Watson v. State

230 A.3d 6

Richard WATSON

v.STATE of Maine

Docket: Pen-19-237

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued: March 4, 2020

Decided: April 21, 2020

Revised: September 29, 2020

David Paris, Esq. (orally), Bath, for appellant Richard Watson

Joshua K. Saucier, Asst. Dist. Atty., and Mark A. Rucci, Asst. Dist. Atty. (orally), Prosecutorial District V, Bangor, for appellee State of Maine

Panel: MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HUMPHREY, HORTON, and CONNORS, JJ.^*

JABAR, J.

[¶1] Richard Watson appeals from a judgment of the Unified Criminal Docket (Penobscot County, Lucy, J. ) denying his petition for post-conviction review. We conclude that Watson was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel when his trial attorney introduced into evidence and played for the jury a videotaped recording of the ten-year-old victim's interview with law enforcement. We therefore vacate the judgment and remand with instructions to grant the petition and vacate the defendant's convictions.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Trial and Convictions

[¶2] On November 25, 2014, Watson was indicted on two counts of gross sexual assault (Class A), 17-A M.R.S. § 253(1)(C) (2018), one count of unlawful sexual contact (Class A), 17-A M.R.S. § 255-A(1)(F-1) (2018), and one count of visual sexual aggression against a child (Class C), 17-A M.R.S. § 256(1)(B) (2018).

[¶3] A two-day jury trial was held in July 2015.¹ To begin the trial, the State called the victim, who testified that she was born in 2003 and that the defendant was her biological father. The victim recounted two instances of sexual abuse that occurred during the summer of 2014, when she was ten years old. According to the victim's testimony, Watson told her that he would buy her a cell phone if she engaged in certain sexual activity with him; she agreed because she wanted a phone. The victim testified that the first incident occurred on August 4, 2014, and Watson bought her a phone the following day. The victim testified that a second incident occurred later that summer, and that both incidents took place in Watson's home. She also testified that he showed her pornographic videos and showed her how to use sex toys.

[¶4] The State also introduced testimony from the victim's mother, grandmother, and aunt, all of whom testified that the victim made disclosures to them following the sexual abuse.² The victim's grandmother and aunt both testified that the victim had feelings of guilt following the abuse.³ On the first day of trial, the State also called the nurse practitioner who performed a physical examination on the victim after she reported the abuse. The nurse practitioner testified without objection that the physical examination of the victim was normal, but explained that "[i]t's actually the norm to have a normal exam in this type of situation." On cross-examination, she testified that there were no signs of trauma. A Maine State Police trooper testified as the State's final witness in its case in chief on the second day of trial. He testified that he assisted in the execution of a search warrant of Watson's house and seized pornographic DVDs, sex toys, and two computers.

[¶5] Watson's defense counsel presented five witnesses, including Watson and a Maine State Police detective. The detective testified that the computers seized from Watson's house were never searched.

[¶6] Watson denied the allegations that he bought the victim the phone because she agreed to allow him to try to have sex with her. He testified that he purchased the cell phone at the same time he took the victim back-to-school shopping in August 2014. Watson and his former girlfriend both testified that they had sex toys that Watson kept in his bedroom, but Watson denied ever showing the sex toys to the victim. Likewise, he testified that he never kissed the victim, showed her pornography on his laptop, asked her to use sex toys, or otherwise tried to engage in sexual activity with her.

[¶7] After Watson testified, and just prior to resting his case, Watson's attorney offered into evidence without objection the video recording of the victim's September 2014 police interview with a female detective. The following exchange took place:

DEFENSE COUNSEL : Nothing further. I think we're gonna play the video now of [the detective's] interview with [the victim] last September.

THE COURT : And that's agreed to come into evidence?

DEFENSE COUNSEL : Yes.

ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY : That's fine.

...

THE COURT : Is that cued up?

DEFENSE COUNSEL : Yes.

THE COURT : Okay. Dim the lights.

(Defendant's Exhibit No. 2, a video recording, was played at 1:20 p.m. and was concluded at 1:51 p.m.)

DEFENSE COUNSEL : The defense rests, Your Honor.

Defense counsel did not provide the jury with any context for the video interview before or after it was played.

[¶8] The video showed the victim describing, consistent with her testimony at trial, the two incidents of sexual abuse that occurred. In addition to a recitation of the facts by the victim, the detective was shown telling the victim that she had done the right thing by reporting the incidents, that "the grownups" would make sure the victim was safe, and that Watson should have known better. The victim can be seen and heard on the video stating, "So, I won't get taken away from my grandparents?" Defense counsel introduced a transcript of the video interview after the video was played for the jury, which was admitted into evidence without objection and given to the jurors when they retired for deliberations.

[¶9] The attorneys presented closing arguments to the jury shortly after the video was played. The State proffered to the jury that "the heart of the case is what [the victim] told you." In deciding whose testimony to believe, the ADA suggested that the jury ask questions like "Who's telling the truth? Who's bein’ accurate? Who are you gonna rely on?" In his closing statement, defense counsel agreed with the ADA that the victim's credibility is "the heart of this case." There was no corroborative evidence of the abuse in the form of medical evidence, eyewitness testimony, or DNA or forensic evidence.

[¶10] The jury found Watson guilty on all four counts, and the trial court (Penobscot County, Lucy, J. ) entered judgments of conviction. Watson was sentenced to twenty-seven years’ imprisonment followed by twenty years of supervised release for each of the convictions for gross sexual assault. He was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment for the conviction for unlawful sexual contact and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for the conviction for visual sexual aggression, all to run concurrently with the convictions for gross sexual assault. Watson appealed his convictions to this Court, and we affirmed the judgment. See State v. Watson , 2016 ME 176, 152 A.3d 152.

B. Post-Conviction Review

[¶11] Watson filed a petition for post-conviction review in April 2017. See 15 M.R.S. § 2129 (2018). He claimed that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel when he introduced into evidence the video of the victim's interview with police, which included her "detailed and highly prejudicial allegations."⁴ Watson argued that introducing the videotaped recording of the entire interview was "unnecessary ... to provide evidence supporting [the victim's] potential motive to fabricate the allegations." The post-conviction court (Penobscot County, Lucy, J. ) held an evidentiary hearing on January 23, 2019, and denied Watson's petition in an order entered on May 30, 2019. The court made the following findings, which are supported by evidence presented at the post-conviction hearing. See Fahnley v. State , 2018 ME 92, ¶ 4, 188 A.3d 871.

[¶12] At the evidentiary hearing, Watson and his trial attorney agreed that the information that the victim provided in the interview was the "same" as, and consistent with, her testimony at trial. The post-conviction court found that trial counsel had two rationales for playing the video of the interview for the jury: first, to support the defense theory that the detective failed to thoroughly interview the victim and, second, to show that the victim had motive to fabricate her allegations because of a custody dispute between Watson and her grandparents, whom the victim resided with at the time.

[¶13] Trial counsel testified at the post-conviction hearing that the theory of the defense's case, which he claimed "Watson was a big proponent of," was that the victim's allegations were motivated by a custody dispute. According to trial counsel, the victim's statement in the video interview about staying and living with her grandparents supported the defense's argument that she had motive to fabricate the allegations so that she could remain with her grandparents.

[¶14] The post-conviction court also found that trial counsel played the video as "part of his overall strategy to discredit the State's investigation," intending to show that the victim's direct-examination testimony at trial was the same as what was said during the interview in which the detective failed to ask important questions. The court also found that the purpose of playing the video after the victim's testimony was not to highlight inconsistencies in her story but to show the jury that this "[t]wenty-minute interview was the entirety of the State's investigation, and that the victim's story did not bear scrutiny under cross-examination ...." Trial counsel believed that showing the video "would demonstrate that the victim's trial testimony was simply a repeat of the limited information covered in the ... interview."

[¶15] The court found that this strategy was "ultimately unsuccessful because [Watson] was convicted by the jury .... [who] must have unanimously found that the victim's testimony was credible ...." The post-conviction court determined that trial counsel's decision to play the victim's video-recorded interview did not fall outside of the wide range of reasonable professional assistance, see Strickland v. Washington , 466 U.S. 668, 689,...