Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02260/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02260-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Donald Rafaelito
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS SEP 2 4 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) 

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Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. No. 90-2260 

DONALD RAFAELITO, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

For the District of New Mexico 

(D.C. No. CR 90-107JB) 

Clerk · 

Paula G. Burnett, Assistant United 

Lutz, u.s. Attorney, with her 

Mexico, for Plaintiff-Appellee. 

States Attorney (William L. 

on the brief), Albuquerque, New 

Ann Steinmetz, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Albuquerque, New 

Mexico, for Defendant-Appellant. 

Before MOORE and McWILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and KANE, District 

Judge.* 

McWILLIAMS, Circuit Judge. 

* Honorable John L. Kane, United States District Judge for the 

District of Colorado, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 90-2260 Document: 01019291107 Date Filed: 09/24/1991 Page: 1 
In a one-count indictment, Donald Rafaelito, an Indian, was 

charged with knowingly engaging in a sexual act with Matilda 

Rafaelito, 1 an Indian female, on September 19, 1989, within the 

exterior boundaries of the Navajo Indian Reservation in New 

Mexico, by threatening her and placing her in fear of bodily 

injury, in violation of 18 u.s.c. §§ 1153, 2242(1) and 2245. A 

jury found Rafaelito guilty as charged and he was sentenced to 

imprisonment for 108 months followed by three years of supervised 

release. Rafaelito now appeals his conviction and sentence. 

On appeal, Rafaelito raises three issues: (1) the district 

court erred in denying his pretrial motion to suppress his 

statements to Lawrence Kie, a criminal investigator for the Bureau 

of Indian Affairs; (2) the district court erred in refusing to 

instruct the jury on a lesser included offense; and (3) the 

district court erred in refusing to reduce Rafaelito's base 

offense level by two points for his "acceptance of 

responsibility." Finding no error, we affirm. 

I. Motion to Suppress 

Prior ~o trial, defense counsel filed a motion to suppress 

the statements made by Rafaelito to Lawrence Kie, a criminal 

investigator for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who investigated the 

case and in the course thereof interviewed Rafaelito. The basis 

for the motion was that under the totality of the circumstances 

Rafaelito's statements to Kie were not voluntarily made and 

1 Matilda Rafaelito was Donald 

daughter. 

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Rafaelito's fourteen-year old 

Appellate Case: 90-2260 Document: 01019291107 Date Filed: 09/24/1991 Page: 2 
violated Rafaelito's Fifth Amendment rights. After an evidentiary 

hearing, the district court denied the motion. 

Before any consideration of whether there was any form of 

coercion used to obtain the statements made by Rafaelito to Kie, 

we should first examine the statements made. Kie testified at 

trial that Rafaelito told him that he had tried to take off 

Matilda's pants, that she said "stop" and that he did stop and 

that he then, and later, apologized to his daughter. On crossexamination, defense counsel brought out that in the two-hour 

interview Kie had with Rafaelito, the latter at no time admitted 

that he had sexual intercourse with his daughter and stated that 

"all he did was that he tried to take down her pants," but didn't, 

and that "he felt badly about that." 

Nor 

the 

Rafaelito did not give a written statement of his own to Kie. 

was their conversation taped. 

interrogation Kie prepared a 

However, at the conclusion of 

typewritten summary of 

Rafaelito's statements to him which contained Rafaelito's 

statement that he tried to pull down Matilda's pants, but that she 

had said, "Daddy, stop." 

As a part of her cross-examination of Kie, defense counsel 

had Kie's typewritten statement containing the statements made to 

him by Rafaelito marked as defendant's Exhibit A, which were then 

identified by Kie as being a true and accurate recital of 

Rafaelito's statements concerning the matter. 

defense counsel, and without objection from 

Later, on motion by 

the United States 

attorney, defendant's Exhibit A was received into evidence. 

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Appellate Case: 90-2260 Document: 01019291107 Date Filed: 09/24/1991 Page: 3 
Under the above described circumstances, we find it 

unnecessary to get into any discussion as to whether the 

statements Rafaelito made to Kie were, or were not, voluntary. 

The statements attributed to Rafaelito at trial did not constitute 

a confession of guilt, nor were they an admission against 

interest, at least not in the legal sense, since the statements 

made did not tend to establish any essential element of the crime 

charged, i.e., penetration accompanied by fear of bodily injury or 

threats. 2 Actually, as concerns the particular crime charged, 

Rafaelito's statements to Kie were exculpatory in nature, which is 

probably why defense counsel, not the prosecution, moved to admit 

defendant's Exhibit A. Rafaelito elected not to testify, and 

defendant's Exhibit A was a method of getting before the jury 

Rafaelito's version of what happened. 3 

II. Lesser Included Offense 

As indicated, Rafaelito was charged in a one-count 

information with a violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1153, 2242(1) and 

2245(2). More specifically, he was charged with engaging in a 

"sexual act" with Matilda Rafaelito "by threatening her and 

2 There really is no dispute that on the day in question Donald 

Rafaelito picked up Matilda at her mother's house (Donald and 

Matilda's mother were divorced) ostensibly to buy Matilda a new 

dress and attend a family funeral, but that they then went to the 

ranch house of Donald's parents, who were not at home. The 

contact between Donald Rafaelito and Matilda occurred there. 

3 An alternative position of the government is that even if the 

district court erred in denying the motion to suppress, the 

admission into evidence at trial of Rafaelito's statements to Kie 

were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under Arizona v. 

Fulminate, ____ U.S. ____ , (1991). Certainly, under our analysis 

of the matter, we too would find harmless error. 

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Appellate Case: 90-2260 Document: 01019291107 Date Filed: 09/24/1991 Page: 4 
placing her in fear of bodily injury." Under 18 U.S.C. § 2245(2) 

"sexual act" means, inter alia, a contact between a penis and the 

vulva and a "contact involving the penis occurs upon penitration, 

however slight." 

At the conclusion of the evidence, defense counsel requested 

that the jury be instructed on the lesser included offense of 

"abusive sexual contact" as defined in 18 U.S.C. §§ 2244(a) and 

2245(3). The latter section states that "sexual contact" means 

the intentional touching, either directly or through the clothing, 

of the genitals, anus, breast, inner thighs or buttocks of any 

person with an intent to abuse, arouse, or gratify the sexual 

desire of any person. The district court denied counsel's request 

for an instruction on the lesser included offense of "abusive 

sexual contact," and, on appeal, counsel asserts such constitutes 

reversible error. We disagree. 

In United States v. Joe, 831 F.2d 218, 219 (lOth Cir. 1987), 

we approved a four-part test set forth in Fitzgerald v. United 

States, 719 F.2d 1069 (lOth Cir. 1988) for the giving of a lesser 

included offense instruction. That test was: (1) a proper 

request for such an instruction; (2) the lesser included offense 

must consist of some, but not all, of the elements of the offense 

charged; (3) the elements differentiating the two offenses must be 

a matter in dispute; and (4) a jury must be able to rationally 

convict the defendant of the lesser offense and acquit of the 

greater offense. In accord, see United States v. Young, 862 F.2d 

815, 820 (lOth Cir. 1989). 

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Appellate Case: 90-2260 Document: 01019291107 Date Filed: 09/24/1991 Page: 5 
In the instant case, the defendant did make a timely request 

for a lesser included offense instruction, and we will assume that 

"abusive sexual contact" is a lesser included offense to engaging 

in a "sexual act." However, we agree with the district court that 

the third and fourth parts of the four-part test are not here met. 

As indicated, the defense called no witnesses in Rafaelito's 

defense. Defendant's Exhibit A, Kie's statement of what Rafaelito 

told him, would not in itself warrant a lesser included offense 

instruction. So, any evidence which would warrant a lesser 

included offense instruction necessarily would have to come from 

the government's case. In this connection, counsel argues that 

from the government's evidence the jury could have concluded that 

there was no penetration, in which event Rafaelito would not be 

guilty of engaging in a "sexual act," though he might well still 

be guilty of "abusive sexual contact." Such is not our reading of 

the record. 

It is true that Matilda Rafaelito at one point in her 

testimony indicated that she and her father had not had 

"intercourse," because she had her legs together, but Matillda 

went on to testify that "he then pulled my legs apart" and after 

that "he injected me" and "put his penis inside." 

As indicated, Matilda Rafaelito was taken to a clinic the day 

of the assault. A physician's assistant who examined her 

testified that she found "a very tearful young lady" and that her 

genital examination of Matilda showed an "obvious abrasion just 

below and adjacent to her vagina." Further, she testified that 

Matilda's vaginal area was so tender that she could not insert a 

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Appellate Case: 90-2260 Document: 01019291107 Date Filed: 09/24/1991 Page: 6 
speculum and make a pelvic examination. However, the physician's 

assistant testified that by using a saline Q-tip, she was able to 

collect specimens from inside the vagina. These specimens, which 

had been labelled "vaginal wash," were later analyzed and revealed 

the presence of male sperm. Without doubt the government's 

evidence clearly showed penetration, and hence the difference 

between the greater and any possible lesser offense was not really 

in dispute. Further, on the state of the record, we do not 

believe the jury could rationally convict Rafaelito of "abusive 

sexual contact" and acquit him of engaging in a sexual act with 

his daughter. In this general connection, we note that in closing 

argument, defense counsel argued that this was a case of incest, 

but not rape, thereby virtually conceding penetration. 

III. Acceptance of Responsibility 

The presentence report recommended a two-point reduction of 

Rafaelito's base offense level because of his "acceptance of 

responsibility." The government filed an objection to any such 

reduction on the ground that Rafaelito had in fact made no such 

acceptance. After hearing, the district court agreed with the 

government and rejected the probation officer's recommendation 

that Rafaelito be given a two-point reduction in his base offense 

level because of his acceptance of responsibility. On appeal, 

counsel assigns this as error. We disagree. 

The basis for the probation officer's recommendation for a 

two-point reduction was that Rafaelito had told the probation 

officer that he did not believe his daughter "would lie" and that 

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Appellate Case: 90-2260 Document: 01019291107 Date Filed: 09/24/1991 Page: 7 
therefore "what she has reported with regard to the instant 

offense must be true." We agree with the district court that such 

falls far short of "acceptance of responsibility." It should be 

noted that all agree that Rafaelito had an alcohol problem and had 

been drinking before his contact with his daughter. However, such 

does not equate with "acceptance of responsibility." Certainly 

Rafaelito's statements to Kie do not evidence an "acceptance of 

responsibility." And neither do Rafaelito's statements to the 

probation officer evidence a meek and contrite heart. United 

States v. Wach, 907 F.2d 1038 (lOth Cir. 1990). In fact, 

Rafaelito still refuses to accept responsibility for his acts. 

Judgment affirmed. 

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Appellate Case: 90-2260 Document: 01019291107 Date Filed: 09/24/1991 Page: 8