State v. Hughes

1

2024 UT App 168

State of Utah, Appellee, v. Daymian Martiez Hughes, Appellant.

No. 20220640-CA

Court of Appeals of Utah

November 15, 2024

Third District Court, Salt Lake Department The Honorable Vernice S Trease No. 191906101

Nathalie S. Skibine, Attorney for Appellant

Sean D. Reyes and Natalie M. Edmundson, Attorneys for Appellee

Judge John D. Luthy authored this Opinion, in which Judges David N Mortensen and Ryan M. Harris concurred.

LUTHY Judge

¶1 Daymian Martiez Hughes appeals his convictions of criminal trespass, sexual battery, unlawful detention, and four counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child. He contends that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support the convictions and that his trial counsel (Counsel) rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance by introducing evidence that Hughes and one of his victims were subject to a mutual restraining order at the time of the crimes. We determine that the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions and that any error by Counsel in introducing evidence of the mutual restraining order did not prejudice Hughes's defense. We therefore affirm Hughes's convictions.

BACKGROUND^[1]

The Backstory

¶2 Hughes and his former live-in girlfriend (Mother) have four children together, a son (Son), who was thirteen years old at the time of the incident giving rise to this case, and three daughters (Oldest Daughter, Middle Daughter, and Youngest Daughter), who were eleven, ten, and nine years old at that time. Mother left Hughes in 2018, and she and the children moved into the basement of her mother and stepfather's home (Grandparents' home).

¶3 Following their separation, Mother and Hughes regularly exchanged time with the children based on the terms of a custody agreement. Mother and Hughes were also subject to a mutual restraining order that directed them not to have physical contact with each other, to communicate only via text messages and only about the children, and to conduct their exchanges of the children curbside.

The Incident

¶4 In May 2019, Grandparents' home flooded, so Mother and the children stayed at a hotel for a few days while the home was being cleaned. On one of those days, Mother and the daughters were "hanging out" at the hotel pool while Son went with Hughes to a basketball practice. After the practice, Son called Mother to ask if he could stay with Hughes. Mother told Son that he needed to return to the hotel. Hughes then got on the phone and asked Mother if he "could come over and hang out and spend [some] time." Mother told him "no," explained that she and the daughters were "going to go back to the hotel room," and asked that Hughes "just drop [Son] off." Mother and the daughters then returned to their room "to change and get ready for bed."

¶5 The hotel room had a small kitchenette, a bathroom with a tub, and an area with beds. A curtain could be pulled to separate the bed area from the rest of the room. Mother was at the bathtub helping Youngest Daughter, who has a disability affecting her speech and "some . . . things that she does physically," when there was a knock at the hotel room door. Mother left Youngest Daughter and went to the door. When she opened it, both Son and Hughes walked in. Mother told Hughes that he "wasn't supposed to be there" and "that he had to go." He responded by asking "if [she] wanted to do something, if [she] wanted to go out, if [the two of them] could talk, [and] if he could stay." Mother said, "No," telling Hughes, "[Y]ou're not supposed to be here, you know that. I don't want you here. Just leave."

¶6 Mother asked Middle Daughter to get Youngest Daughter out of the tub, which she did, and all the children went to the bed area of the room. Hughes partly closed the curtain separating the beds from the rest of the room and then "kept insisting to kiss [Mother]." She refused. Eventually, Hughes "grabbed and pushed [Mother] against the wall," placed "his hands on the wall," and put "his whole body against [her]." Mother-still wearing only a swimming suit and "swimming cover"-"kept telling him to leave and get out," but Hughes insisted that they "needed to get back together." He then began "grabbing [Mother's] butt," "touching [her] breast," and "touching everything." Mother began to cry and asked Hughes "several times to stop and to leave and to get out."

¶7 Hughes told Mother that "it didn't matter" whether she "wanted to be with him, that nobody could have [her] but him," and "that the only way for him to leave" would be for Mother to "call[] the cops." He then "kind of backed up a little bit" and told Mother "how it was the best thing to do to be together" and that they "couldn't be apart anymore." Mother testified that Hughes also said that if the police came, he would "bang it out"; that Hughes "pulled his shirt up"; and that when he did, she saw "the handle of a gun in his pants." Hughes then pushed Mother against the wall again, and she continued to beg him to leave and let her go.

¶8 At that point, Middle Daughter also asked Hughes to leave. Hughes "lunged for her," saying, "Shut up. You're my daughter. . . . [T]his has nothing to do with you. Don't talk to me like that. This is none of your business." As Hughes moved toward Middle Daughter, Mother opened the hotel room door, stepped into the hallway, and, while holding the door open and "trying to be loud so somebody could hear," said, "You have to leave." Hughes followed Mother into the hallway, and she closed the door.

¶9 In the hallway, Mother-more loudly now-kept "telling [Hughes] to leave," and Hughes "kept saying he wasn't leaving." Hearing "yelling down the hall," including from an "angry," "raised" male voice, the hotel's front desk manager (Manager) came and intervened, saying to Hughes, among other things, "I'll tell you she doesn't want you here. You need to just leave now." After some discussion, Hughes said that he would leave, and Manager returned to her desk.

¶10 Shortly thereafter, Manager heard Hughes say angrily, "Let's just get in the room." Manager then walked back down the hall and said to Hughes, "All right. I can't have this. And I asked you to leave." When Hughes replied, "No, we're going to go in the room," Manager asked Mother, "Do you want him in your room?" Mother stepped back and said, "No," and Hughes "reached for her." Manager "threw [her] arm across the door jam," "told [Hughes] this wasn't happening in [her] hotel," and threatened to call the police. Hughes said, "Go ahead," so Manager asked an associate, who had remained at the front desk, to call the police to have Hughes "escorted off of the property." Hughes then told Manager that he would "rent a room," but Manager told him she would not rent a room to him and that he had to leave. Hughes, Mother, and Manager then "stood there silently for a few minutes" until Hughes finally left.

Mother's Statement to Police and the Resulting Charges

¶11 Shaken, Mother went back inside the hotel room to "calm [the] kids down," "make sure that they were okay," and "get them ready for bed." Later that night, Mother's mother and stepfather came to the hotel room, learned of the incident, and encouraged Mother to report the incident to the police, which she did.

¶12 Initially, Mother spoke on the phone to a police dispatch operator. Mother began by telling the operator that she and Hughes had "a standing order, mutual restraining order." She then explained what had occurred earlier in the evening. Toward the end of the call, Mother volunteered that Hughes might "have a gun," that she believed this "[b]ecause he told [her] he did," but that she "[d]id [not] ever see the gun."

¶13 An officer (Officer) was dispatched to the hotel, where he interviewed Mother. Mother recounted to Officer the incident with Hughes. Mother told Officer, as she had the dispatch operator, that while she believed, because of what Hughes had said, that he had been carrying a gun, she had not actually seen a gun.

¶14 Following Officer's initial investigation on the night of the incident, a detective (Detective) was assigned to conduct an additional investigation. As part of his additional investigation, Detective also interviewed Mother. In that interview, Mother told Detective that during the incident, Hughes had "pulled up his shirt and exposed the handle [of a gun] in his waistband." Mother told Detective that Hughes "did not touch [the gun]" and that "she was not in fear for her own personal safety" because "she didn't feel that the gun was there for her." Yet Mother said that she was concerned about the gun because when she had threatened to call the police, Hughes had said he was prepared to "bang it out."

¶15 Following Officer's and Detective's investigations, Hughes was charged with criminal trespass, sexual battery, unlawful detention, threatening with or using a dangerous weapon in a fight or quarrel, and four counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child. The case proceeded to trial.

The State's Case at Trial

¶16 At trial, Mother, Oldest Daughter, Middle Daughter, Manager and Detective testified for the State. At the beginning of the trial, the prosecutor and Counsel discussed with the court whether evidence of the mutual restraining order between Mother and Hughes was admissible. Before the court ruled on that issue, however, the prosecutor proposed that

instead of mentioning the mutual restraining order or admitting a certified copy of [it], . . . [the parties] instead allow [Mother] to state . . . that she had communicated with [Hughes] previously, that she did not want him to be around her and that she did not want to communicate with him in any fashion but text and to do drop offs instead of physically coming into her

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