People v. Patterson

184 N.Y.S.3d 390

The PEOPLE, etc., respondent,

v.Franeisha PATTERSON, appellant.

2019–06053

Ind. No. 426/18

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, New York.

Submitted—January 31, 2023

March 1, 2023

Gary E. Eisenberg, New City, NY, for appellant.

David M. Hoovler, District Attorney, Goshen, NY (Robert H. Middlemiss and Andrew R. Kass of counsel), for respondent.

MARK C. DILLON, J.P., PAUL WOOTEN, WILLIAM G. FORD, LILLIAN WAN, JJ.

DECISION & ORDER

Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the County Court, Orange County (Craig Stephen Brown, J.), rendered April 30, 2019, convicting her of rape in the first degree, criminal sexual act in the first degree, and use of a child in a sexual performance, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.

ORDERED that the judgment is reversed, on the law, the indictment is dismissed, and the matter is remitted to the County Court, Orange County, for further proceedings consistent with CPL 160.50.

The complainant testified at trial that in November 2017, when she was 15 years old, she ran away from a residential juvenile facility and traveled to Newburgh. There, she met a woman named Franiqua Patterson (hereinafter Franiqua), who encouraged and enabled the complainant to engage in prostitution. The complainant testified that Franiqua became physically and verbally abusive toward her, and kept the money the complainant earned as a prostitute.

The complainant further testified that during the early morning hours of December 12, 2017, she went to an apartment where Franiqua's sister, the defendant, Franeisha Patterson, lived. Franiqua and her boyfriend, Daniel Wapples, along with the defendant and her boyfriend, Cally Graham, were in the living room of the apartment. The defendant told the complainant to have sex with Graham, which the complainant believed to be a joke. The defendant repeated the suggestion several more times, and Franiqua then "joined in," telling the complainant that she should also have sex with Wapples. Though the complainant was "[u]ncomfortable" and told "[e]veryone" that she did not want to do what was being asked of her, she acquiesced after additional pressure from Franiqua, and engaged in sexual acts with Graham and Wapples. Franiqua recorded a portion of the sexual acts on her phone.

At trial, when the complainant was asked if she believed she had a choice whether to have sex with the two men, she responded that she did not think she did, because "they were just pushing it" and there was "nothing [she] could really do." However, she also acknowledged that no one had threatened to hurt her, that she was not physically hurt, and that what had made her uncomfortable, in part, was "[t]he whole situation," including the number of people that were present.

The defendant, Wapples, Graham, and Franiqua were charged, both as principals and under an acting-in-concert theory, with rape in the first degree, criminal sexual act in the first degree, use of a child in a sexual performance, and use of a child in a sexual performance as a sexually motivated felony. The rape in the first degree and criminal sexual act in the first degree charges were predicated on a forcible compulsion theory. Franiqua was additionally charged with a number of sex trafficking and promoting prostitution offenses.

The defendant was tried jointly with Graham. The defendant was convicted of rape in the first degree, criminal sexual act in the first degree, and use of a child in a sexual performance. Graham was convicted of rape in the first degree and criminal sexual act in the first degree. However, on appeal to this Court, Graham's judgment of conviction was reversed, on the ground that there was legally insufficient evidence of forcible compulsion (see People v. Graham, 200 A.D.3d 705, 159 N.Y.S.3d 87, lv denied 38 N.Y.3d 950, 165 N.Y.S.3d 468, 185 N.E.3d 989 ). The defendant appeals, arguing, among other things, that there was legally insufficient evidence of forcible compulsion. We agree.

A court reviewing legal sufficiency of the trial evidence must determine "whether any valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences could lead a rational person to the conclusion reached by the fact finder on the basis of the evidence at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the People" ( People v. Williams, 84 N.Y.2d 925, 926, 620 N.Y.S.2d 811, 644 N.E.2d 1367 ). Rape in the first degree, in violation of Penal Law § 130.35(1), and criminal sexual act in the first degree, in violation of Penal Law § 130.50(1), both require a finding of forcible compulsion. Forcible compulsion can be established in two ways: the use of physical force, or by "a threat, express or implied, which places a person in fear of immediate death or physical injury" to herself or himself, or in fear that she or he will "immediately be kidnapped" (id. § 130.00[8][b]). Although the statutes defining sex offenses that include forcible compulsion as an element "are silent on the subject, intent is implicitly an element of these crimes. The intent required is the intent to perform the prohibited act—i.e., the intent to forcibly compel another to engage in intercourse or sodomy" ( People v. Williams, 81 N.Y.2d 303, 316–317, 598 N.Y.S.2d 167, 614 N.E.2d 730 [citation omitted]).

There was no evidence in this case that either Graham or Wapples used actual physical force to compel the complainant to engage in sexual intercourse or oral sexual conduct, and the complainant herself testified that she was not explicitly threatened by any of the perpetrators. To the extent that this case turned on...