Case Title: State v. Hicks

Citation: 167 Vt. 623, 711 A.2d 660

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1998-03-18T00:00:00Z

Document:
State v. Hicks  (96-504); 167 Vt. 623; 711 A.2d 660

[Filed 18-Mar-1998]

                          ENTRY ORDER

                 SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 96-504

                       FEBRUARY TERM, 1998

State of Vermont                }     APPEALED FROM:
                                }
                                }
     v.                         }     District Court of Vermont
                                }     Unit No. 3, Orleans Circuit
James Hicks, Jr.                }
                                }     DOCKET NO. 797-11-95Oscr

               In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       Defendant appeals from two convictions for sexual assault against a
  minor and one conviction for lewd and lascivious conduct with a child.  He
  argues that the court erred by (1) failing to dismiss the charges against
  him because the State did not allege the time of the offenses as
  specifically as possible, and (2) by denying his motion to continue to
  allow him to hire a new attorney.  We affirm.

       All three convictions were based on allegations that defendant
  sexually abused his girlfriend's -- now wife's -- two daughters, ages
  eleven and twelve, while they were all living on Coventry Street in
  Newport.  The police officer's affidavit in support of the informations
  stated that the three offenses occurred on the same day, sometime between
  Easter and June 1, 1994, and the informations alleged that the day was
  sometime between April 3 and June 1, 1994. After defendant gave notice of
  an alibi defense, the State amended the informations, alleging that the
  abuse occurred between January 1994 and August 1994, the entire period that
  complainants lived at the Coventry Street house.

       At trial, the younger child, who was then thirteen years old, could
  not recall the date of the offenses, but knew they occurred at the Coventry
  Street house and that she moved out of that house on September 14, 1994. 
  The older child, who was fifteen years old at trial, could not recall the
  date either, but after refreshing her memory with a transcript of her
  deposition, testified that the date was after Easter and before June. 
  Testimony from other witnesses indicated that defendant moved out of the
  Coventry Street house in the third week of March 1994 and did not return
  until after the complainants moved to a foster home.  Following the
  testimony of the two children, defendant moved to dismiss for lack of
  specificity in the information, and later, moved to set aside the verdict
  or for a new trial on the same grounds. The trial court ruled that the time
  frame Easter to June 1, 1994 had not been established sufficiently to
  require the State to narrow its charges to that time frame.

       On appeal, defendant argues that the information should have alleged
  the time frame of Easter to June 1, 1994 because one of the children
  testified that the offenses occurred during this period of time, and the
  State is required to be as specific as possible.  Child victims of sexual
  abuse often are unable to identify the date of the offense.  See State v.
  Ross, 152 Vt. 462, 465, 568 A.2d 335, 337 (1989).  And children who are
  repeatedly sexually abused over several months or years have difficulty
  establishing the dates of particular assaults.  See, e.g., People v.
  Naugle, 393 N.W.2d 592, 596 (Mich. Ct. App. 1986) (information charging
  three counts of sexual abuse was sufficiently specific without alleging
  exact dates where thirteen year old victim testified that defendant had
  been molesting her since she was eight years old, so specific dates did not
  stick out in her mind).

 

       In cases of sexual abuse, time is not an essential element of the
  offense, and therefore, need not be charged in the information.  See State
  v. Gomes, 162 Vt. 319, 322,