Opinion ID: 1981950
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: Defendant asserts there was insufficient evidence in the record to support his convictions for the several crimes charged. A defendant is not entitled to a directed verdict of acquittal unless there is no substantial evidence in the record to support it or such finding is clearly against the weight of the evidence. State v. Schrier, 300 N.W.2d 305, 306 (Iowa 1981). Substantial evidence is such evidence as could convince a rational trier of fact that the defendant is guilty of the crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Hoffer, 383 N.W.2d 543, 545 (Iowa 1986). A. Sexual Abuse in the Second Degree. Defendant argues that the evidence of second-degree sexual abuse was insufficient since [t]aken as a whole, the children's testimony is not believable, and at best, contrived by the investigators. The question, however, is not whether the witnesses were credible but whether the evidence, taken as a whole, was sufficient to support the convictions. This record is replete with evidence that defendant committed acts constituting second-degree sexual abuse on each of the three children. Iowa Code section 709.3(2) defines sexual abuse in the second degree, in part, as committed when the person commits sexual abuse ... [and] [t]he other participant is under the age of twelve. The victims each testified that while they were under twelve years of age defendant repeatedly performed on them acts which constitute sexual abuse. That testimony was well corroborated. A clinical child psychologist treating the male victim for depression and suicidal ideation testified to her belief in the validity of the boy's claim. Medical examinations performed on the girls confirmed that one suffered from recent vaginal injury consistent with sexual abuse and the other had the genitals of a sexually active female. Sexual paraphernalia described by the children was seized from defendant's bedroom, identified as belonging to defendant, and admitted in evidence. Each girl identified and explained photographs depicting sexual acts and testified about sexual acts defendant had committed on them. The children's direct testimony, bolstered by the ample corroborative evidence in the record, constituted substantial evidence to support the defendant's three convictions for sexual abuse in the second degree. B. Administering Harmful Substances. Iowa Code section 708.5 provides: Any person who administers to another or causes another to take, without the other person's consent or by threat or deception, and for other than medicinal purposes, any poisonous, stupefying, stimulating, depressing, tranquilizing, narcotic, hypnotic, hallucinating, or anesthetic substance in sufficient quantity to have such effect, commits a class D felony. The three children testified that when defendant had been alone with them he routinely had them smoke marijuana. One of the girls stated that defendant also gave her white stuff you put up your nose which she thought was cocaine. The children described in various ways the effect of the marijuana given them by defendant. One described feeling funny after smoking the marijuana, that it made everything go fast and that she thought she was dying because her heart felt like it wanted to jump out, another said it made him dizzy, while the third child likened the funny feeling to dancing bugs in [her] head. A lock box containing what defendant admits is his marijuana, cocaine and drug paraphernalia was seized from his home and admitted into evidence. In urging that his three convictions for administering harmful substances should be reversed, defendant maintains that the record contains no evidence of the effect of the marijuana on the children other than their direct testimony. That evidence, he argues, is not substantial enough to demonstrate the drug was administered in sufficient quantity to have such effect as required by statute. In this case of first impression concerning the evidence sufficient to support a conviction under section 708.5, we hold that the testimony of these victims, though couched in lay terms, satisfied the statute's requirements. The trial court as finder of fact could reasonably conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the marijuana defendant gave these children had a stupefying, stimulating, depressing, tranquilizing, narcotic, hypnotic, hallucinating or anesthetic effect on them. C. Dissemination and exhibition of obscene material to minors. The children testified that defendant exhibited to them, with a projector, sexually explicit movies. Two of the victims stated that defendant also showed them pornographic video cassette tapes. A movie projector and numerous pornographic movies and videotapes were seized from defendant's residence after his arrest, and the girl victims gave detailed testimony describing how defendant displayed the movies to them on the bathroom wall. Iowa Code section 728.2 provides: Any person, other than the parent or guardian of the minor, who knowingly disseminates or exhibits obscene material to a minor, including the exhibition of obscene material so that it can be observed by a minor on or off the premises where it is displayed, is guilty of a public offense and shall upon conviction be guilty of a serious misdemeanor. The evidence in this record solidly supports defendant's convictions for this offense. Although defendant challenges the credibility of the minor victims on this issue and contends the children knew where the explicit video cassette tapes were stored and knew how to operate the machine which displayed them, the trial court could find credible their testimony that defendant disseminated and displayed much of this material to them. Defendant does not contend this material was not obscene or that the statute was in any way unconstitutional. Sufficient evidence in this record supported the trial court's conclusions that defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of each of the crimes with which he was charged.