Opinion ID: 1060321
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Attempted Child Rape Conviction

Text: The applicable portion of the criminal attempt statute defines criminal attempt as follows: XX-XX-XXX. Criminal Attempt.(a) A person commits criminal attempt who, acting with the kind of culpability otherwise required for the offense: ... (3) Acts with intent to complete a course of action or cause a result that would constitute the offense, under the circumstances surrounding the conduct as the person believes them to be, and the conduct constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of the offense. (b) Conduct does not constitute a substantial step under subdivision (a)(3) unless the person's entire course of action is corroborative of the intent to commit the offense. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-12-101 (1997) (emphasis added). Again, section 39-13-522(a) defines the offense of child rape as the unlawful sexual penetration of a victim by the defendant or the defendant by the victim, if such victim is less than thirteen (13) years of age. Thus, for the jury to find the defendant guilty of attempted child rape, it had to find that the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted with the intent to sexually penetrate B.G., that the defendant took a substantial step toward doing so, and that B.G. was under the age of thirteen, or the defendant believed B.G. was under the age of thirteen. To reiterate, it was undisputed that B.G. was eleven years old at the time of the first attack. In contending that his conviction for attempted child rape was insufficiently supported by the evidence, the defendant first argues that there was no evidence establishing the defendant's intent in the initial attack on B.G. as required by the criminal attempt statute. Conversely, the State argues that the jury could properly infer from the subsequent rape that the defendant intended to rape B.G. in the initial attack. We agree with the State. Tennessee courts, as well as a large number of state and federal courts, have allowed the admission of evidence of subsequent crimes, wrongs, or acts when they bear on the issues of identity, intent, continuing scheme or plan, or rebuttal of accident, mistake, or entrapment. State v. Elendt, 654 S.W.2d 411, 413-14 (Tenn.Crim.App.1983) (citing Thompson v. State, 171 Tenn. 156, 101 S.W.2d 467, 473 (1937)); Graybeal v. State, 3 Tenn.Crim.App. 466, 463 S.W.2d 159, 160 (1970); see also United States v. Zapata, 139 F.3d 1355, 1357 (11th Cir.1998); United States v. Germosen, 139 F.3d 120, 128 (2d Cir.1998); United States v. Stouffer, 986 F.2d 916, 926 (5th Cir.1993); Hinton v. State, 632 So.2d 1345, 1348 (Ala.Crim.App.1993); Turner v. State, 59 Ark.App. 249, 956 S.W.2d 870, 872 (1997); Glass v. State, 255 Ga.App. 390, 565 S.E.2d 500, 507 (2002); People v. Jones, 334 Ill.App.3d 420, 268 Ill.Dec. 248, 778 N.E.2d 234, 238 (2002); State v. Deckard, 18 S.W.3d 495, 502 (Mo.Ct.App.2000); Powell v. State, 5 S.W.3d 369, 382 (Tex.App.1999). Moreover, although the question in this case does not require us to consider the admissibility of such evidence, [3] we also note, by way of example, that the plain language of Tennessee Rule of Evidence 404(b) (Rule 404(b)) uses the phrase  other crimes, wrongs, or acts rather than  prior crimes, wrongs, or acts. (Emphasis added). Thus, Rule 404(b) would permit the introduction of evidence of subsequent acts to establish one's intent during a prior act in appropriate cases. In determining whether to allow the admission of evidence of subsequent crimes, wrongs, or acts in a given case, trial courts should be mindful of the similarity of the offenses or acts and the proximity in time. Elendt, 654 S.W.2d at 414. In this case, the defendant on two separate occasions entered the victim's room while B.G. lay facedown on his bed. On both occasions, the defendant climbed on top of the victim. B.G. testified that he did not tell anyone besides Roy Carrico about the first attack because he felt embarrassed about what the defendant had done to him. From these facts, coupled with the fact that the room was dark and B.G. was in his underwear, the jury could reasonably infer that the defendant's bouncing actions were not playful, but rather were deviant and sexual in nature. Standing alone, B.G.'s testimony that he was embarrassed about the first attack may have been insufficient to establish that the defendant intended to rape him on that occasion. However, because both attacks were similar and sufficiently close in time (two weeks), and the defendant actually raped B.G. on the second occasion, it was permissible for the jury to infer that the defendant intended to rape B.G. the first time, but was thwarted by Roy Carrico. The defendant next argues that his actions in the first attack failed to constitute a substantial step toward the commission of the offense. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-12-101(a)(3). In State v. Fowler, 3 S.W.3d 910 (Tenn.1999), this Court addressed what actions constituted a substantial step in a case of attempted statutory rape. In that case, a motorist stopped at a highway rest area that had a reputation for homosexual activity. During his stop, the defendant approached an undercover police officer and informed him that he was interested in procuring a young male with whom to have sex. In addition, the defendant wanted the boy to be willing to come live with him at the defendant's home in Florida. The officer claimed that he knew of an available boy and would deliver the boy an hour later for a $200 finder's fee. Around one hour later, the defendant met with the officer at a parking lot to make the exchange. The officer told the defendant that the boy, who was a nineteen-year-old dressed as a young boy, was fourteen. The defendant wrote the officer a check for $200, and the officer promptly arrested the defendant. A jury convicted the defendant of attempted statutory rape. Fowler, 3 S.W.3d at 911. On appeal, this Court held that the defendant's delivery of the $200 check to the undercover officer amounted to a substantial step toward the commission of statutory rape. The Court concluded that were we to require that the defendant engage in conduct beyond the delivery of the check as payment for the boy, we would create a dangerous precedent by requiring that the defendant take delivery of the boy or actually begin some act that would approach sexual penetration.  Id. at 912 (emphasis added). Unlike Fowler , the actions of the defendant in the instant case do involve physical contact. Defendant Elkins climbed on top of B.G. and started bouncing. In Fowler , this Court agreed with the State's assertion that only the intervention of the officers in effecting the arrest stopped the defendant from his intended purpose ... committing statutory rape. Id. at 911. Similarly, it appears in this case that only the intervention of Roy Carrico prevented the defendant from raping B.G. on the first occasion. Accordingly, we conclude that the evidence in this case amply supports the jury's finding that the defendant took a substantial step toward the commission of child rape in his first attack on B.G. Finally, the defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence by contending that the only evidence of his guilt was B.G.'s testimony. Again, the defendant claims that B.G.'s inconsistent testimony, combined with Roy Carrico's testimony that he never saw the defendant on top of B.G., demonstrates that the evidence is insufficient to support his attempted child rape conviction. Again, we disagree. It was for the jury to decide as trier of fact which witness to believe, and the jury obviously chose to believe B.G. and not to believe Roy Carrico. We affirm the conviction.