By John Lowman
The Facts
Published January 22, 2010
ANGLETON — Ashton Carmen told jurors his father choked him or hit him with a belt, shoes, pots, pans and his fists as punishment, and he received such treatment “constantly.”
Carmen, 18, took the stand in his trial for the Dec. 8, 2005, shooting death of his father, Reginald Carmen, in the family’s Pearland home. Reginald Carmen was shot three times in the left side of his back when entering the foyer of the home, and prosecutors said Ashton Carmen killed him.
Ashton Carmen, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, was tried as an adult and convicted Jan. 12, 2007, then sentenced to 50 years in prison.
A state appellate court in 2008 ruled the judge in his first trial should have allowed a self-defense instruction in the jury charge.
His second trial last week ended in a mistrial when a juror said she read part of an online newspaper account of the 2007 trial the night before opening arguments.
Under questioning Thursday afternoon by defense attorney Stan McGee, Ashton Carmen said abuse at the hands of his father began when he was a young child.
“As I started to get a little older … I went from being hit with the belt to hit with shoes, his fists, choking me, dragging me around, pots and pans,” he said in a strong voice, looking from McGee to the one-man, 11-woman jury. “Anything he said he got hit with when he was my age.”
Ashton Carmen testified that when he was in second grade in 1998, Reginald Carmen whipped him with a belt so badly he had to be hospitalized. Carmen said the beating was in response to his hiding a letter from a teacher stating the boy had been talking in class.
“I was in my room when the phone rang,” Ashton Carmen said. “I remember him opening the door and kind of hollering. He grabbed me by the collar and twisted my collar up and dragged me out of my room in a choke hold. He pushed me back into the room and threw me over the bed. He took off his belt and started swinging.”
McGee asked how many times he was hit.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The buzz of overhead lights was all that was audible in the courtroom as McGee and Ashton Carmen paused.
“I … I,” Ashton Carmen stammered, but did not become emotional. “I went to daycare the next day and it was really hard for me to walk. The staff took notice but didn’t know what the reason was. As I started progressing throughout the day, I felt my side going numb. When I had to urinate, it burned really bad.”
Ashton Carmen said a teacher who saw the welts and bruising referred him to a nurse.
“She asked me who did it to me and I said, ‘My dad,’” he said. “I called my mom and remember being in the back of an ambulance.”
Child Protective Services placed Ashton Carmen with his mother, Veronica Mitchell, and ordered Reginald Carmen to attend anger management classes. Ashton Carmen was returned to his father’s care in 1999.
On the stand Thursday, Mitchell admitted to using crack cocaine during her pregnancy and trying to have a miscarriage.
“He didn’t have a very good start,” she said.
She also testified Reginald Carmen had beaten her over the years, but recanted upon cross-examination by prosecutor Jessica Pulcher. She told the jury about what Brazoria County District Judge Randall Hufstetler, who is presiding, called “numerous physical altercations,” but in her grand jury testimony said Reginald Carmen, “grabbed my arm or whatever.”
Hufstetler halted the proceedings and sent the jury from the courtroom.
“You need to think really hard before you answer that question,” Hufstetler said to Mitchell when Pulcher asked which answer was correct.
McGee told Mitchell she had the right to remain silent, and Hufstetler said she could plead the Fifth Amendment. She did not, and with the jury back in the courtroom, she affirmed her grand jury testimony.
Mitchell said when she heard Reginald Carmen had been killed, she drove to the Pearland home. A police officer told her he’d been shot to death.
“I asked if Ashton did it,” Mitchell said.
“Why did you say that?,” Pulcher asked.
“I don’t know,” Mitchell said. “I don’t know.”
“Were you surprised this had happened?,” Pulcher asked.
“Not really,” Mitchell said.
“Why not?,” Pulcher asked.
“I didn’t know if it was his running away, the tension, me not being a good mom or if he just had enough,” Mitchell said. “I don’t know.”
Ashton Carmen is scheduled to resume testimony when the trial continues at 9 a.m. today in Hufstetler’s courtroom at the Brazoria County Courthouse.
John Lowman covers Brazoria County for The Facts. Contact him at 979-849-8581.
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