Hill v. Anglea

JAMES HERMAN HILL, SR., Petitioner, v. HUNTER ANGLEA, Warden, Sierra Conservation Center,¹ Respondent.

No. 2:18-cv-03168-JKS

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

June 5, 2019

MEMORANDUM DECISION

James Herman Hill, a state prisoner proceeding pro se, filed a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus with this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Hill is in the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and incarcerated at Sierra Conservation Center. Respondent has answered, and Hill has not replied.

I. BACKGROUND/PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

Hill was charged with four counts of lewd and lascivious acts upon a child with the allegation that he had suffered three prior serious felony convictions for lewd acts upon a child. Hill denied the charges and allegation and proceeded to a jury trial. On direct appeal of his conviction, the Court of Appeal laid out the following facts underlying the charges against Hill and the evidence presented at trial:

The Current Offenses

In December 2013, eight-year-old G. H. lived in Sacramento with her mother, brother, sister-in-law, infant nephew, and defendant, who was her uncle. That month, G. H.'s brother died and G. H.'s sister-in-law and nephew soon moved out of the house. G. H.'s mother, was consumed by grief and could no longer care for G. H. on a day-to-daybasis, so G. H. moved in with her mother's friend, Cecilia B. G. H. would then come back to live with her mother on the weekends.

In the middle of January, G. H. started acting differently. She became quiet and stopped playing, instead preferring to sit on the couch. When Cecilia B. asked if anything was wrong, G. H. said that she was fine. Cecilia B. told mother that G. H. was acting depressed and that mother needed to talk to G. H.

On March 16, 2014, mother asked G. H. whether [Hill] touched her inappropriately. Mother suspected [Hill] molested G. H. because he stared at her more than usual and would act strange when mother told G. H. to cover herself in front of him. Also, G. H. would cling to mother when the two were around [Hill]. Mother noticed these changes in February 2014. When first asked, G. H. denied [Hill] touched her; however, she soon admitted [Hill] in fact touched her once, a week before. G. H. told mother [Hill] "took her in the back and he did what he did," but she never actually described what [Hill] did to her. Around the same time G. H. told her mother about the abuse, she told others that [Hill] had abused her only once. Before trial, however, mother told G. H. that she knew [Hill] had abused her more than once, and G. H. admitted that it had occurred five times.

G. H. testified that [Hill] "put his thing in my thing" five separate times. The abuse started after her brother died and when she would visit her mother on weekends. Each time, G. H.'s mother was in a different area of the house or outside and could not hear G. H. when she screamed for help. [Hill] abused G. H. the same way each of the five times. The abuse occurred when G. H. went to her toy room to retrieve a toy. [Hill] would push her against the wall outside the room, pull down her pants, and unzip his own pants. He would then "put his thing in [her] thing," which G. H. thought was uncomfortable and hurt. [Hill] kept his "thing" inside of her for a "few seconds," which G. H. described as being hard. He did not say anything to her during the abuse but did cover her mouth during two of the encounters.

After [Hill] first abused G. H., she did not tell anybody about what had happened because she was scared. She also did not tell anybody after the second, third, fourth, or fifth time because she was scared. G. H. admitted that she denied anything happened when her mother first asked her whether [Hill] had touched her. It was only after her mother started to cry that G. H. told her [Hill] had touched her. She told mother it happened only once because her mother told her not to say anything more and because she was sad and crying. G. H. also told the police and "a lady who interviewed her" that [Hill] abused her only once. It was not until November 2015 that she admitted [Hill] had actually abused her five separate times.

G. H. had no evidence of tears or recently healed injuries to her genitalia. Because of her age, it was not uncommon for injuries to that area of the body to heal quickly or withstand penetration without injury.

Blake Carmichael, Ph.D., testified about child sexual assault victims' common behaviors and circumstances of disclosure following their abuse. He had never met or talked with G. H. and was unfamiliar with her case. As part of his testimony, he articulated the percentage of children who fail to disclose their abuse within the first year or who fail to disclose when directly asked about known abuse. He also testified aboutconcepts of incremental disclosure and child suggestibility. On the topic of child suggestibility, Dr. Carmichael testified that children older than five years old tend to be less suggestible. For children under five, a person usually has to repeatedly tell a child misinformation for them to integrate that information into a narrative. It is very rare for a child to make a false allegation of sexual abuse. False allegations do occur in 30 to 40 percent of cases when the allegation is made in the context of a custody dispute and an adult initiates the complaint. On the other hand, only 0 to 2 percent of allegations initiated by children have later been proven false. These statistics were based on studies where the abuse was confirmed through medical records, a perpetrator's confession, or a social service finding.

Following G. H.'s disclosure to mother, mother gave police officers some of [Hill's] property he left at her house. Included among his belongings were a bottle and box of pills labeled CYVITA, which the packaging described as male enhancement supplements. Among the packaging were also solicitations for both male enhancement drugs and adult pornographic magazines. There were no pornographic magazines among [Hill's] property but there were two adult pornographic DVD's. Also among [Hill's] property was a black binder with condoms in it. None of the items recovered involved child pornography.

[Hill's] Prior Acts Of Sexual Misconduct

[Hill's] daughter V. H. testified about [Hill's] prior acts of sexual misconduct. When V. H. was young, [Hill] took care of the house and the children while her mother worked. When V. H. was eight or nine years old, her father repeatedly made her give him oral sex before he would get on top of her while she was naked from the waist down and he was in his boxer shorts. [Hill] would put his naked penis near V. H.'s vagina but would not put it inside of her vagina. The abuse occurred at multiple homes V. H. lived in with her family, including the house where [Hill] abused G. H. V. H. did not remember where in that house [Hill] molested her.

[Hill] would never sexually abuse V. H. when other adults were around; however, she believed her siblings were nearby but never in the same room when the abuse occurred. [Hill] would come up with an excuse to make V. H. stay with him so he could molest her while her siblings went off to do something else. For example, [Hill] would make V. H. stay with him to do chores or so he could fix her hair.

Every time [Hill] molested V. H., it happened the same way. First he would have her give him oral sex, then he would get on top of her, and then he would ejaculate. Every time [Hill] molested her, he would tell her that it was the last time. He would also tell her not to tell anyone. They never talked about the abuse except while he molested her. The sexual abuse continued until V. H. was 11 or 12 years old, when she told her mother.

Based on this conduct, [Hill] pled no contest to three counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under the age of 14. He sought to have his convictions and prior misconduct excluded from evidence because they were remote, in that he was convicted in 1996, and because the conduct was not similar to the conduct he allegedly committed against G. H.

The court ruled that the evidence of [Hill's] prior acts of sexual misconduct was admissible under Evidence Code 1 section 1108. Although [Hill's] prior offenses occurred in 1996, the offenses were sufficiently similar to the present case to warrant admission. Both V. H. and G. H. were between the ages of eight and ten when [Hill] assaulted them, [Hill] was related to both of them and had access to them because of that relationship, both assaults occurred in the same residence, and the assaults contained similar types of sexual offenses, including the removal of clothes followed by [Hill] rubbing his penis on or in the minor's body.

The court further found that the evidence was not inadmissible under section 352. [Hill] pled to the early charges, thus there was indisputable certainty of the commission of the prior offenses, serving to increase their probative value. Further, the fact that the prior acts resulted in convictions removed the likelihood that the jury would punish [Hill] in the current case because of his conduct toward V. H. Finally, the prior acts were no more serious than the current ones, so the jury would not be overwhelmed by the emotional impact of those acts.

During her closing argument, the prosecutor used [Hill's] prior misconduct to argue he committed the crimes charged. She ended her closing argument by stating V. H. was a credible witness whose pain, even 20 years after her molestation at the hands of [Hill], was what was ahead for G. H. The prosecutor then summarized [Hill's] sexual abuse toward G. H. and stated, "you cannot protect a society without enforcing the laws of the land. [¶] The laws in this country are designed to protect children like [G. H.] and [V. H.] from these types of abuse. It's my job and yours to uphold the laws of this state. Protect [G. H.] and those who come after her by holding [Hill]

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