Luis Ramirez Ruedas A/K/A Luis Ramirez Ruebas v. State, 11-13-00049-CR

Victim K.C., age 5 at incident and 6 at trial, reported that Appellant touched her vagina at his home, and later described penetration with a belt to a forensic interviewer.
K.C. first told her mother (C.G.) that Appellant pulled down her underwear and touched her vagina; she later told forensic interviewer Carrie Paschall that Appellant’s belt contacted her vaginal area between the labia.
K.C. was examined at Cook Children’s Hospital and interviewed at Alliance for Children; Paschall was designated an outcry witness and the mother also testified as an outcry witness.
The trial court held a competency hearing and found K.C. competent to testify despite some equivocal answers and language/translation issues.
The jury convicted Appellant of aggravated sexual assault of a child (sentence: life); the judgment was reformed to a single conviction for that offense; the jury found the victim was under six at the time of the offense.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Competency of child witness to testify	K.C. demonstrated inability to comprehend time/place, observe, recollect, or narrate events; thus incompetent	K.C.’s overall testimony and answers showed she could observe, recollect, narrate, and understand truth-telling	Court: No abuse of discretion; K.C. competent to testify (Watson factors applied)
Admissibility of multiple outcry witnesses	Paschall’s testimony was an improper additional outcry because mother was first adult told	Paschall was first adult to whom K.C. disclosed penetration — a distinct event element — so Paschall is proper outcry for that offense	Court: No abuse of discretion; multiple outcries admissible because they concerned different events/elements (penetration vs. touching)
Prosecutor’s closing argument vouching for witness	Prosecutor improperly injected personal belief that K.C. was telling the truth, amounting to impermissible vouching	Argument was invited by defense’s attack on witness credibility and counsel’s implication of a constructed narrative; thus permissible response	Court: Statement that K.C. “is telling the truth” was improper vouching but harmless in context; no reversible error

Watson v. State, 596 S.W.2d 867 (Tex. Crim. App. 1980) (sets competency factors: observe, recollect, narrate, understand truth)
Broussard v. State, 910 S.W.2d 952 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995) (abuse-of-discretion review for child-competency rulings)
Lopez v. State, 343 S.W.3d 137 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011) (outcry testimony is event-specific; multiple outcries may be admissible when they describe different events)
Bays v. State, 396 S.W.3d 580 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013) (Article 38.072 hearsay exception for first adult outcry)
Divine v. State, 122 S.W.3d 414 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2003) (permitting two outcry witnesses where one disclosed penetration and the other did not)
Menefee v. State, 614 S.W.2d 167 (Tex. Crim. App. 1981) (prosecutor vouching for witness is ordinarily improper)
Chapman v. State, 503 S.W.2d 237 (Tex. Crim. App. 1974) (vouching may be invited as response to defense fabrications)
Lange v. State, 57 S.W.3d 458 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2001) (response vouching permitted where defense implied prosecutorial coaching)