Opinion ID: 3160721
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: We begin by noting that defendant waived his right to a jury trial and chose to be tried by a justice sitting without a jury. Therefore, to challenge the legal sufficiency of the evidence, the defendant must file a motion to dismiss under the provisions of Rule 29(a). See State v. Silvia, 798 A.2d 419, 424 (R.I. 2002). When ruling on a motion to dismiss in a jury-waived criminal trial, the trial justice acts as an independent factfinder. See State v. Albanese, 970 A.2d 1215, 1220 (R.I. 2009). Sitting in that role, the trial justice should: “weigh and evaluate the trial evidence, pass upon the credibility of the trial witnesses, and engage in the inferential process, impartially, not being required to view the inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, and against the moving party. After so doing, if the trial justice in a criminal case setting concludes that the trial evidence is sufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, he or she denies the defendant’s motion to dismiss and, if both sides have rested, enters decision and judgment of conviction thereon. If the evidence is not so sufficient, he or she grants the motion and dismisses the case.” State v. McKone, 673 A.2d 1068, 1072–73 (R.I. 1996). It is also significant that “[i]n a jury-waived criminal proceeding, this Court gives deference to a trial justice’s finding[s] of facts.” State v. Adewumi, 966 A.2d 1217, 1221–22 (R.I. 2009) (quoting State v. Forand, 958 A.2d 134, 138 (R.I. 2008)). Moreover, when we review these “determinations of credibility and findings of fact by a trial justice sitting without a jury, this Court will not disturb the trial justice’s findings unless they are clearly wrong or the trial justice misconceived or overlooked material evidence on a controlling issue.” Id. at 1222 (quoting State v. LaCroix, 911 A.2d 674, 679 (R.I. 2006)). 1 Prior Knowledge First, defendant argues that his motion to dismiss should have been granted because he was “without knowledge that his actions were disturbing.” He argues that, in the absence of -7- evidence that he approached the complainants, contacted them directly, or knew that his actions were disturbing or unwanted, his case should have been dismissed under the provisions of Rule 29. To buttress his argument, defendant cites to our previous stalking cases, including State v. Stierhoff, 879 A.2d 425 (R.I. 2005); State v. Breen, 767 A.2d 50 (R.I. 2001); and State v. Grayhurst, 852 A.2d 491 (R.I. 2004). In Stierhoff, 879 A.2d at 428, not only the complainant, but others as well, put the defendant on notice that his attentions were unwanted and unwelcome before any criminal charges were brought against him. Likewise, in Breen, 767 A.2d at 52-53, the defendant had been previously convicted of stalking the complainant and had been sentenced to one year of probation and subjected to a no-contact order. But shortly after his probation ended, he began to harass the complainant again. Id. at 53. Finally, in Grayhurst, 852 A.2d at 499-500, the complainant had sought and had been granted two restraining orders against the defendant before the defendant was later charged with stalking. It is our opinion that these cases are not helpful to defendant. In our view, defendant misconstrues not only the holdings of these cases but also the language of § 11-59-2. Although it is true that each of the cited cases involved defendants who previously had been notified, at least informally, that their contacts with the complainants were unwelcome, there is utterly no foundation to support an argument that we created a hard-and-fast rule that notice must be given to a defendant before criminal stalking charges are justified. Indeed, we foreclosed that precise argument in Stierhoff, 879 A.2d at 436, where we said that “there is nothing in the language of § 11-59-2 to suggest that a criminal defendant must be first served with any such type of official warning before his alarming, annoying, or bothersome conduct falls within the ambit of the statute.” It is significant that the statute prohibits “willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follow[ing] another person with the intent to place that person in reasonable fear of bodily injury -8-   .” Section 11-59-2(a)(2) (emphasis added). Although the word “following” is not defined in the text of the statute, it has been judicially defined elsewhere. For instance, Connecticut construes the term “following” to require “that any following be willful    the following must have a predatory thrust to it. [It] does not encompass following that is aimless, unintentional, accidental or undertaken for a lawful purpose. Of course, following implies proximity in space as well as time. Whether someone has deliberately maintained sufficient visual or physical proximity with another person, uninterrupted, over a substantial enough period of time to constitute following will depend upon a variety of differing factors in each case. These are appropriate issues for the trier of fact to decide[.] ” State v. Russell, 922 A.2d 191, 203 (Conn. App. Ct. 2007). Based on the evidence presented at trial, the trial justice found that defendant’s “following” did menace and frighten the complainants, and that his testimony was merely “fabrication and justification” for the threatening behavior towards the girls. The defendant’s repeated actions over the course of four different days cannot be cast as mere coincidence. On each day, he placed himself at Dunkin’ Donuts so that he could see the girls, he arrived at the same time, he clearly knew the car in which they traveled, he was observed peering in the windows of the vehicle, he never purchased anything at the coffee shop, and he used his cell phone camera to intimidate the girls by indicating, or at least leading them to believe, that he was photographing them. Because § 11-59-2 neither imputes a requirement that the defendant be notified his actions are disturbing nor requires direct contact with a complainant, we discern no error. 2 Failure to Call Three of the Five Complainants to Testify Second, defendant contends that the state failed to prove that three of the girls were in reasonable fear because the state did not call them to testify. We do not agree. -9- The trial justice rejected defendant’s argument that testimony by Chloe, Danielle, and Emily was necessary to establish that those complainants were in “reasonable fear of bodily injury.” Rather, she found that his intent regarding all five complainants was evident because the complainants were traveling in the same group. Based on the state’s assertion that the other three complainants would testify to the same facts as Allison and Brianna, the trial justice found that their testimony would have been cumulative and, therefore, unnecessary. “Cumulative evidence” is evidence that “tend[s] to prove the same point to which other evidence has been offered.” State v. Lynch, 854 A.2d 1022, 1032 (R.I. 2004) (quoting State v. Coleman, 478 N.W.2d 349, 358 (Neb. 1992)). “[T]o qualify as ‘cumulative,’ the evidence in question need not be introduced only after other evidence tending to prove the same point already has been admitted. Rather, the test is a retrospective one, administered at the close of all the evidence   .” Id. After reviewing the record, we agree that the testimony of the remaining girls would have been cumulative in light of Allison’s and Brianna’s testimony and would have added very little to the information the trial justice received in the course of trial. Indeed, it is our opinion that the testimony of the remaining complainants was not necessary. We do not agree with defendant’s argument that § 11-59-2 creates a subjective standard that requires that a victim actually be in reasonable fear of bodily injury. Section 1159-2(a) defines the essential element of the crime in objective terms—whether the fear of bodily injury is “reasonable”—and the testimony of the three complainants was not necessary to establish it. Simply put, the complainant’s subjective fear is irrelevant: the statute requires only that the defendant intend to place another person “in reasonable fear of bodily injury” by “harass[ing]” or “willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follow[ing]” that person. Id. (emphasis added). - 10 - It has not been disputed that the same girls traveled together and that defendant’s actions were directed toward the entire group. The girls arrived at Dunkin’ Donuts in one car and entered and left together as a group. The testimony of Allison and Brianna, together with the surveillance footage, was sufficient evidence for the trial justice to find that defendant directed his actions towards all five complainants with the same intent to place all of them in a reasonable fear of bodily injury. The trial justice found that the surveillance video was “worth a thousand words” in establishing that defendant repeatedly correlated his movements with those of the group on at least four occasions over a span of two weeks. She found that defendant “trailed them in his car,” flashed his lights, and drove in a “frantic and menacing manner around” them. She found that he “placed himself” at Dunkin’ Donuts at the same time and smiled at all of them in a “creepy” manner, frightening them. She also found that defendant “made unwelcome gestures towards the girls in public,” including aiming his camera at them, and then following them, smiling, “in the midst of a clearly unwelcome pursuit.” We agree with the trial justice that all this evidence is sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant undertook these actions for the purpose of putting all five girls in reasonable fear of bodily injury. 3 The Remaining Arguments on Appeal The defendant argues that the trial justice erred when she denied his motion to dismiss because the state failed to prove that the two complainants who did testify were in “reasonable fear of bodily injury.” Specifically, defendant points to Allison’s and Brianna’s testimony in which they said, somewhat defiantly, that they would continue to go to Dunkin’ Donuts despite defendant’s behavior. However, nowhere in the record is it revealed that defendant raised this