Case Name: Frederick Earl BRADFORD a/k/a Frederick Bradford, Appellant, v. STATE of Mississippi, Appellee
Court: Mississippi Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1999-03-23
Citations: 736 So. 2d 464
Docket Number: No. 96-KA-01416COA
Parties: Frederick Earl BRADFORD a/k/a Frederick Bradford, Appellant, v. STATE of Mississippi, Appellee.
Judges: KING AND SOUTHWICK, P.JJ., BRIDGES, COLEMAN, AND THOMAS, JJ„ CONCUR.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 736
Pages: 464–471

Head Matter:
Frederick Earl BRADFORD a/k/a Frederick Bradford, Appellant, v. STATE of Mississippi, Appellee.
No. 96-KA-01416COA.
Court of Appeals of Mississippi.
March 23, 1999.
Marie Wilson, Greenville, Attorney for Appellant.
Office of the Attorney General by Pat Flynn, Attorney for Appellee.

Opinion:
ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
McMILLIN, C.J.,
for the Court:
¶ 1. The motion for rehearing filed by the State of Mississippi is denied. The original opinion issued in this case is withdrawn and the following opinion is substituted as the opinion of the Court.
¶ 2. Frederick Bradford has appealed his conviction on two counts of gratification of lust. We find that the State's evidence was insufficient as. a matter of law to sustain the conviction and we reverse and render.
I.
Facts
¶ 3. Bradford was a long-time friend of Temeica Hayes and her family and was a frequent guest in the home. Hayes had five children. Four of those children played some part in the facts of this case. They were eleven, ten, three, and two years old at the time of the events that led to this prosecution. The remaining child was one year old at the time and does not figure in the case. The three-year-old and two-year-old were both female children. In the summer of 1995, Bradford accompanied Hayes, her boyfriend, and all five children on an automobile excursion into Greenville. When they arrived at their destination, Hayes and her boyfriend exited the vehicle, leaving Bradford alone in the car with the children. When Hayes and her friend returned to the car about twenty minutes later, the two older children attempted to convey a message to their mother that something had occurred during her absence. After they had arrived home, Hayes took one of these older children for a walk. During that walk, the child apparently related that Bradford had been behaving inappropriately with her three year old and two year old sisters in the car. Hayes subsequently returned home and discovered the three year old to be crying. When the child was asked the reason for her distress, she reported that Bradford had inserted his tongue in her mouth and had fondled her in the area of her vagina. The two older children's version of events they had observed in the car did not, however, correspond with the incident related by the younger child. Rather, they related a sequence of events where Bradford would, when the two younger girls were looking away, pinch one of them on the buttocks. When the child would turn to confront him, Bradford would playfully suggest that one of the other children was the culprit. The eleven year old also reported seeing Bradford kiss both the younger girls on the jaw, though the other older child did not corroborate this testimony. The ten year old child testified that she only saw these acts of pinching committed on one of her younger sisters.
¶ 4. Bradford was subsequently indicted on three counts. One was for sexual battery, growing out of the allegations of vaginal fondling, and the remaining two counts for gratification of lust arose out of the episodes of pinching and kissing that occurred in the car. The State's proof on the gratification of lust counts consisted principally of the testimony of the ten and eleven year old children relating what they saw in the car. The proof on the sexual battery count consisted entirely of Hayes's testimony concerning what the three-year-old had told her. The defense presented no evidence.
¶ 5. The case was submitted to the jury and the jury acquitted Bradford on the sexual battery count, but convicted him on the two counts of gratification of lust.
II.
Discussion
¶ 6. In reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, this Court is obligated to view the evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the conviction. McClain v. State, 625 So.2d 774, 778 (Miss.1993). We are authorized to set aside a jury's verdict only if we are convinced that, as to one of the essential elements of the crime, the State's proof was so deficient that a reasonable and fair-minded juror could only find the defendant not guilty. Id.
¶ 7. The statute under which Bradford was charged states that "[a]ny person . who, for the purpose of gratifying his or her lust, or indulging his or her depraved licentious sexual desires, shall handle, touch or rub . any child . shall be guilty of a high crime.... " Miss.Code Ann. § 97-5-23 (Rev.1994). In this case, there is no legitimate dispute that Bradford was pinching and kissing two young girls of very tender years. Thus, the sole legitimate disputed issue of fact was whether the State presented sufficient proof to support a finding by the jury that Bradford's actions were "for the purpose of gratifying his . lust." Miss.Code Ann. § 97-5-23 (Rev.1994).
¶ 8. We find no case law that is particularly helpful in determining what evidence is necessary to give rise to an inference that an undisputed act of touching was for the purpose of satisfying the defendant's depraved sexual desires. Nevertheless, we are of the opinion that there must be evidence of some nature that is probative on the issue; otherwise, every demonstration of affection or playful act directed by an adult toward a child would expose the adult to potential criminal charges, the outcome of which would depend solely on the jury's unsubstantiated subjective assessment of the purposes of the encounter.
¶ 9. Certainly, such evidence could arise from a description of the circumstances of the encounter itself. For example, touching in inappropriate parts of the child's body, overly demonstrative acts of affection, events occurring when the child is not fully clothed, or some evidence of sexual arousal by the defendant during the encounter, might be sufficient to permit the jury to draw a reasonable inference as to the improper purpose of the defendant's act. We do not intend, by the foregoing, to exhaust the possibilities of the avenues of proof available to the State. We only mean to demonstrate that a jury's determination of the motivation underlying a defendant's actions in regard to physical contact with children must be based upon something other than pure conjecture.
¶ 10. In this case, the only evidence of Bradford's activities consisted of testimony that, in a car crowded with children, Bradford was engaged in a game involving contact of only the briefest duration consisting of a pinch that was followed by a laughing attempt to place the blame for the contact on one of the other children. There is no evidence of any attempt to grope or rub either of the children in a sexually suggestive manner. There is no evidence that Bradford was unnaturally aroused or sexually excited by this seemingly prankish behavior. We can, after a thorough review of the record, discover no evidence that would suggest that Bradford's behavior on this particular afternoon was the kind of deviant behavior toward a child that the statute on gratification of lust was intended to punish.
¶ 11. The State seeks to bolster the case for affirming by suggesting that the jury could have considered the mother's testimony about the alleged incident related by the younger daughter — although it involved a separate incident — as tending to show a more sinister purpose in Bradford's behavior in the car than would be apparent on the face of it. The State argues that Rule 404(b), dealing with the general impropriety of using proof of other bad acts to show the defendant's character as one likely to commit the crime, has no application in this circumstance since evidence of similar conduct with the same victim in cases involving sexual abuse has been found admissible on the issue of the intent of the defendant.
¶ 12. The State also urges that the incident in the car and the other incident testified to by the mother were nothing more than a continuation of the same event. They do so by arguing that Bradford "apparently continued" his inappropriate behavior in the house while the mother was out talking to the older daughter. There is insufficient evidence in the record to support an inference that the incident involving penetration occurred at the time the State suggests. When asked, the mother indicated that she had no idea as to when this other incident might have occurred, and the ten and eleven year old children never claimed to have witnessed any such activity. Thus, there can be no claim that these alleged activities constituted a single event, thereby making the mother's testimony relevant on the remaining counts under the decision in Lesley v. State, 606 So.2d 1084 (Miss.1992). In all events, the State advances this argument solely to demonstrate the admissibility of this other evidence. We do not, by our decision, find the evidence inadmissible. It certainly was admissible on the issue of Bradford's guilt on the first count. We simply disagree that this evidence, admissible for that purpose, could, on the state of this record, be considered for another essentially unrelated purpose — to prove Bradford's motives for his behavior in the car. M.R.E. 105.
¶ 13. There are significant additional problems in relying on the State's argument to affirm Bradford's conviction in this case. Principal among them is the proposition that the jury acquitted Bradford on the count that was founded on the mother's testimony, thereby casting significant doubt on the jury's willingness to conclude that this event occurred. Sec ondly, the jury was not instructed on the notion that it could consider evidence of Bradford's conduct on the separate sexual battery charge to divine his underlying motivation to engage in what, on its face, appeared to be mere horseplay. In combination, we find these two problems fatal to the State's argument.
¶ 14. Had the prosecution truly intended for the jury to consider this evidence for two distinct purposes, i.e., on the question of guilt as to the sexual battery count and also on the question of the motive behind his behavior on the remaining two counts of fondling, we are of the opinion that a jury instruction to that effect was absolutely essential. The necessity for an instruction when Rule 404(b) evidence is admitted, informing the jury of the limited purpose for which the evidence may be considered, has been plain in this State since the Mississippi Supreme Court decision in Smith v. State, 656 So.2d 95 (Miss.1995). In that ease, the supreme court said that such a limiting instruction must be given if Rule 404(b) evidence is to be introduced on the question of guilt, even if one is not requested by the defense. Id. at 100. The only exception countenanced in Smith is if the defense, being confronted with such a proposed instruction, affirmatively rejects it. Id.
¶ 15. In this case, there was no Rule 404(b) instruction regarding the possibility that evidence bearing on one charge might serendipitously prove helpful to the jury in resolving another charge. To the contrary, the trial court only instructed the jury that it had to resolve the three counts separately without any indication that any evidence introduced might have the kind of crossover utility the State urges.
¶ 16. We are not convinced that this jury was so sophisticated in the nuances of the rules of evidence that its members understood that, although they had concluded that the State failed to prove Bradford's guilt on the first count beyond a reasonable doubt, they might nevertheless determine that the facts of that charge had been proven by a preponderance of the evidence and, on the strength of that finding, they might use evidence relating to that incident to discover an evil motive in Bradford's conduct in the car that was not otherwise apparent in the proof.
¶ 17. Discounting, as we conclude we must, the mother's testimony on this separate crime, we conclude that the remaining evidence of Bradford's actions in engaging in horseplay with these children on the afternoon in question is not sufficient to support a finding that he was involved, in some way, in satisfying his unnatural sexual appetites. Because we find the evidence on this critical element of the crime insufficient as a matter of law, we are constrained to reverse and render Bradford's conviction on both counts.
¶ 18. THE JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT OF WASHINGTON COUNTY IS REVERSED AND RENDERED. ALL COSTS OF THIS APPEAL ARE ASSESSED TO WASHINGTON COUNTY.
KING AND SOUTHWICK, P.JJ., BRIDGES, COLEMAN, AND THOMAS, JJ" CONCUR.
PAYNE, J" DISSENTS WITH WRITTEN OPINION JOINED BY DIAZ, J.
IRVING AND LEE, JJ" NOT PARTICIPATING.