Case Title: State v. Infante

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1990-09-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
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, 111 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602 of any errors in order
that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                No. 89-008


State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

                                             On Appeal from
     v.                                      District Court of Vermont,
                                             Unit No. 2, Grand Isle Circuit

Frank Infante                                September Term, 1990


Michael S. Kupersmith, J.

Linda Petry Effel, Grand Isle County State's Attorney, Grand Isle, for
  plaintiff-appellee

Peter F. Langrock and Mitchell L. Pearl of Langrock Sperry Parker & Wool,
  Middlebury, for defendant-appellant


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Peck, Gibson, Dooley and Morse, JJ.


     ALLEN, C.J.   Defendant, Frank Infante, appeals his conviction after
trial by jury of two counts of sexual assault under 13 V.S.A. { 3252(1)(A).
We reverse and remand.
     Complainant, who is blind, alleged that when he was sixteen years old
he was sexually assaulted by defendant.  Complainant did not report the
assault to the police until September 1986 and initially indicated that the
assault occurred on July 9, 1985, which was the date then included in the
informations.  At a subsequent deposition complainant testified that the
offense occurred on July 2, 1985.  Complainant finally fixed the date as
July 2, 1984.  Nine months before trial the informations were amended to
charge the assault as having occurred on July 2, 1984.
     Defendant and his wife owned and operated a summer lodge in Isle
LaMotte.  Complainant had known the Infantes since he was two or three
years old and had visited the lodge for ten consecutive years prior to the
assault.  As the State's only witness in its case-in-chief, complainant
testified that he was invited to the lodge to play the accordion in the
summer of 1984.  He stated that on the evening of July 2, defendant dropped
off his wife in St. Albans and upon returning asked everyone to leave the
common area of the lodge at around a quarter to ten.  Defendant then
instructed complainant to take a shower in the bathroom open to the lodge
guests.  Complainant was then forcibly taken to an upstairs room where the
alleged assault took place.  Complainant stated that he screamed loudly
during the course of the assault, and that defendant had to put a pillow
over his mouth to muffle his continued screaming.  The State called
complainant's stepmother as a rebuttal witness to reaffirm that complainant
was at defendant's lodge on July 2, 1984.
     The defense proceeded along two lines.  First, defendant attempted
through cross-examination of complainant to show that the story was
fabricated by complainant to get his father's attention.  Second, defendant
put on testimony by family members and guests contradicting complainant's
account of the evening of July 2, 1984.  An attorney from Michigan testified
that he and his wife, after setting up camp, went into the lodge around 9:30
that evening and did not leave until 11:30 or midnight.  He stated that at
no time during the evening did defendant ask them to leave the lodge, and
that he did not see complainant until July 4.  Another guest, who suffered a
physical condition that interfered with his sleep, testified that he heard
no screaming.  A number of witnesses, including complainant, testified that
sound carried clearly throughout the lodge.  Defendant's wife and children
asserted that they were present and working in the lodge on the evening in
question.  Defendant's wife testified that she never slept away from the
lodge on any night that summer.
     The jury returned a verdict of guilty.  Defendant's post-trial motion
for judgment of acquittal or alternatively for a new trial was denied by the
trial court.  Defendant asserts four grounds for reversing his conviction
and remanding for a new trial.  Because we find one of the grounds per-
suasive, and the others not likely to recur on retrial, we need address
only the one.
     Defendant's contention is that because he based his defense in part on
refuting that the offenses could have occurred as alleged on July 2, 1984,
the trial court erred in declining to instruct the jury that it must find
the offense to have occurred on this date.  We agree that under the
circumstances of this case the trial court committed reversible error by
declining to instruct the jury as requested.
     Time is not an essential element of the crime of sexual assault.  State
v. Dunbar, 152 Vt. 399, 403, 566 A.2d 970, 972 (1989).  It is settled that
the State may charge that an offense occurred on a non-specific date, State
v. Ross, 152 Vt. 462, 465, 568 A.2d 335, 337 (1989) (information alleging
that sexual assault occurred during the "summer of 1983" was not violative
of defendant's rights), and that variance between the date alleged and the
date demonstrated by the proofs does not result in acquittal.  State v.
Daniels, 129 Vt. 143, 144-45,