Smith v. State

140 N.E.3d 363

Joseph K. SMITH, Appellant-Defendant,

v.STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.

Court of Appeals Case No. 19A-CR-1515

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

FILED January 30, 2020

Attorney for Appellant: Kurt A. Young, Nashville, Indiana

Attorneys for Appellee: Curtis T. Hill, Jr., Attorney General of Indiana, Courtney Staton, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana

Riley, Judge.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

[1] Appellant-Defendant, Joseph Smith (Smith), appeals following his conviction for rape, a Level 1 felony, Ind. Code § 35-42-4-1(a)(1) ; criminal confinement, a Level 5 felony, I.C. § 35-42-3-3(a) ; strangulation, a Level 6 felony, I.C. § 35-42-2-9(c) ; and domestic battery, a Class A misdemeanor, I.C. § 35-42-2-1.3(a)(1).

[2] We affirm.

ISSUES

[3] Smith presents two issues on appeal, which we restate as the following:

(1) Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it excluded certain evidence, preventing Smith from exercising his right to present a full defense; and

(2) Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it denied Smith's motion for mistrial.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

[4] Smith and J.R. were romantically involved from 2013 to 2017 and have two children together. In the summer of 2018, Smith contacted J.R. on social media, and the two began exchanging messages. J.R. was dating Aaron Perry (Perry) at the time. On July 31 and August 1, 2018, J.R. and Smith continued to message each other, and J.R. spent time with Smith at the homes of mutual friends.

[5] On August 2, 2018, Smith texted J.R. asking for a ride from a home in the 600 block of North Linwood Avenue in Indianapolis, Indiana. J.R. had been wearing pants but assented to Smith's request that she wear a dress when she picked him up. When J.R. arrived at the home on Linwood, Smith approached from an alley and got into J.R.'s vehicle. Smith had a red book bag with him. Smith directed J.R. to pull around the back of the home into the alley. When J.R. asked why, Smith retrieved a knife-like letter opener from his book bag, showed it to J.R., and told her she "was either going to give him what he wanted, or he was going to take it from [her]." (Transcript Vol. III, p. 25). J.R. believed that Smith would stab her if she did not comply, so she pulled her vehicle into the alley, parked, and turned off the motor as Smith instructed.

[6] Smith replaced the letter opener in his book bag and took out a small clamp, an eyeglasses lanyard, and Velcro handcuffs. Smith repeatedly told J.R. that, if she did not give him what he wanted, he would take it. J.R. told Smith that she did not want to have any sexual contact with him, which made Smith angry. Smith pulled down the top of J.R.'s dress, exposing her right breast. Smith placed the small clamp on J.R.'s nipple, removed the clamp, and placed his mouth on J.R.'s breast. Smith pushed aside J.R.'s underwear and placed his fingers within her vagina. After discovering there was not adequate room in the back seat for them, Smith exited the vehicle, opened the driver's side door, and placed the eyeglasses lanyard around J.R.'s neck. Smith tightened the lanyard to the extent that J.R. could not breathe and began to lose consciousness. While strangling J.R., Smith used his free hand to digitally penetrate J.R.'s vagina. J.R. tried to push him away, and Smith eventually released the lanyard. Smith next had J.R. position herself on her hands and knees in the front seat and placed his mouth on her vagina. J.R. succeeded in pushing Smith away. J.R. cried and asked Smith why he was doing these things. Smith replied that J.R. "deserved everything [she] got." (Tr. Vol. III, p. 33). J.R. did not desire to engage in any of this physical contact with Smith and told him repeatedly to stop.

[7] By this time J.R. was hyperventilating, and Smith began to cry as well. Smith got back into the passenger side seat and replaced all his belongings, apart from the lanyard, in his book bag. Because she was scared and did not know how else to get Smith out of her car, J.R. complied with Smith's request that she take him to purchase a beverage and leave him at a nearby plasma donation center. Before going into the donation center, Smith informed J.R. that he would tell Perry about their contact and took a photograph of J.R. in her car as proof. J.R. immediately deleted from her phone all the messages she and Smith had exchanged.

[8] Around 2:00 p.m., J.R. messaged her friend Emily Nixon (Nixon), asking Nixon to call her and providing her new telephone number. Nixon immediately telephoned, and J.R. reported that she had met with Smith and had been hurt. J.R. seemed panicked, was emotional, and had labored breathing. J.R. was by herself when she spoke with Nixon. Nixon told J.R. to contact the police, but J.R. declined. After Nixon hung up with J.R., she telephoned Perry, thinking that he might arrive more quickly at J.R.'s home than Nixon herself could. Nixon reached Perry at his place of business, and he left work immediately after she called. Nixon also left work and proceeded to J.R.'s home, calling 9-1-1 on the way.

[9] When Nixon arrived at J.R.'s home approximately fifteen minutes later, J.R. was still alone and upset. Shortly thereafter, Perry arrived. Perry remained at the door of J.R.'s home as he was told what had happened. Perry became upset and left before the police arrived. Nixon and J.R. both gave statements to the police. At 4:56 p.m. J.R. messaged Smith attempting to determine whether he was still at the plasma donation center. During the course of their messaging, J.R. told Smith she needed to speak with him "['c]ause what you did was fucked up," to which Smith replied, "What I'm about to do is even worse[.]" (Exh. 8, Exh. Vol. I, p. 16). The police remained at J.R.'s home until Nixon drove J.R. to the hospital around 6:00 p.m. for a forensic examination.

[10] Nurse Nakia Bowens (Nurse Bowens) performed a sexual assault examination on J.R. which revealed vein engorgement in the whites of J.R.'s eyes, redness on the tops of her ears and behind her left ear, and a linear red mark on the left side of her neck, all of which were consistent with strangulation by ligature. J.R. also had some redness in her vaginal area where the vestibule and labia majora met, which was consistent with vaginal digital penetration. The Post-Assault Sexual History portion of the medical records generated as a result of J.R.'s examination indicated as follows: "Patient states she engaged in the consensual sexual acts: Positive for Sexual Contact, anal sex, vaginal sex and oral sex post-assault with ejaculation" with Perry. (Def.'s Hrg. Exh. A, Exh. Vol. I, p. 118).

[11] Shortly after he messaged with J.R. after the offenses, investigators found Smith, who was still at the plasma donation center. Smith gave investigators a statement. Smith acknowledged being with J.R. that afternoon but denied touching J.R. in any manner. Smith also reported that he had retrieved a pair of scissors for J.R. while he and J.R. were together that day in a house.

[12] On August 6, 2018, the State filed an Information, charging Smith with two Counts of rape as Level 1 felonies for the two instances of digital penetration while armed with a deadly weapon, one Count of criminal confinement elevated to a Level 3 felony for Smith's use of a deadly weapon, one Count of criminal confinement as a Level 5 felony for confining J.R. in her vehicle, strangulation, battery resulting in bodily injury, domestic battery, possession of marijuana, and possession of paraphernalia.¹ On May 2, 2019, Smith filed a motion seeking a preliminary ruling on the admissibility of the Post-Assault Sexual History portion of J.R.'s medical records. Smith argued that this evidence was admissible under Indiana Evidence Rule 412 to show that J.R.'s injuries were caused by someone else and that its admission was necessary for his constitutionally-protected right to present a defense.

[13] On May 21, 2019, the trial court held a hearing on Smith's motion. Prior to the commencement of the hearing, the State represented to the trial court that, because it could not be determined when J.R.'s vaginal injury occurred, it did not intend to admit evidence of that injury or J.R.'s medical records at trial. Smith argued that, if the State presented any evidence of injury to J.R., the Post-Assault Sexual History evidence was relevant and admissible. Nixon testified about the timeline of her contact with J.R. and Perry on August 2, 2018. Nixon specified that J.R. and Perry were never alone when Perry was briefly at J.R.'s home that day, she was with J.R. the entire time apart from when they gave their statements to the police, and Perry never returned to the home. J.R. recounted her version of events. J.R. denied that she had post-assault sexual contact with Perry, and she denied reporting that she had to Nurse Bowen. J.R. testified that she had not had sex with Perry for four-to-five days before the offenses, they did not engage in any rough sex or strangulation, and that the injuries she had on August 2, 2018, were not the result of any sexual contact she had with Perry.

[14] Nurse Bowens testified at the hearing that it was impossible to determine when a particular vaginal injury had occurred. Nurse Bowens doubted the accuracy of J.R.'s Post-Assault Sexual History as it appeared in the printout of J.R.'s medical records. Nurse Bowen explained that, at the time of J.R.'s examination, the hospital had recently converted to electronic charting. After the switch, it was discovered that, at times, printouts of medical records did not match the data that had been input on the electronic chart. One problem that had been discovered was that sections of data were not printed. It had also been discovered that data sometimes appeared in the wrong location in the printout. As to J.R.'s medical records, a Pre-Assault Sexual History section should have appeared in J.R.'s medical records, but it did not. At the very...