Title: State v. Cameron

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

State v. Cameron  (97-046); 168 Vt. 421; 721 A.2d 493

[Filed 16-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. 97-046

State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

                                             On Appeal from
     v.                                      Bennington District Court

Richard G. Cameron                           March Term, 1998

Ellen Holmes Maloney, J.

       William H. Sorrell, Attorney General, and David Tartter, Assistant
  Attorney General, Montpelier, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

       Charles S. Martin of Martin & Associates, Barre, for
  Defendant-Appellant.

PRESENT:  Dooley, Morse, Johnson and Skoglund, JJ.

       JOHNSON, J.   Defendant appeals jury convictions resulting from
  charges that he sexually assaulted and molested his former girlfriend's two
  young children.  He argues that (1) he was  entitled to a judgment of
  acquittal with respect to the charges concerning one of the children
  because only hearsay evidence supported those charges; (2) the trial
  court's admission of  hearsay testimony concerning statements that the
  children had made to others, based on its conclusion that the children were
  available to testify through their videotaped trial testimony, violated his
  right to confront adverse witnesses; (3) the court erred in excluding
  defense witnesses who would have presented testimony suggesting that the
  children may have been abused by their stepfather rather than defendant;
  and (4) the court lacked the authority to reconvene and increase
  defendant's sentence on  its own motion two days after having originally
  pronounced sentence.  We reject each of these arguments and, therefore,
  affirm the convictions and sentence.

       In the spring of 1990, defendant moved in with a woman and her two
  children, a boy

 

  born in March 1987, A.V., and a girl born in May 1988, S.T.  In July 1991,
  defendant and the woman had a child together.  The couple separated in the
  summer of 1993, and the woman moved in with another man, whom she married
  the following year.  In December 1993, as a result of statements the
  children made to their mother and stepfather indicating that defendant had
  sexually abused them, an employee of the Department of Social and
  Rehabilitative Services (SRS) interviewed the children.  A second interview
  was held in April 1994.  Both interviews were videotaped.

       In November 1994, the State filed a four-count information charging
  defendant with three counts of aggravated sexual assault, in violation of
  13 V.S.A. § 3253(a)(8), and one count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a
  child, in violation of 13 V.S.A. § 2602.  The State alleged that between
  July 1992 and May 1993 defendant engaged in lewd and lascivious conduct
  with S.T. by making contact between his hand and her vulva, and further
  sexually assaulted both children by making contact between his penis and
  A.V.'s mouth, S.T.'s mouth, and S.T.'s vagina.  The  children testified at
  trial through previously videotaped testimony taken pursuant to V.R.E. 807. 
  The State's evidence at  trial consisted mainly of the children's
  videotaped trial  testimony and the testimony of other State's witnesses --
  the  children's mother, their grandmother, their therapist, and the  SRS
  interviewer -- who repeated statements that the children had made to them. 
  The latter testimony was admitted under V.R.E. 804a, the hearsay exception
  relating to statements made by children who are the putative victims of sex
  offenses.  The jury found defendant guilty on all counts, and the court
  sentenced him to ten-to-thirty-five years on each of the aggravated sexual
  assault convictions and four-to-five years on the lewd and lascivious
  conduct conviction, all to be served concurrently.

                                     I.

       Defendant first argues that S.T.'s trial testimony failed  to support
  convictions on two of the counts against him -- hand-to-vulva

 

  and penis-to-mouth contact -- and that the State could not rely solely upon
  hearsay testimony to support those convictions.  As for the hand-to-vulva
  contact, we reject defendant's argument that because S.T. indicated that
  she was  wearing clothes when the contact occurred, her testimony could not
  support the State's charge of lewd and lascivious conduct  with a child. 
  Lewd and lascivious conduct does not require direct contact between
  particular body parts. Cf. In re P.M., 156 Vt. 303, 305, 592 A.2d 862, 862
  (1991) (affirming finding of delinquency based on juvenile having committed
  lewd and lascivious conduct by rubbing genital areas of his partially
  clothed body against genital areas of child's partially clothed  body). 
  S.T.'s videotaped trial testimony that defendant rubbed  her between the
  legs "in the front" where "I go to the bathroom" established the State's
  charge that defendant committed lewd and  lascivious conduct with a child
  by making contact between his hand and her vulva, notwithstanding her
  testimony that she was wearing clothes at the time of the incident.

       As for the charge alleging penis-to-mouth contact between defendant
  and S.T., the State apparently concedes that S.T.'s  trial testimony does
  not support the verdict on this charge. Therefore, we address the second
  part of defendant's argument --  that his conviction on this charge was
  supported solely by hearsay testimony, in violation of State v. Robar, 157
  Vt. 387, 601 A.2d 1376 (1991).  In Robar, we held that the State cannot
  meet its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt "if  the sole
  evidence upon which conviction is based is past recollection recorded or a
  prior inconsistent statement, unless the prior statement meets specific
  standards of reliability."   Id. at 395, 601 A.2d  at 1380 (emphasis added). 
  We reversed the defendant's conviction because the only evidence
  identifying him  as the perpetrator was the inquest testimony of one of the
  State's witnesses, who testified at trial that she had no memory  of the
  inquest or the events surrounding it.  See id. at 395-96, 601 A.2d  at 1380. 
  We concluded that the inquest testimony was not reliable because (1) it was
  given six months after the event itself; (2) it was given as part of a deal
  involving potential charges against the witness, who incorrectly believed
  that the defendant had confessed; and (3) no information was available
  concerning the circumstances or date of the witness's original  statement
  to police.  See id.

       In later cases, however, we found prior statements sufficiently
  reliable to support

 

  convictions. In State v. West, 164 Vt. 192,