(Stillwater, Okla.) – A Payne County jury deliberated for about seven and one-half hours Thursday before acquitting an ex-convict from Pryor, who was previously incarcerated for domestic violence in Mayes County, of abusing his girlfriend’s six-month-old baby at a Cushing house where he lived with three adults and three children for about three months after getting out of prison.
Clarence Vernon Hawkins, 28, could have been given a life sentence if convicted of abusing the infant who had 10 healing broken bones and multiple bruises, prosecutors said. Hawkins was jailed in Payne County for eight and one-half months until he was freed when the jury of eight women and four men found him not guilty of child abuse late Thursday night.
The baby’s mother, Skye Nicole Guhl, 27, who has known Hawkins since she was 5 and now lives in Pryor, was charged with enabling child abuse and testified against him at his three-day trial in Payne County. She remains free on bail pending a Nov. 13 pre-trial hearing.
The baby, who has no permanent injuries according to police, and his two older siblings are living with their grandmother in whose home the baby’s mother is allowed to visit, according to court testimony.
Patrick W. Cummings, 21, who now lives in Tulsa, had allowed the couple and Guhl’s three children to live with him and his wife in Cushing. Cummings was also charged with enabling child abuse and testified against Hawkins. He remains free on bail pending a Nov. 13 pre-trial hearing.
Both Guhl and Cummings, who have plea agreements with prosecutors to receive probation on their felony charges, told jurors – who did not know about Hawkins’ prior conviction for domestic violence – that they were afraid of Hawkins.
The baby’s mother testified that she did not know he had broken bones until she took him to the Cushing hospital on the urging of Cushing Police Officer Rachel Hentges, who was sent for a welfare check on an infant to a house in the 900 block of E. Walnut Street on Sept. 27, 2014.
“One of the officers told me someone with big strong hands could have done something,” the baby’s mother told jurors.
The baby’s mother testified that she saw Hawkins “hold the baby with one hand and slam him,” into a playpen.
She told jurors “He told me if anything happened to him, his family would hurt me.”
At the trial, the jury heard a recording of a phone call in which Hawkins, who was in the Cushing City Jail on traffic charges, told the baby’s mother that he had hurt the baby. She testified he told her to tell police he tripped over weights — which she told the jury she did not believe.
Under cross-examination from Hawkins’ court-appointed defense attorney Sarah Kennedy, the baby’s mother said, “I’ve got depression, maybe bi-polar. My emotions go up and down.” She also admitted that she wanted to marry Hawkins.
But she insisted, “I know what’s the truth. When he (her baby) got slammed, he started screaming harder.”
Dr. Michael Baxter, a clinical pediatrics professor at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa and a board-certified child abuse pediatrician, testified that he examined the infant after the six-month-old was transferred from the Cushing hospital to St. Francis Children’s Hospital in Tulsa.
He said he had a skeletal survey done of 19 or 20 x-rays of every bone in the child’s body.
He testified that the baby had six healing rib fractures and emphasized that a rib fracture is indicative of child abuse.
“With infants, these type of fractures don’t occur from the child crawling around. A baby’s bones are very pliable. They can bend pretty easily without breaking,” according to the physician who testified excessive force is needed to break a baby’s bone.
Regarding Cummings’ testimony that he had attempted CPR on the baby, the physician testified that would not be typical to cause a rib fracture.
The baby also had fractures on his left arm, lower leg and right shoulder, some of which would be two weeks old, while others could be three to four weeks old, the physician testified.
While the physician was being cross-examined by the defense attorney, Hawkins leaned forward and listened intently.
Regarding the baby’s leg fracture, the physician testified he believed “ a pull or yank caused it,” not a bowl dropped on the child as Cummings admitted he had done.
The fracture on the left arm was caused by “grabbing and yanking of the arm,” the physician testified.
The physician said “any bruising on any child’s abdomen is highly concerning,” which the baby had as well as on his temple and forehead.
The baby had been hospitalized for pneumonia and asthma; “I do not see the rib fractures caused by severe coughing,” the physician testified.
In her closing argument, prosecutor Debra Vincent told the jury, “Your common sense tells you a six-month-old child doesn’t end up with 10 broken bones without an injury. Somebody did that to him on purpose.”
She reminded the jury that Jessica Heintz Cummings “heard Clarence Hawkins speak harshly to the baby, call the baby a pussy.”
She told the jury that Patrick Cummings was “a limited person, he can’t read, he can’t write.”
“He admitted he threw a bottle at the baby, dropped a bowl on the baby. We wouldn’t know except he told us he did.”
When Patrick Cummings was asked why he didn’t tell anyone sooner, she reminded the jury that he said, “I was afraid of Clarence Hawkins, also he was my only friend.”
The prosecutor called the baby’s mother intellectually challenged, who gave various statements but “clearly explained seeing Clarence Hawkins hold her baby in his hand and slam him into the playpen.”
Reminding jurors of the phone call they listened to between the baby’s mother and Hawkins, while he was in jail on traffic charges, she said, “You heard Clarence Hawkins say ‘I can’t take a polygraph because I hurt the baby that one day.”
“Patrick Cummings testified he couldn’t tell you when he saw Clarence Hawkins hurt the baby. He said he saw the defendant holding the baby by the leg and throw him,” the prosecutor reminded the jury.
Admitting that the prosecution entered into plea agreements with the baby’s mother and Patrick Cummings, she said, “We make deals – you don’t have to like them…They all testified they were afraid of Clarence Hawkins.”
In her one-hour closing argument, the defense attorney pinned all of the child abuse on Patrick Cummings.
She said her client was an innocent man set up by the baby’s mother and Jessica Cummings.
“Patrick Cummings – we know he did it,” the defense attorney told the jury – adding “In a short period of time, I know you’ll find (Hawkins) not guilty.”
Prosecutor Kevin Etherington reminded the jury of Hawkins’ behavior at the Cushing hospital: “Did you hear him ask one time how is the baby doing? He storms out of the hospital. He’s out in the parking lot taking his shirt off.
“We don’t get to pick our witnesses. Nobody in that house was equipped” to take care of the baby, Etherington said.
“His mother is not on trial here. Patrick Cummings is not on trial here. Jessica Cummings is not on trial here. The defendant is on trial here.
“This defendant admitted to Skye Guhl (the baby’s mother) on the phone that he hurt the baby that day.
“Patrick Cummings said he saw Clarence Hawkins hold the baby by the leg. Who does that?
“If you believe he (Hawkins) is guilty of one of those incidents, it’s child abuse,” the prosecutor told the jury, which got the case at 3:40 p.m. and returned its not guilty verdict at 11:15 p.m. Thursday.
According to state Department of Corrections records — about which the Payne County jury was not allowed to be told — Hawkins had been convicted in 2011 of domestic abuse in Mayes County, for which he was initially given a suspended sentence except six months in jail. His probation was later revoked to a two and one-half year prison term of which he served about 14 months prior to his release in March 2014.
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