Opinion ID: 1891149
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Joey

Text: ¶ 47. We reach the opposite conclusion, however, regarding defendant's conviction for aggravated sexual assault of Joey. On this charge, all four of the critical Van Arsdall factors favor affirmance. First, the State's overall case regarding Joey was substantially stronger than its case regarding Jesse. Second, the offending testimony was far less important, since Jesse's hearsay testimony did not refer to abuse of Joey and, therefore, was relevant only as corroborating evidence. Third, Jesse's hearsay statements, although graphic and disturbing, were highly corroborated by other properly admitted evidence, particularly by Joey's even more graphic and disturbing testimony. Fourth, as corroborating testimony, Jesse's hearsay statements were cumulative. Thus, we conclude that regarding abuse of Joey, the prosecution's case was so overwhelming that the error in admitting Jesse's hearsay was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. ¶ 48. On the first factor, the State presented an extremely powerful case that defendant sexually abused Joey. Unlike Jesse, Joey testified live, by closed-circuit television pursuant to V.R.E. 807, that his mother used her mouth to lick his penis. Joey's veracity was tested under defendant's cross-examination, and the jury had a full opportunity to observe and weigh Joey's demeanor and credibility. Moreover, Joey's live testimony was consistent with and corroborated by his extensive hearsay testimony admitted pursuant to V.R.E. 804a(a). ¶ 49. These hearsay statements were particularly powerful, graphic, and disturbing. After his initial report in February 1995, Joey again began reporting abuse to Jennifer Dawson, his teacher and temporary foster mother, about two weeks after being removed from defendant's home, including disclosures that Mommy licks my pee, I lick Momma's pee and that Tony [defendant's boyfriend] puts his pee-pee in my bum bum. Relating an incident when Joey described a sexual assault by his mother, Dawson testified that she had no doubt that Joey, at age five, was trying to show how he performed oral sex on his mother. Joey also described, in child-like detail, the sounds and behavior of his mother reaching sexual orgasm. ¶ 50. These hearsay statements to Dawson were reinforced and corroborated by similar statements Joey made about a week later to his clinical psychologist Lee Rosen. At the time, Rosen worked frequently with sexual abuse victims and was trained in eliciting information from young children without asking leading questions. In answer to the question What makes you mad? Joey, without further prompting, told Rosen when mommy licks my pee-pee. Joey then verified that pee-pee meant his penis, that his mother told him to keep it a secret, and later, that she does it every night. ¶ 51. The circumstantial evidence that Joey was sexually abused was significant, and much stronger than that regarding Jesse. At school Joey became notorious for scrambling to the top of an indoor climbing structure at naptime, where, out of reach of the teachers, he would scream fucker, fucker at the top of his lungs. TR 7/24 at 48. Anytime he was given direction, he would just become out of control, and then it took three or four teachers to calm him down. He was so violent that parents of other children became concerned, and the school applied for state assistance to cover the costs of taking care of him. Joey was never potty trained by his mother and was still in diapers at age four, when he told Dawson, Mama makes me eat my ka ka whenever I have accidents. Joey had to be fed and clothed by his day care providers and suffered nightmares. Joey was also self-mutilative. When angry, he would bang his head against a wall or door. Joey's adoptive mother Laurie Potter testified that for the first six months to a year after coming to her family in December 1995, Joey wet and soiled his pants every night. He had a difficult time socializing with other children, still had nightmares every night, and would curl up in a protective fetal position anytime he did something wrong. ¶ 52. Most importantly, unlike with Jesse, the State presented evidence that Joey's behavior was and is highly sexualized. The evidence showed that since entering foster care at age five Joey has struggled with compulsive masturbation, clothing fetishes, and inappropriate touching of girls and women. The issues presented by Joey's sexualized behavior ultimately forced him into special education classes at school. ¶ 53. The State's expert witness, Dr. Hagan, testified that each of Joey's abnormal behaviors, considered separately, is consistent with sexual abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder. But when these traits are combined, Dr. Hagan testified, there would be a diagnostic certainty that there had been some significant trauma. He added that because of the highly sexualized nature of some of the matters described, I would be extremely suspicious of child sexual abuse. ¶ 54. In contrast, the defense presented no other witnesses besides defendant. As we previously explained, defendant alleged that Joey was brainwashed and that his hearsay testimony was fabricated. Joey refuted those allegations on the stand and testified that his mother did sex things specifically, oral sexto him and his brother. More persuasively, the State showed that Joey first reported the abuse in February 1995, simultaneously with the abuse and while he was still in defendant's care. Because this report occurred six months before he was taken out of defendant's home and prior to any opportunity for so-called brainwashing, it tended to reinforce the credibility of Joey's testimony and to rebut defendant's charges of an improper motive. Thus, considering all of the evidence, we find that the State presented an overwhelmingly strong case that defendant sexually assaulted Joey. ¶ 55. Regarding the second major factor, the strength of the offending testimony, we note that, although Jesse's testimony was graphic and disturbing, none of Jesse's statements pertained to Joey, other than to occasionally note that Joey was also present. Moreover, as we described above, the court instructed the jury that it must find independent and separate evidence of abuse for each child. Thus, legally and factually the jury could only have used Jesse's statements as corroborative evidence and not as direct evidence. ¶ 56. Even though limited to a corroborating role, Jesse's hearsay statements were still powerful in that they tended to confirm Joey's identical testimony. Graphic parallel testimony of two people who allege they were victims of the same crime by the same defendant is intrinsically damaging, particularly when the testimonials come from children whose credibility is uncertain because of their very young age, as here. Moreover, in the context of child sexual abuse cases we have found erroneously admitted testimony regarding a similar sexual assault on another child besides the victim to be harmful. See Lipka, 174 Vt. at 387-89, 817 A.2d at 36-37 (collecting cases) (although relevant only to corroborate testimony of victim, erroneous admission of evidence of prior child sexual abuse of a separate victim was harmful because of high danger of prejudicial impact on deliberations of jury). We continue to adhere to the high standard on harmless error set by Lipka, but nonetheless find that, under these factual circumstances, Jesse's offending hearsay statements did not have the same prejudicial impact. In particular, Lipka and the cases it cites can be distinguished on two critical points. ¶ 57. Unlike Lipka, this was not a close case. In Lipka there was no corroboration of the victim's accusations except for erroneously admitted testimony of another child alleging similar abuse. 174 Vt. at 385, 817 A.2d at 34. Noting that the case was a classic swearing contest, we held that the erroneously admitted evidence could not be harmless since it may have caused the jury to believe the victim rather than the defendant. Id. See also Lynds, 158 Vt. at 43, 605 A.2d at 504 (erroneously admitted expert witness testimony not harmless where trial otherwise came down to a credibility contest between defendant and victim). This case is different. Joey's testimony that he was sexually abused was accompanied by strong internal indicia of reliability, such as the high degree of consistency of his statements over the four years it took to bring the case to trial, his extensive precocious sexual knowledge, see Swan, 790 P.2d at 620 (accurate precocious sexual knowledge by very young child provides intrinsic assurance of the reliability of child's hearsay statements), and the fact that he reported contemporaneously with the abuse. Additionally, the State presented powerful circumstantial evidence strongly corroborating that the abuse did in fact occur. Joey's psychological profile, in particular, demonstrates the magnitude of abuse he suffered. This was not a situation where, but for the matching testimony of his brother, the jury might not have believed Joey. ¶ 58. More importantly, the jury would have heard substantial evidence of abuse of Jesse, regardless of the error. In Lipka we held that erroneous admission of uncharged allegations of prior child sexual abuse with a child other than the victim at trial was inflammatory, incendiary, and the most prejudicial evidence imaginable. 174 Vt. at 388, 817 A.2d at 36-37. But there, and the cases cited therein, the finding of prejudice was based on the fact that all such evidence of uncharged prior bad acts was inadmissible character evidence under V.R.E. 404(b). Id. at 396, 817 A.2d at 44. ¶ 59. Here, in contrast, defendant was charged with abusing two victims simultaneously. As we have already held, evidence of the common features of defendant's conduct, the setting, and the victims was fully admissible for each charge under V.R.E. 404(b). Therefore, the jury properly had before it extensive evidence that defendant had sexually assaulted Jesse as well as Joey. That evidence included Joey's eyewitness testimony, Joey's hearsay statements to Dr. Hagan and Dawson, Jesse's precocious sexual knowledge, physical evidence of the abuse of Jesse, and Jesse's highly disturbed psychological profile. Similarly, although Jesse's offending testimony was graphic, the jury had before it direct and even more graphic and disturbing testimony from Joey. Thus, we conclude that even though Jesse's hearsay statements constituted powerful corroborating evidence, exclusion of those statements would not have changed the facts properly before the jury or the context and character of the evidence. ¶ 60. As the above discussion indicates, the potential prejudicial impact of the offending testimony was substantially mitigated by other evidence that was properly before the juryor, in the language of our third and fourth factors, the offending testimony was highly corroborated and cumulative. Thus, we conclude that the impact of the error on the conviction for assault of Joey, if any, was minimal. Cf. Gallagher, 150 Vt. at 349, 554 A.2d at 226 (admission of child sexual abuse victim's hearsay statements to examining doctor was harmless, given cumulative nature of doctor's testimony); Fuller, 168 Vt. at 408-09, 721 A.2d at 484 (erroneously excluded evidence harmless since it would not have changed jury's verdict given its low probative value as compared to other extensive evidence of guilt); Carter, 164 Vt. at 557-58, 674 A.2d at 1266-67 (improperly admitted prior inconsistent statement harmless where remaining properly-admitted inculpating evidence was extensively corroborated). ¶ 61. What distinguishes this situation from the charge regarding Jesse is that there the erroneously admitted testimony represented by far the State's strongest direct evidence of abuse of the putative victim, and thus the conviction could not be saved by the weaker circumstantial evidence surrounding it. In Joey's case, however, the error was tangential to the State's case. Given the overwhelming and highly reliable direct evidence that defendant sexually abused Joey and the fact that the offending testimony was highly corroborated on its material points and cumulative of properly admitted evidence, we hold that the error in admitting Jesse's hearsay testimony regarding the sexual assault of Joey was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 252-54, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969) (finding erroneously admitted confessions of two codefendants harmless where testimony was cumulative, and case against defendant was overwhelming and not woven solely from circumstantial evidence). ¶ 62. In this respect, this case is strikingly similar to Giles v. State, 125 Idaho 921, 877 P.2d 365 (1994), in which the Idaho Supreme Court held that despite its reversal for harmful error of defendants' conviction for sexual abuse of a younger child, there was no taint upon the identical conviction in the same trial for abuse of the older child. Id. at 369-70. Like here, Giles involved erroneous admission of one of two child-victims' hearsay statements regarding the sexual abuse. The Idaho court reversed as to the charge of abuse of the child whose hearsay statements were wrongfully admitted, but found that regarding the other child, the remaining evidence was overwhelming proof of Giles's guilt. It appears to us beyond a reasonable doubt that, absent the hearsay testimony of Dr. Jambura, the result of the trial would have been the same. The record includes testimony by the older child which clearly implicates both defendants, physical evidence of abuse testified to by two other doctors, the psychological corroboration by two counselors of behavior consistent with sexual abuse, and police interviews with the older child. Given the extent of the corroborative evidence indicating Giles' guilt, we hold that the admission of Dr. Jambura's testimony about the younger child's statements was harmless error as to Count 1. Id. at 370; cf. State v. Kitzman, 323 Or. 589, 920 P.2d 134, 146-48 (1996) (reversible error in admitting younger victim's hearsay testimony also tainted conviction for abuse of older sister, where error was graphic and disturbing and not corroborated by or cumulative of admissible evidence, and where jury's assessment of older sister's credibility was crucial to state's case). Therefore, we conclude that the error in admitting Jesse's hearsay testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in the conviction for assault of Joey.