Day 4: Defense motions for acquittal

By Andy Gates - Argus Observer
Friday, June 22, 2007 10:52 AM PDT

VALE - After four days of trial, defense attorneys representing a mother charged with killing her 3-year-old stepson unsuccessfully motioned for a judgment of acquittal and then called 11 witnesses to the stand who provided testimony that conflicted with prosecutors’ assertions.

The mother, Marisol Sedano-Ruiz, 20, is charged with murder and two counts of criminal mistreatment in the July 27, 2006, death of her stepson, Roberto Lee Ruiz, 3.

The state claims Sedano-Ruiz caused the child’s death through abuse. Prosecutors also assert the young stepmother engaged in a pattern of assaulting the boy and withheld adequate food, care and medical attention from him.

Sedano-Ruiz, however, pleaded not guilty to the serious charges. Her lawyers assert there are other explanations for the child’s death such as a fall from an ATV or a counter.

Sedano-Ruiz’s attorney Manual Perez said the state has not proved their allegations against his client.

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After the state called its last witness to the stand Thursday — the boy’s 5-year-old sister — Perez argued the judge should acquit his client of the charges.

Perez said the state presented no direct evidence Sedano-Ruiz assaulted the boy. Perez said assaults would require physical injury, impairment or pain, and he said, there is insufficient evidence Sedano-Ruiz inflicted that on the boy.

Malheur County Deputy District Attorney Erin Landis, however, said the state provided circumstantial evidence of injury, assault and “assaultive behavior.”

For example, the child’s 5-year-old sister told authorities after the death in a recorded interview that she hurt when her parents spanked her.

“When you get hit with the belt it hurts a lot,” the girl said during the interview last year.

Malheur County Circuit Court Judge J. Burdette Pratt, who will rule on the case rather than a jury, denied Perez’s motions to acquit. However, he said the move was not a reflection of how “convinced” he is in the case.

”I have to review evidence as if the case were being tried to a jury. I need to determine if there’s legally sufficient evidence in the record for the case to proceed,” Pratt said.

Pratt determined there was evidence in the record of Sedano-Ruiz striking the child and leaving injuries, and so the trial could continue.

Witnesses for the state testified earlier this week Sedano-Ruiz hit the child with her hands, a brush, a wet towel and a belt. The child’s cousin, Jennifer Ruiz-Garcia, 11, told authorities last year during a recorded interview the 3-year-old was left in the bathroom to drink toilet water. She also said he was underfed and hit by Sedano-Ruiz.

The child was not potty-trained, and he was hit when he had accidents, Ruiz-Garcia said in the video.

“She would just leave him in the bathroom ... For a long time,” so the child would learn to use the bathroom, Ruiz-Garcia said in the video.

However, witnesses for the defense testified Thursday Sedano-Ruiz did not hit her stepson, but her husband, the boy’s father, Roberto Marin Ruiz, did.

When Ruiz’s 5-year-old daughter was interviewed in 2006 after her brother died she was asked about what she liked about her dad.

“Um he just beats us a lot ... He wants to make us cry,” the child said in the interview.

Ruiz, 27, a dairy worker and Mexican national, transported his 3-year-old son from Willow Creek to Holy Rosary Medical Center June 27, 2006, where the boy was pronounced dead.

Ruiz pleaded guilty in October to first degree criminal mistreatment against his 3-year-old son. He told police the boy fell from an ATV, and he said his wife told him the child fell off the counter.

“Every bruise I see, she came out with an explanation,” Ruiz said in a recorded interview played Monday by prosecutors. In the interview, Ruiz also said he would not hurt his 3-year-old son.

Sedano-Ruiz’s grandmother and uncle, however, said Ruiz was heavy- handed with the boy, and an aunt said the children were afraid of their father, but not their mother.

Sedano-Ruiz’s grandmother, Dehlia Velasquez, said Ruiz hit the child.

“Yes, I did think it was child abuse,” Velasquez testified Thursday, but she said she did not call police about the incident.

Malheur County District Attorney Dan Norris said testimony from Sedano-Ruiz’s uncle, Jose Velasquez, contradicted prior recorded statements he made to police.

Other witnesses for the defense testified Thursday the child exhibited bizarre behavior. He was always hungry, and he ate dirty diapers and trash — even after he had eaten a meal, defense witnesses said.

Perez has said the boy had a “voracious appetite.”

Prosecutors and their witnesses, however, said the boy was underfed and underweight.

Defense witnesses testified the 3-year-old was very active, jumped off furniture and often hurt himself. Some of Sedano-Ruiz’s Caldwell-area church friends testified about that Thursday.

The child’s Sunday school teacher, Nancy Dyer, who also teaches elementary school in Caldwell, said as an educator she is required to report abuse.

“I, at no time, had any red flags,” Dyer said about abuse to the boy.

Landis showed Dyer a picture of the boy post-mortem with bruises visible on his body and asked her if she would be compelled to report abuse if she saw the child looking like he did in the photograph.

“Yes I would,” Dyer said, while stepping down from the stand.

Sedano-Ruiz’s Bible study friend and mother of 11 children, Maria Kosmann, said the child was rambunctious.

“He was jumping off everything,” Kosmann said.

Two of Kosmann’s daughters who babysat the 3-year-old also testified he was very active.

“He would jump off anything that was available,” Katie Kosmann, 12, said.

“He would jump off things and run into things,” Courtney Kosmann, 17, said.

Perez argued Thursday the state has not presented any evidence that Sedano-Ruiz caused the boy’s death.

Injuries, like bruises, abrasions and lacerations, both older and fresh, covered the boy’s body at the time of his death. A fatal and fresh injury was found on the back of his head, Oregon State Medical Examiner Dr. Karen Gunson testified Monday.

The boy died from battered child syndrome, terminal blunt force trauma, the medical examiner said Monday in court.

Landis argued statements from Roberto Lee’s 5-year-old sister implicate Sedano-Ruiz to the crime of murder.

“This defendant beat this child to death,” Landis said Thursday in court.

Authorities found a bruise on the 5-year-old girl when she was placed into protective custody after her brother died, police testified in court.

In the 2006 interview with the girl, who was then 4 years old, she said her brother died in the kitchen after Sedano-Ruiz spanked him.

“And my mom started to me, saying to me, saying he was dead because she was spanking him and she said, ‘What am I gonna do with you?’ And she was crying because, um, Bobby was dying, that’s why she was crying, because she spanked him herself, because she, because she, because he got in the kitchen,” according to the transcript.

However, the child also said in the 2006 interview that she was “sleeping” when her brother was dead in the kitchen. She also said she did not know how she knew that her brother was spanked when he was in the kitchen, according to the interview transcript.

Almost one year after her brother’s death, the 5-year-old child testified briefly in court Thursday with bouncing pigtails, tied up by green bows.

Norris said the child expressed trepidation about being near Sedano-Ruiz in court, and so a female jail officer sat between the witness box and the audience.

The 5-year-old is not calling Sedano-Ruiz “Mom” anymore.

Prosecutors asked the child where her brother died, and she said, “at Marisol’s house.”

The Ruiz couple shared a home with their four children and stepchildren in Willow Creek, when their boy died.

Defense attorneys Thursday did not question the 5-year child.