Court Opinion

ID: 9794598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:08:19.666354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:02.153777
License: Public Domain

Springer, J.,
dissenting:
This is an appeal from an order granting a pretrial writ of habeas corpus. The order had the effect of dismissing two counts of a four-count indictment. The majority opinion holds that the district court committed “substantial error.” I disagree and therefore dissent.
Three witnesses testified at the grand jury hearing in this case. The first witness was a doctor who examined and treated the victim in a hospital emergency room. The doctor found bruises and abrasions on the victim’s face and neck. The doctor did not perform a pelvic examination, although there was a “clear fluid at the entrance to the vagina” which was sent for a sperm analysis. Neither the doctor nor any other witness was asked about the results of the sperm analysis, and there was no evidence as to the actual identity of the clear fluid. Finally, the doctor answered in the affirmative when asked whether the victim’s injuries were “consistent with strangulation.” The doctor was not asked, however, whether anything in the examination indicated a sexual assault.
The next witness was the victim, who testified that she and Miley were lying on a bed watching television when he suddenly grabbed her by the throat and choked her. Miley then partially covered the victim’s face with a pillow, and the victim “blacked out on and off.” The victim testified that every time she gained consciousness she was looking straight into Miley’s *382eyes and that he was choking her. Finally, the victim blacked out “for quite a while,” and she woke to a banging on the door. At that time she was bleeding and injured, and she was still wearing her nightgown. The victim was taken in an ambulance to the hospital. The following testimony appears in the record with respect to the victim’s underpants:
Q. Do you know whether or not you still had your underpants [when you woke up]?
A. I couldn’t tell.
Q. Did you later find out something about your underpants?
A. Yeah. When I got to the hospital. I heard someone mention something about it.
Q. Where were your underpants finally discovered?
A. I have no idea.
Q. Okay. When you were laying on the bed watching television, you had them on, is that correct?
A. Yeah.
Q. Prior to Jerry starting to choke you?
A. Yeah.
Q. At any time do you recall taking them off?
A. No.
The final witness was the victim’s mother. She testified that when she went to work on the night of the incident she left Miley in the motel room with the victim and her other one-year-old daughter. The mother received a call at work about the incident, so she left work and went to the motel. Detectives who were present at the motel room would not let her into the room, so she went to the hospital. The mother’s testimony concluded primarily with a description of the victim’s injuries.
Based on this grand jury transcript, the district court found that there was not sufficient evidence to hold Miley for trial on the charge of lewdness with a child under the age of 14, and on the charge of battery with intent to commit sexual assault. Accordingly, the district court granted a writ of habeas corpus as to those two charges only. The district court did not grant the writ as to the charges of attempted murder and child abuse causing substantial bodily harm.
This court has occasionally expressed the standard of review which should be used by a district court in its probable cause determinations, and I have no quarrel with the cases cited by the majority on that point. We have also, however, clearly expressed the standard of review which should be used by this court in its review of district court probable cause determinations. In that context we have held as follows:
*383Considerations of judicial efficiency provide an independent basis in support of our reluctance to review probable cause factual determinations in pretrial matters. [Citation omitted] . . . [B]road review by this Court of factual issues related to probable cause would in many instances be» inconsistent with sound judicial administration.
The trial court is the most appropriate forum in which to determine factually whether or not probable cause exists. [Citation omitted] Absent a showing of substantial error on the part of the district court in reaching such determinations, this court will not overturn the granting of pretrial habeas petitions for lack of probable cause.
Sheriff v. Provenza, 97 Nev. 346, 347, 630 P.2d 265 (1981).
In the present case the district court based its ruling on “the unexplained absence of the victim’s underpants.” The district court reasoned that if the victim had testified that she woke up in a motel room without her underpants on, then evidence might have existed that Miley removed the victim’s underpants. Without this testimony, however, and in the absence of any evidence in the record as to where the underpants were taken off, the record simply does not support any inferences relating to the underpants. Consequently, contrary to the conclusion of the majority, there was no evidence that Miley removed the victim’s underpants.
Perhaps the most telling things about the weakness of the state’s case on the sex charges were the prosecutor’s failure to ask witnesses the most basic and crucial questions concerning the sexual aspect of the attack and the prosecutor’s failure to introduce what would have been very important evidence on the sex charges.
As noted earlier, the prosecution did not ask the doctor what the results of the sperm test were, and no other witness was called to testify as to the results of the test. Furthermore, the prosecutor did not ask the doctor if the examination revealed any indication of sexual attack.
I also note that the prosecutor did not ask the victim whether Miley ever touched, or even attempted to touch, any portions of her body other than her throat and face.
Finally, the evidence was grossly inadequate with respect to the victim’s underpants. The prosecutor did not question the victim fully on that point. In fact, the only adverse inferences from the colloquy between the prosecutor and the victim would arise from the prosecutor’s questions rather than the victim’s answers. The prosecutor may have raised some speculation by *384his question as to where the underpants were “finally discovered,” but the prosecutor never introduced evidence on the point. He did not ask the victim’s mother where the underpants were found, he did not call any of the detectives to testify whether the underpants were found in the motel room, and he did not call the ambulance attendants to testify whether the victim was wearing underpants when she was picked up at the motel.
In my opinion, the district court would have committed error if the district court had not granted the writ on the two sex charges in this case. The district court was “unable to find even marginal evidence to support either” sex charge. Count III charges that the defendant removed the victim’s undergarments for the purpose of sexual gratification (apparently while she was unconscious). The girl had an external examination of the pelvic area at the hospital, and at sometime during the course of the evening her underpants were removed by herself or persons unknown. There is no evidence that the defendant did anything of a sexual nature, including the charge contained in Count IV that he had the “intent ... to commit sexual assault” on the girl. There is no sex in this case except possibly that which can be conjured by creative and overactive imaginations. In any event, surely the record is not so clear as to support the majority’s finding that the district court’s error was so “substantial” that reversal is warranted under Provenza.
I would affirm the ruling of the district court.