Opinion ID: 2972660
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: On Sunday, December 21, 1997, Brittany Bowles, a five-year-old girl, was living with her unmarried parents, Sherry Faes and Tommy Bowles, in Detroit, Michigan. Faes testified at trial that she bathed Brittany that morning, around 11:00 a.m., and did not notice any injuries or abnormal behavior. Bowles had left home early that morning to participate in court-mandated community service for a past offense. Around 2:00 p.m., petitioner Brandt, who often babysat Brittany at his apartment a few blocks from the victim’s home, arrived to pick-up Brittany.2 It is unclear if he requested to babysit that day or if Faes asked him to babysit so she could have a “break” to clean the house and do laundry. Brandt testified that he took Brittany to his apartment and played video and board games with her in his bedroom, and that nothing untoward or inappropriate occurred. Steven James, Brandt’s housemate, testified that he saw Brandt take Brittany into Brandt’s bedroom, where they remained for most of the afternoon with the door closed. During his testimony, Brandt accused no one. He simply claimed that, while he had custody of Brittany, she was not harmed by him or anyone else. 2 In a post-conviction hearing, the trial judge described Brandt’s home as a “boarding house for men. There were no women and no families living there.” J.A. at 127a. -2- No. 04-1449 Brandt v. Curtis Bowles returned home from community service around 4:30 p.m. By about 7:30, he told Faes to retrieve Brittany from Brandt’s, since it was getting late. She began walking to Brandt’s and encountered Brandt, James and Brittany walking back to the Bowleses’ residence.3 Faes testified that she quickly noticed Brittany was walking “weird” but she did not question her about it at the time. All four returned to the Bowles home and visited in the living room for approximately twenty minutes. There was conflicting testimony about whether, when Brandt was ready to leave, he hugged and kissed Brittany or vice versa, but there was some contact between the two shortly before Brandt and James left the home. Brittany then quickly went into the bathroom. When her mother checked on her, she found Brittany standing in front of the mirror with her shirt off. Based on her own experiences and “mother’s intuition,” Faes concluded that Brittany had been molested and hysterically said to Bowles that “Kenneth done [sic] something to the baby,” and “that sick bastard touched that baby.” J.A. at 225a & 235a. Bowles took Brittany into her bedroom and questioned her, asking, “[D]id Kenny touch you in any way?” She denied that he had touched her and replied that she was simply tired. Bowles asked her several more times with the same result, before eventually asking her “did Kenny ever tell you that he would hurt mommy or daddy if you told us something?” Brittany replied that Brandt had said he would kill them. She then responded that he had touched her and indicated where by pointing down, toward her genital area. Faes ran to a neighbor’s home to use the phone to call the police. The neighbor, in turn, went 3 Although the residence in question was actually occupied by Tommy Bowles, Sherry Faes and Brittany Bowles, for the sake of simplicity we will use only the Bowles last name when referring to it. -3- No. 04-1449 Brandt v. Curtis to the Bowles home to try and help with Brittany. When the neighbor arrived, Bowles left, walked to Brandt’s, and reportedly threatened to kill him if he had molested his daughter. Bowles’s testimony does not specify the time of this encounter, but we can infer from his timeline of events that it occurred approximately an hour after Brandt dropped Brittany off. In his testimony, Brandt reported a longer period of time, approximately three hours, between his dropping Brittany back at home and Bowles’s arrival at Brandt’s residence. Brandt’s implied defense was that someone else, presumably one of Brittany’s parents, actually molested Brittany during this period. After both Bowles and Faes had returned home, the police arrived and advised them to take Brittany to the hospital, which they promptly did. Dr. Earl Hartwig was Brittany’s treating physician in the emergency room. His first contact with Brittany occurred around 12:50 a.m. on December 22, 1997. He physically examined her and interviewed her with her mother, Ms. Faes, present. When he had Brittany remove her underwear he noticed “a large wad of some type of either tissue or paper towel type of material that was within her underclothes that also contained a significant amount of blood and again, some type of discharge . . . that we didn’t know the nature of at the time.” J.A. at 367a. His physical examination revealed very serious injuries to Brittany’s vaginal and anal areas. As far as the genital examination is concerned Brittany presented with significant injuries to her vaginal area, to the hymenal area and to the urethra area which is where you urinate from. There were gross abnormalities there with significant amount of bleeding, swelling, abrasion and bruising. As far as examination of her anal area she showed significant redness as well, along with abrasion or essentially raw skin, laxity or [sic] rectal tone and also a discharge of blood and some other type of discharge going from the anal area as well as from the vaginal area. J.A. at 173-74. In response to questioning about the relative severity of Brittany’s injuries, Dr. -4- No. 04-1449 Brandt v. Curtis Hartwig stated that of the several hundred children he had examined for sexual assault, Brittany’s case was “clearly one of the worst I’ve seen.” J.A. at 185. Although he could not determine what object or body part had penetrated her, the doctor did testify that her injuries were “consistent with penetration.” As to the timeframe of the injuries, he testified that her parents indicated a time of injury between six and eight p.m. the previous day. He found the injuries to be consistent with that approximation. In addition, however, he could not determine whether some of the injuries had occurred earlier. I would speculate that there were previous injuries, - there was a large amount of injuries present here, - the degree of injury, I wouldn’t expect to see on one, one penetrating traumatic event. However, I couldn’t tell you with certainty that there was previous or not [sic]. The discharge also would suggest that there was some type of previous irritation that allowed time for the discharge to build up but again, I wasn’t certain of what type – if this was a semen discharge or puss from an infection or perhaps some type of cream that was put down. I didn’t know what type of discharge we were looking at entirely. J.A. at 183. The forensic serologist who testified regarding all the lab work done on the samples taken from Brittany was also unable to identify this discharge. See J.A. at 350a-351a. Semen was not identified on any of the samples, but there was testimony that this fact did not rule out a male perpetrator. Dr. Hartwig first questioned Brittany about who had injured her during his initial interview and evaluation. He testified that Brittany was at first unwilling to share any information with him, that she “clammed up” and that this is not uncommon in child victims of abuse. After Dr. Hartwig left Brittany and her mother alone for a period of time while he attended to another emergency, he returned and began the physical evaluation. “Specifically when we found the wad of toilet tissue -5- No. 04-1449 Brandt v. Curtis . . . in her underclothes I asked her who put that tissue there and she indicated, Kenneth, Kenny.” J.A. at 378a. Defense counsel did not object to the introduction of this testimony, nor did he object to the testimony of Brittany’s parents recounting similar statements she made to them at her house, before going to the emergency room. A jury convicted Brandt of two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. The presiding