Child-abuse trial ends with hung jury

2-year-old had injuries, but dad didn’t cause them, defense attorney argues

The child-abuse trial of a Little Rock man accused of inflicting internal injuries on his 2-year-old son ended in a mistrial Thursday night when a Pulaski County jury could not reach the required unanimous verdict.

The nine men and three women deliberated about three hours before informing Circuit Judge Barry Sims that they would never all agree on whether 24-yearold Rolando Juarez-Rosaldo was guilty of first-degree battery of a child for the injuries inflicted on Charles “Charlie” Juarez in April 2017.

The Class Y felony carries a potential life sentence, with a 10-year minimum. The toddler is now in foster care and with his siblings. The courts have stripped Juarez-Rosaldo and his wife of their parental rights, although that decision is on appeal.

Juarez-Rosaldo did not testify in the trial. Instead, his attorney Leonardo Monterrey called character witnesses, among them, his boss Luis Sanchez of Luis’ Tree Service, pastor Violetta Fernandez and friend Fernando Del Valle, who described the defendant as a calm, peaceful, hardworking and loving father.

In his closing argument, Monterrey called on jurors to set aside the emotions they must feel at seeing photographs of the injured boy and “see what really did happen.”

He also asked them not to hold Juarez-Rosaldo’s decision not to testify against the defendant, saying that he had advised his client against taking the stand.

Prosecutors could find no witness to say anything bad about his client’s character and jurors had already heard everything Juarez-Rosaldo would say during the course of the two-day trial, Monterrey told jurors.

Monterrey questioned all of the medical witnesses who testified about whether Charlie’s injuries — a rib fracture and bruising of his pancreas, intestines and liver — could have been caused by a household accident, roughplay or by other children. Each of them told jurors that none of those scenarios could account for the serious injuries Charlie received.

The attorney said he accepted the conclusions that the boy had been abused, but he said prosecutors had the wrong suspect.

Juarez-Rosaldo’s wife, Marleny Marili Reyes-Ramos, was the toddler’s primary caregiver, although not the boy’s mother, Monterrey told jurors. He told jurors her testimony to explain Charlie’s numerous bruises — that her children had been biting Charlie — was unbelievable.

“She is hiding something,” the attorney said. “You know what she’s hiding. She did this.”

Reyes-Ramos was Juarez-Rosaldo’s dupe, deputy prosecutor Melissa Brown told jurors, telling jurors that the woman had tried to minimize what her husband had done because he’s her sole support.

“She is protecting him. She needs him, ” Brown said in her closing argument. “Marleny doesn’t want to believe it. Marleny doesn’t want to believe he’s capable of it.”

The defendant had taken her and her two children in, provided them a home, paid for their food and clothing, and impregnated the 32-year-old woman, and she wanted to protect him, Brown said.

Deputy prosecutor Katie Hinojosa called on jurors to recall police testimony about how officers had to separate the couple because Juarez-Rosaldo wouldn’t let her speak without interrupting. And when police did move her away, Juarez-Rosaldo had to be restrained by officers because he kept trying to get to her, she said.

She said the only conclusion jurors could draw was that the defendant brutally battered his child in a fit of anger, likely because the willful child was not doing what he was told.

“A belt did not do this. His fists did this. His feet did this,” Hinojosa said, holding up a photograph of the child in the hospital. “He got mad, and he beat this baby.”

Charlie’s foster mother Shenica Bryson testified Thursday that the boy and his siblings have been living with her since March and that he’s a “normal” 3-yearold and “typical child.” He has a scar that crosses his stomach from the emergency surgery last year, she told jurors. She said she was giving him a bath about a month after taking him in and he pointed to his head, stomach and back, saying his father had hit him there.

“I just said, ‘well, that’s not very nice,’” Bryson said, telling jurors it was not unusual to have one of the children she’s cared for randomly make disclosures like that.

The toddler’s injuries came to the attention of authorities when the defendant and his wife took the boy for a vaccination appointment at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in April of 2017.

The extensive bruising, Charlie’s lethargic behavior and his throwing up alarmed the nurse who saw him. She summoned a doctor who had the boy immediately rushed to the emergency room where he had emergency surgery because doctors feared his gallbladder had ruptured.

Also testifying Thursday was child-abuse pediatrician Dr. Rachel Clingenpeel from Children’s Hospital who diagnosed Charlie as suffering from “multiple high-force traumas consistent with child abuse.”

The bruising all over his body showed an injury pattern “fundamentally different” from what doctors would expect from any kind of single event, even a fall down the stairs, she testified.

“They couldn’t have come from a single blow,” she said.

There was no way whatever was done to the boy could have gone unnoticed, Clingenpeel said. Charlie’s injuries were caused by “exceptional high-force trauma” that would have caused the toddler a “substantial amount of pain,” that required an immediate response from his caregiver, she said.

“These injuries would not take a long time to cause,” she said. “It actually requires substantial trauma to leave as many signs as it did. It’s actually not that easy to injure a child. They’re actually quite resilient.”

The final split between jurors was not clear. They had been in deliberations almost two hours when they first reported a 9-3 divide favoring guilt.

Sims asked them to continue working, but they returned about 30 minutes later to say they were still deadlocked, although one holdout was willing to reconsider. But after about another half-hour, the jury foreman said they were at their final impasse, with one juror unshakeable in the belief of the defendant’s innocence.

“There is one saying they will not change no matter what,” she said.