Opinion ID: 2350797
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The evidence of identity

Text: ¶ 30 Very early in the morning on April 14, 1995, about 3:00 a.m., Lynwood City Police Officer Ronald Erue was dispatched to a hotel to respond to a 911 call reporting a physical domestic dispute. 1 Verbatim Report of Proceedings (VRP) (July 24, 1995) at 35-36. He was the first to arrive. Room 111, where the disturbance had occurred, was just around the corner from the hotel clerk's desk. The door was closed. After additional officers arrived, the officers heard a door open, looked down the hallway, and saw a man and woman leaving room 111. The man was the defendant, Bobby Ray Thompson, and the woman was J.S., the victim. The defendant was forcing the female out the door and out the emergency exit. Id. at 39. [H]e had a hold of her and physically pushed her out the door. Id. It appeared he was forcing her out the door.... He was right behind her physically forcing her out the door. Id. at 40. Officer Erue asked them to stop, but Thompson just looked at Erue and continued to push J.S. out the door. [1] ¶ 31 Erue testified that J.S. got about halfway out the door and turned, saw me, and started yelling hysterically that he'd beat her and he was going to kill her. Id. at 40-41. The officer saw that J.S. had been beat pretty severely. Id. at 41. [2] She kept screaming he had beat her, that he was going to kill her. She was crying, shaking. Id. Officer Erue also testified that she said that when she would not put out, he beat her and raped her. Id. at 54. ¶ 32 Lynnwood City Police Officer David Byrd was also dispatched to the hotel in response to the report of a domestic disturbance in room 111. He similarly described seeing J.S. and Thompson, with Thompson shoving [J.S.] out the emergency exit door. VRP (July 25, 1995) at 39. Officer Byrd affirmatively identified Thompson in court as being the man he saw outside room 111. He described seeing only Thompson being detained outside room 111 and testified that when he did a protective sweep of the hotel room there was no one else in the room. ¶ 33 Lynnwood City Police Officer Steven Rider also testified that he responded to the hotel and along with Officers Byrd and Erue approached room 111. He testified to Thompson trying to push J.S. out the back door. Id. at 53-54. Officer Rider affirmatively identified Thompson in court as the person who was pushing J.S. out the door. Rider testified that he placed Thompson under arrest. ¶ 34 The hotel clerk on duty at the time identified Thompson in court as the person she had seen the police officers remove from the hotel. ¶ 35 J.S. identified Thompson in court as the man who assaulted her. She testified that he approached her when she was out with friends at a bar and invited her to join him at an after hours party at the hotel across the street. 1 VRP at 60-62. She testified that she went with him, but when she discovered there was no one else in the room, told him she had to leave. She said that he responded by hitting her and knocking her unconscious. She testified that she was raped numerous times and continually beaten and knocked unconscious and that he tried to drown her. J.S. testified that there was no one else in the hotel room. ¶ 36 On cross-examination, J.S. was questioned about a description of her attacker that she had provided during an interview with a defense investigator. (That interview occurred on June 26, 1995, about two and one-half months after the assault. Confidential Investigative Memo to Att'y at 1 (July 3, 1995).) Clerk's Papers (CP) at 53. Defense counsel cross-examined her about having described the attacker as being about five foot seven to five foot eight inches tall with shoulder-length blond hair. J.S. testified that she had said to the investigator that she thought he was that tall but was not sure of his height, adding that she is only four feet, nine inches tall, and so everybody seems pretty tall to me. 1 VRP at 80-81, 83. She said she couldn't be sure and did not know how tall he was. Id. at 83. J.S. testified that she also had told the investigator that she was not sure of the color of his hair. When she was asked about having said the attacker had no facial hair, she denied having said that and instead said that she told the investigator that she was not sure. She did say that she had told a detective the day after the attack that she probably could not identify the attacker. ¶ 37 But regardless of uncertainty she may have expressed when verbally describing her assailant, J.S. positively identified Thompson to police officers immediately after the attack and she positively identified him in court as the man who raped and beat her. ¶ 38 In summary, the evidence on identification includes: J.S.'s at-the-scene identification to police officers of Thompson as the man who had raped, beaten, and tried to kill her; [3] her testimony that he was the only one in the hotel room when she was raped and beaten; her positive in-court identification of Thompson as the rapist; [4] police officers' incourt identifications of Thompson as the man they saw trying to push J.S. out an exit door near the room where she was raped and whom she immediately identified as her attacker; the officers' testimony that there was no one else on the scene; that, upon prompt inspection of the room, no one else was found in it; and the hotel clerk's identification of Thompson as the person she saw the police remove from the hotel. Thompson was positively identified at the time of the assault as J.S.'s assailant and as the only person in the hotel room with her.