The Collin County Observer

On Friday, the Texas 5th Court of Appeals overturned the 2006 capital murder conviction of Ada Betty Cuadros-Fernandez.

Cuadros-Fernandez, a Peruvian national, was given a life sentence, without parole by Former Judge Charles Sandoval in September of 2006 after being convicted by a jury in the death of 14 month old Kyle Lazarchik of McKinney. Cuadros Fernandez who was 29 at the time of the child's death was the nanny to Renee and Mike Lazarchik's three children.

Ada Cuadros Fernandez arrived in Dallas two years earlier after she obtained a visa in a government lottery in January 2004. Before she started working as a nanny she was a waitress in a local restaurant. She had given notice to the boy's parents that she was planning to return to Peru. She had a one-way airline ticket for Oct. 29, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. She had moved out, but the family asked her to return for two more nights while the couple interviewed candidates for the nanny job, according to the affidavit. The police charged her with murdering the boy by beating his head against a kitchen cabinet door.

Throughout the trial and appeals, Ms. Cuadros-Fernandez has maintained her innocence.

In the appeals court opinion, written by Judge Kerry Fitzgerald, the court found that Judge Sandoval wrongly excluded expert testimony by David Gardner that contradicted the Collin county DA's contention that the young boy's head was slammed into a cabinet door. Judge Fitzgerald wrote:

"We conclude the trial court abused its discretion by excluding Gardner's testimony of his opinion of the cause of the damage to the cabinet door and whether the damage was caused by its being used to inflict blunt force trauma."

In testimonty outside the jury's hearing,

"Gardner testified he was the production manager at Texas Woodsmith, the company that built and installed the Lazarchiks' cabinets" ... "As production manager, Gardner was responsible for determining the cause of failures of the product, including cracks and separations in cabinet doors. One of Gardner's duties was to determine the cause of damage to cabinets that are returned. This investigation was often necessary to determine whether the cost of replacement cabinetry must be borne by the homeowner, the homebuilder, or the manufacturer. Gardner also tested new cabinet doors, observing how different forces on different woods and on different places cause damage.Gardner examined the photographs in evidence of the Lazarchiks' cabinet door as well as the door itself. He testified the door was not damaged in the manner that a door would be damaged from something hitting against the back side of it with great force. Gardner stated for that kind of force, “I would expect to see damage all the way down[-]not just at the top[-]and damage on the opposite side.” Gardner stated the damage shown by the door had two likely causes. A “very common” cause of that kind of damage was a hairline crack created by the insertion of the metal fasteners in the door and the crack growing over time. The damage could also have been caused by someone leaning on the door while open, using the door as leverage to stand up, or standing on the door, and a hairline crack would make the door more susceptible to this damage." ...

The State asserts on appeal that the trial court's exclusion of Gardner's opinion testimony was not an abuse of discretion because “the manner in which the door was broken does not conclusively resolve the ultimate issue of fact because the issue was not what caused the crack in the door, only whether Appellant had smashed Kyle's head into it. The State's position on appeal is disingenuous in light of its stated position at trial that the impact with the child's head caused the door to break and that the fact the door was broken proved it was the murder weapon. In its opening statement, the State asserted that the “Defendant took that baby and slammed his head up against a cabinet door in the kitchen and slammed his head against that cabinet door so hard, in fact, that it cracked the cabinet door.” In the jury argument as well, the prosecutor stated, “Defendant, who was supposed to protect and who was supposed to care for Kyle, took him and beat his head repeatedly over and over and over in the cabinet door, and she did that with enough force that that door broke”; “[a]nd we not only know what Kyle's injuries were, but we know exactly how they were caused because we have this broken door, State's Exhibit No. 23, that was not broken before this happened to Kyle.”

"... State's position that the broken cabinet door and its subsequent repair were evidence of her guilt. Furthermore, Gardner was the primary witness and the only expert presented by the defense who had knowledge regarding the specific type of cabinet at issue. Thus, Gardner's expert testimony formed such a vital part of appellant's case that the trial court's exclusion of that evidence effectively prevented appellant from presenting a defense. Finally, we cannot overlook the fact that during its rebuttal closing argument, the State specifically drew attention to appellant's failure to call any expert witnesses in her defense. By drawing attention to the defense's failure to call any expert witnesses, the State increased the harmful effect of the trial court's erroneous ruling. We conclude the trial court's error in excluding the evidence amounts to constitutional error."

The court also found that Cuadros-Fernandez was not given an opportunity to cross examine the forensic expert who wrote a DNA report on the evidence.

"We conclude that the trial court erred by admitting the DNA report in violation of appellant's constitutional rights under the Confrontation Clause. We also conclude that the trial court erred by excluding relevant and admissible defense expert testimony that would have tended to rebut the State's theory of the case. Because we cannot say beyond a reasonable doubt that these errors were harmless, we are constrained to reverse the trial court's judgment and remand the cause for further proceedings."

According to Collin County court records, the trial cost the county over $73 thousand in just defense attorney fees. It will be up to District Attorney John Roach to decide if he will seek a new trial against Ms. Cuadros-Fernandez.

Click here to read the appeals court opinion.

Food for thought -

This is the second reversal by the 5th Court of Appeals over the last three months in a Collin County case. Both defendants were immigrants. Both were condemned by an all Anglo Collin County jury.

In both cases, the appeals court ruled that the judge exceeded his/her authority in granting the wishes of the prosecution.

The 5th Court of Appeals is not a liberal court. It rarely overturns convictions, yet it felt compelled to do so in both these cases.

While I am loath to draw sweeping generalizations from only two trials, I think it fair to ask the question, "Can an immigrant expect a fair trial in upscale Collin County?"

Bill