State v. Camacho-Rodriguez

── State v. Camacho-Rodriguez ── Court: Court of Appeals of Kansas Date: June 05, 2026 Category: General NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION No. 126,826 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. ERIC MIGUEL CAMACHO-RODRIGUEZ, Appellant. MEMORANDUM OPINION Appeal from Sedgwick District Court; KEVIN M. SMITH, judge. Oral argument held February 10, 2026. Opinion filed June 5, 2026. Affirmed. Carol L. Schmidt and Hope E. Faflick Reynolds, of Capital Appellate Defender Office, for appellant. Matt J. Maloney, assistant district attorney, Marc Bennett, district attorney, and Kris W. Kobach, attorney general, for appellee. Before PICKERING, P.J., CLINE, J., and CAREY L. HIPP, District Judge, assigned. PER CURIAM: Following a jury trial, Eric Miguel Camacho-Rodriguez appeals his convictions and sentence for four counts of aggravated criminal sodomy and one count of aggravated indecent liberties. He raises constitutional speedy trial and jury selection claims and challenges the district court's imposition of two consecutive life sentences as an abuse of discretion. Finding no reversible error, we affirm. 1  FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Eric Miguel Camacho-Rodriguez began dating R.G. in 2013. He later moved in with her and her daughter (D.G.), who was born in 2010. In March 2020, school officials learned about two entries that D.G. wrote in her diary which indicated that she had been sexually abused by two family members. The entries identified an uncle and D.G.'s "Dad" as the perpetrators. D.G. participated in an interview with a detective and a Department for Children and Families worker at the at the Child Advocacy Center. She identified Camacho- Rodriguez, who she considered her dad, as the person who sexually abused her. She described some of the abuse as including several instances of oral sodomy and one instance of anal sodomy. A forensic nurse examined D.G. after the interview. During this examination, D.G. described a recent instance of abuse in which Camacho-Rodriguez forced "his privates in her butt." The forensic scientist took several swabs, including vaginal and anal swabs, and sent them to law enforcement. A DNA analyst tested the swabs and found semen on the vaginal and anal swabs. The analyst concluded that Camacho-Rodriguez could not be excluded as a minor contributor of the DNA profile obtained from the sperm cell fraction of the vaginal swab and a major contributor of the DNA profile from the sperm cell fraction of the anal swab. Law enforcement interviewed Camacho-Rodriguez. He denied that any inappropriate contact occurred. However, around 45 minutes into the interview, he admitted that he once asked D.G. to touch his penis while he was in the shower but that nothing else happened. 2 Pretrial Proceedings Police arrested Camacho-Rodriguez on March 3, 2020. Three days later, the State charged him with four counts of aggravated criminal sodomy and one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. The complaint alleged that these crimes occurred between August 2018 and February 2020. The district court initially set a preliminary hearing date for March 19, 2020. The hearing was continued several times at defense counsel's request and for reasons related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Around nine months into the proceedings, the district court held an evidentiary preliminary hearing. Arraignment was held on April 12, 2021, and a control setting of July 19, 2021, was established for trial. The district court subsequently continued the trial date to October