroborative testimony. In effect, the essential issue for the jury to consider was Nadia s credibility. See id. at 119-20, 681 S.E.2d at 507 (noting that without the improper testimony by the DSS investigator, the jury was left with the children s testimony and other corroborating testimony, leaving the credibility of the victims as the central issue for the jury to resolve). Accordingly, we conclude there is a reasonable possibility that had Putney s testimony not been admitted, the jury would have reached a different verdict. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1443(a) (2009) ( A defendant is prejudiced by errors . . . when there is a reasonable possibility that, had the error in question not been committed, a different result would have been reached at the trial out of which the appeal arises. ). Furthermore, the Giddens defendant failed to object to the substantiation testimony at trial and, yet, the Court found it to be sufficiently prejudicial to rise to the level of plain error. See Giddens, 199 N.C. App. at 123-24, 681 S.E.2d at 509 (ordering a new trial after concluding that while the victims -10testimony and corroborating testimony is strong evidence, it is not sufficient impermissible to survive testimony a of plain a credibility of the victim). error witness review the for vouching of the Unlike the defendant in Giddens, here, Defendant preserved the issue for review by objecting to Putney s testimony. Given the lower threshold required for finding prejudicial error when the issue is preserved for review by objection, we conclude Putney s testimony was sufficiently prejudicial to warrant a new trial. B. Confidential Evidence Defendant also argues the trial court erred in failing to disclose material exculpatory information privileged documents reviewed in camera. contained in After a review of this evidence, we agree. [T]he suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused evidence is upon request material violates either to due guilt process or to where the punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S. Ct. 1194, 1196-97 (1963). The record does not reveal what, if any, confidential material was made available Defendant. of the material, sufficient however, exculpatory leads material us to to of Our review conclude impeach this the there is State s -11witnesses. On remand for a new trial, we direct the trial judge to review the material de novo to determine, in his or her discretion, what material should be made available to Defendant. IV. Conclusion In summary, we conclude the trial court erred by permitting the DSS investigator to testify that she had substantiated the allegation of sexual abuse against Defendant. the trial court erred in failing exculpatory evidence to Defendant. new trial. to We also conclude disclose material Defendant is entitled to a Consequently, we do not reach Defendant s additional arguments regarding the trial court s refusal to instruct on attempted rape, sentencing Defendant as a level III sex offender, and ordering Defendant be subject to satellite-based monitoring for the remainder of his life. New trial. Judges CALABRIA and STROUD concur.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
