Case Title: State v. Fuller

Citation: 168 Vt. 396, 721 A.2d 475

Docket Number: 95-534

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1998-09-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
State v. Fuller  (95-534); 168 Vt. 396; 721 A.2d 475

[Opinion Filed 11-Sep-1998]
[Motion for Reargument Denied 4-Oct-1998]

       NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.

                            No. 95-534

State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

                                             On Appeal from
    v.                                       District Court of Vermont,
                                             Unit No. 1, Rutland Circuit

Kenneth Fuller                               September Term, 1997

Theresa S. DiMauro, J.

       Peter R. Neary, Rutland County Deputy State's Attorney, Rutland, for
  Plaintiff-Appellee.

       Robert Appel, Defender General, Henry Hinton, Appellate Attorney,
  Montpelier, and Kenneth Fuller, pro se, Swanton, for Defendant-Appellant.

PRESENT:  Amestoy, C.J., Dooley, Morse, Johnson and Skoglund, JJ.

       SKOGLUND, J.  Defendant Kenneth Fuller appeals his conviction for
  aggravated sexual assault of his step-son in violation of 13 V.S.A. §
  3253(a)(9).  Defendant contends that (1) the evidence was insufficient to
  permit his conviction for violating 13 V.S.A. § 3253(a)(9); and, (2) the
  trial court denied defendant his federal and state constitutional rights to
  confront an adverse witness and to call for evidence in his favor by
  excluding Donna Fuller's (defendant's wife) out-of-court statements made
  to a third party, and by excluding letters written by Ms. Fuller, and
  mailed to defendant while he was in jail.  We affirm.

       Defendant and Ms. Fuller were married in 1993.  Ms. Fuller has one
  son, S.E., from a previous relationship.  At the time of the incident, S.E.
  was eleven years old.  According to S.E., one evening while Ms. Fuller was
  at work and defendant and S.E. were at home alone, defendant purchased beer
  and forced S.E. to drink some of it.  Soon afterwards, S.E. felt tired and
  went into a bedroom to sleep.  Defendant followed S.E. into the bedroom and
  laid down next to the boy on the bed.  While talking to S.E. about sex,
  defendant pulled down his pants

 

  and began to masturbate.  Realizing what defendant was doing, S.E.
  attempted to get off of the bed but defendant grabbed the boy, pulled down
  S.E.'s pants, and placed his mouth on S.E.'s penis for five to ten seconds. 
  S.E. was finally able to escape and ran into the living room. Defendant
  followed S.E. into the living room, threw the boy onto a couch, and again
  placed his mouth on S.E.'s penis for approximately a minute.

       About one week later, S.E. informed Ms. Fuller about the sexual
  assault.  According to Ms. Fuller, when she confronted defendant about the
  allegation, he initially denied it but later admitted the offense.  In
  addition, Ms. Fuller related the boy's allegation to her sister during a
  telephone call.  The sister reported the incident to the Department of
  Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS).  Approximately one month later,
  SRS interviewed the boy and Ms. Fuller.  At that time, they both denied
  that any sexual assault had occurred.  Ms. Fuller also denied that she had
  talked to her sister about such an incident.

       A few months later, however, after defendant was arrested for a
  domestic altercation between defendant and Ms. Fuller, S.E. and Ms. Fuller
  reported the alleged sexual assault to the police.  While defendant was
  being held in pretrial confinement on the aggravated domestic assault
  charge, Ms. Fuller denied to the defense attorney's investigator that the
  sexual assault took place.  About one month after defendant's arrest for
  domestic assault and while still in pretrial confinement, defendant was
  charged with aggravated sexual assault of S.E.

       At his trial for aggravated sexual assault, defendant maintained his
  innocence and contended that S.E. and Ms. Fuller had concocted the charges
  against him because of defendant's abusive conduct towards Ms. Fuller and
  the boy's resentment of defendant's intrusion into S.E.'s relationship with
  his mother.  Furthermore, defendant asserted that Ms. Fuller's sister had
  falsely reported the sexual abuse claim to SRS so as to wrest custody of
  S.E. away from Ms. Fuller.

       In an attempt to prove his theory of the case during cross-examination
  of Ms. Fuller, defendant tried to enter into evidence potentially
  exculpatory statements from two letters Ms. Fuller sent to defendant while
  he was in pre-trial confinement for the domestic assault charge

 

  but before he was charged with aggravated sexual assault.  At a Rule 104
  hearing, without the jury present, the letters were held inadmissible.

       Soon after the trial resumed, defendant's attorney received a note
  from a man, Ken Harris, which read, "Your client has not done anything to
  [S.E.]."  After an interview with Mr. Harris, it was determined that Ms.
  Fuller and Mr. Harris had dated for several months after defendant was
  arrested and awaiting trial and that Ms. Fuller had made potentially
  exculpatory statements to Mr. Harris.  Upon learning this information,
  defendant again attempted to enter into evidence the statements from Ms.
  Fuller's letters and, in addition, Mr. Harris's testimony. At a second Rule
  104 hearing held outside the presence of the jury, the court again ruled
  the letters inadmissible and also found Mr. Harris's testimony
  inadmissible.

       Defendant was subsequently found guilty of aggravated sexual assault
  in violation of 13 V.S.A. § 3523(a)(9) and was sentenced to twenty to forty
  years in prison.  This appeal followed.

                                     I.

       Defendant first contends that the evidence presented at trial was
  insufficient to convict him of aggravated sexual assault in violation of 13
  V.S.A. § 3253(a)(9).  Section 3253(a)(9) states, in relevant part, that
  "[a] person commits the crime of aggravated sexual assault if the person
  commits sexual assault [and] . . . the victim is subjected by the actor to
  repeated nonconsensual sexual acts as part of the same occurrence." 
  Defendant claims the evidence showed only that "one continuous, very brief
  episode motivated by a single impulse interrupted" had occurred and,
  therefore, he could be convicted only of sexual assault in violation of 13
  V.S.A. § 3252.  Defendant reasons that, because the sexual assault of S.E.
  in the bedroom lasted only five to ten seconds and then quickly recommenced
  in the living room after S.E. escaped from the bedroom, the evidence was
  insufficient to prove "repeated nonconsensual sexual acts."

       We recognize the rebuttable presumption that the crime of sexual
  assault is not a continuous offense and, therefore, each assault
  constitutes a separate and distinct offense.  See Harrell v. Wisconsin,