Published: May 07, 2008 11:01 am            

State rests case

Mojica sentencing: Defense gets turn

San Marcos — The state rested its case in the punishment phase of Cesar Mojica's child abuse trial on Tuesday after calling two additional witnesses, a Hays County Corrections Officer and a double-threat expert witness.

"The past is the best predictor of the future," testified Dr. Richard Coons, a forensic psychiatrist who is also an attorney.

At the core of Coons' testimony was the question of whether Mojica, already convicted of 14 counts of child abuse with serious bodily injury, would be likely to commit more violent acts in the future.

Coons told jurors that in his opinion, based on an evaluation performed a week before the trial started and information he's gathered since, Mojica does not have mental illness but an "antisocial personality disorder," which would make him a risk to the community; plus other qualities that would magnify that risk.

"That's a lot of violence to defenseless people," he said of the multiple injuries Mojica inflicted on his daughter Angel and twins Cesar Jr. and Amber. When seized from their parents' Dripping Springs home in October 2006, all the children bore scars, whip and bite marks, had broken and healing bones, could not walk and were severely malnourished. "I certainly would not want him around children," he said of Mojica's future.

Coon also said Mojica's remarks to him about past violence, legal trouble and gang involvement differed from others who have taken the stand to testify about their own interaction. Deceit is a part of antisocial personality disorder, he said, as well as a "pervasive path of disregard for others" and living impulsively.

Mojica has testified that he was beaten as a child and knew no better way to act as a parent. He also said on the stand that he remembered inflicting some but not all of the injuries, and that he was drunk "most of the time" the abuse was occurring.

"At some times he was too drunk to figure it out but most of the time he was aware of (the abuse)," Coons testified, adding it was "basically unthinkable" Mojica didn't realize what he was doing.

Earlier in the day, Hays Corrections Sgt. Jesse Hernandez testified that Mojica had not been involved in any fights during the 18 months since his arrest but had been moved numerous times, both by his request and that of fellow inmates.

"We kind of ran out of places to put him," Hernandez told jurors. On May 7, 29 and 31 of last year, jail administrators received requests from "tank" inmates that Mojica "was a problem," regarding TV use and was "trying to run the tank," a cell holding several men.

Mojica was later moved from the jail's general population to an area known as Administrative Segregation.

On one occasion, Hernandez said, Mojica's rating of "high risk" was "overridden" by jail administration to medium risk. Currently, he said, disciplinary action is still pending for Mojica on two issues, making alcohol in his cell and possessing two "shanks" — one an eight-inch piece of thin metal rod and the other part of a broken nail clipper — discovered in cell during the second week of his trial, which entered its third week on Monday.

During Coons' testimony, District Attorney Sherri Tibbe and her assistant Heather Youree introduced the second of two drawings of naked women that contain gang symbols into evidence. Regarding them, Coons told jurors to remember that the blending of sex and violence the images contained "came out of the that person's mind."

Late in the day, a jailhouse witness called by the defense, Adam Matthew Rodriguez, was cited for contempt of court and sentenced to an additional 180 days in Hays County Jail by president District Judge Jack Robison.

Defense attorney Tamara Needles told the court Rodriguez had claimed one of the drawings in question was his work; but when called to the stand, first out of the presence of the jury and then with jurors present, he refused to testify.

"What is this? You all keep harassing me about it and bringing me down here. I got nothing more to say." When Robison informed him he was being held in contempt, Rodriguez replied, "That's it then."

After the defense presents its case, jurors will decide each of the 14 first-degree convictions, each punishable by from 5 to 99 years behind bars.

Mojica's wife and the children's mother, Sarah Amaya, was called by the state to testify against her husband but invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incriminization. She remains in Hays County Jail awaiting trial.

        

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