Court Opinion

ID: 9740350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:33:00.587278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:17.595668
License: Public Domain

BAILEY, Judge
dissenting
I respectfully dissent. Given that evidence of contact between Downey’s penis and C.C.’s anus is sufficient evidence to support the act of deviate sexual conduct as charged, and that the specific testimony of C.C. is distinguishable from the testimony presented by the victim in Shackelford v. State, 622 N.E.2d at 1344 (see majority opinion at 798), I conclude that the jury was presented with sufficient evidence from which to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Downey’s penis came into contact with C.C.’s anus.
Moreover, I believe that our supreme court’s ruling in Spurlock v. State, 675 N.E.2d 312 (Ind.1996), is due weightier consideration in our current analysis. In Spurlock, our supreme court concluded that a “jury had no evidence from which it could find Spurlock guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the count of child molesting that was based upon an alleged act of intercourse.” Id. at 315. However, before holding such, our supreme court warned against “unwarranted questioning and cross-examination regarding the details and extent of penetration.” Id. The at-issue victim testimony in Spurlock was as follows:
Q: When you say he tried to have sex with you, what do you mean?
A: Have sex with me.
Q: Okay ... He was trying to put his penis inside you?
A: Yes.
Q: Did he do that or do you know?
A: I don’t know.
Id. Here, C.C. testified as follows:
A: He rubbed his penis in the back of me.
Q: Okay. When you say in the back of me, what part of you?
A: My butt cheeks.
Q: .. .And how was he rubbing his penis in your butt cheeks.
A: Up and down.
(R. 181-82.) Unlike the void in testimony regarding penetration in Spurlock, here, testimony revealed that Downey’s erect penis was moving “up and down” (or as Downey described it “humpfing]”) between the nates of eleven-year-old C.C., and the jury concluded that contact (in whatever fashion and however limited or short in duration) was made between some portion of Downey’s penis, as that part of the human anatomy is defined in Stedman’s Medical Dictionary 1049 (4th ed.1976), and C.C.’s anus. Under these circumstances, it is “unnecessary and undesirable” to demand more explicit testimony. Spurlock v. State, 675 N.E.2d at 315.
Additionally, we need not invade the province of the jury in any assessment it may have made regarding the physical characteristics of both the victim and the defendant, and the role any such assessment may have played in the jury’s determination of guilt. Clearly, the jury was in the best position to consider the likelihood of contact between this adult male’s penis, which was erect and moving in a “hump[ing]” motion, with that of the anus of this eleven-year-old. The jury’s conclusion that some part of Downey’s penis came into contact with C.C.’s anus while he “humped” her is, if not explicit from the testimony, an inference that may be reached beyond reasonable doubt.
Accordingly, C.C.’s specific testimony, our supreme court’s warning language in Spurlock, and the role the jury assumes in weighing the evidence, when considered *801against the necessity of strictly construing penal statutes against the State, see Becker v. State, 703 N.E.2d at 698, can only result in an affirmance of the jury’s conviction. For these reasons, I dissent.