Arendall v. State

377 S.W.3d 404, 2010 Ark. App. 358, 2010 Ark. App. LEXIS 381
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedApril 28, 2010
DocketNo. CA CR 09-743
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 377 S.W.3d 404 (Arendall v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Arendall v. State, 377 S.W.3d 404, 2010 Ark. App. 358, 2010 Ark. App. LEXIS 381 (Ark. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

ROBERT J. GLADWIN, Judge.

hDr. Clarence Jay Arendall appeals his April 1, 2009 conviction in Crawford County Circuit Court on two counts of second-degree sexual abuse. On appeal, he contends that the jury’s verdict was not supported by sufficient evidence; that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion to sever the two charges; and that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing nine witnesses to testify and excluding appellant’s proffered evidence regarding one victim’s hot-check charges pursuant to Rule 404(b) (2009) of the Arkansas Rules of Evidence. We affirm appellant’s conviction.

Statement of Facts

A felony information was filed April 1, 2008, alleging that appellant committed two counts of sexual assault on or about February 13 and 14, 2008, in violation of Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-14-125 (Supp.2009). Prior to trial, appellant filed a motion to exclude | ¿witnesses,1 a motion to sever offenses, and a motion to exclude Rule 404(b) witnesses. At the pre-trial hearing, the trial court denied the motion to sever, the motion to exclude Rule 404(b) witnesses as to those witnesses who were patients, and an oral motion to admit evidence of a pending felony overdraft case against one of the victims under Rules 607 and 609 (2009) of the Arkansas Rules of Evidence.

At trial, Brett Hartley, an Alma police officer, testified that he took the first report against appellant on July 26, 2007, and referred that victim to the medical board. A second complaint against appellant was filed by Charlotte Adams on February 13, 2008. On March 26, 2008, Debra Davis filed the third complaint against appellant. None of the three victims were allowed to read the others’ statements. They did not know each other and had no connection to each other, but each of their statements was alike. When the police department allowed a television broadcast of their investigation and a warrant was issued for his arrest, seventeen other reports against appellant were made, and appellant was arrested on March 31, 2008.

Charlotte Adams testified that appellant had been her family’s doctor, and she had seen him for pneumonia, back problems, and the like. On February 13, 2008, she saw appellant for complaints related to her lower back and right leg. Appellant asked Ms. Adams to stand up while he remained sitting on his stool, which had wheels. He moved around and felt Ms. | ^Adams’s lower back, then reached around her waist and tried to unbutton her pants. He asked her to unbutton them, and when she complied, he pulled them down to her knees. She did not have on underwear, and there was no one else in the room. She did not remember if he wore gloves, but he did feel her lower back and buttocks, running his hand from her knee to the inside of her thigh, touching her vagina, then sliding it back down. He put his hand on her clitoris, rubbed four or five times, and said that he did not want to do anything inappropriate. He wheeled in front of her and said, “Nice shave job,” then laughed, and said that he should bend her over the table. He laughed again, felt her knee, and started to lift up her shirt. Ms. Adams pulled her shirt down and began pulling her pants up. She said she felt as if it were a dream; she did not scream; she was in shock; she did not tell him to stop; and she just froze. When she pulled up her pants, she said that appellant looked scared. She said she was angry when she realized what was happening and that appellant offered to get her sample drugs.

Ms. Adams walked out, paid, and left. She said she cried in her truck, and that nothing like this had ever happened before in the years she had known him. She drove straight to the police department to file a report. She went back a few days later to make a written statement for Detective Hartley. She agreed to help the police investigate and made two telephone calls to appellant. She went into appellant’s office on March 5, 2008, wearing a recording device. She acknowledged that her attorney filed a civil lawsuit against appellant on March 1, 2008, seeking $250,000 in damages, plus punitive damages. She also admitted to having seen Debra RDavis’s statement at appellant’s medical-board hearing where she met Ms. Davis in June 2008. Finally, she said that Capital One had filed a $3700 judgment against her. She told the trial court that she did give appellant consent to give her an exam, but not to touch her clitoris, the inside of her thighs, or “up by her vagina.” She further testified that she did not give him permission to say nasty things to her.

Officer Doug McAlister, a senior special agent with the Criminal Investigation Division of the State Police, testified that he was called to assist Detective Hartley with the investigation. He and Detective Hart-ley arranged for Ms. Adams to make telephone calls to appellant and to wear the recording device when she went to appellant’s office. The transcript of the meeting between Ms. Adams and appellant was admitted as evidence.

Debra Davis testified that she had taken her son and husband for appointments with appellant and went to see him herself on February 14, 2008, for lower-back and shoulder pain. Appellant told Ms. Davis to stand up, unbuttoned her pants and belt, and sat down on the chair behind her. He was not wearing gloves, and he ran his fingers down the side of her legs, pulling down her pants and underwear. When Ms. Davis tried to pull her pants back up, he told her to wait. She stood back up, and appellant put his hands on the outside and the inside of her leg, rubbing back and forth against her vagina and thigh. He asked her if it hurt, and she told him no. He said, “Dang girl you got a nice butt.” Ms. Davis turned to the side and pulled her pants up. He commented that even though she had children, she had no stretch marks. Ms. Davis opened the door and called her three-year-old son into the room | ^because she was afraid. Appellant asked her questions about whether she had had a pap smear, and suggested she come back to him and get one. He wrote her a prescription and told her to come back in a month. She did not make another appointment. She eventually called an attorney, who contacted police. Her attorney filed a lawsuit against appellant but did not seek a specific sum of money. Ms. Davis contacted the medical board and she filed a police report on March 26, 2008. She reiterated that she did not give appellant permission to touch her vagina.

Pursuant to Rule 404(b), the State called several witnesses that had been patients of appellant. Each testified to similar scenarios that occurred while being examined by appellant as occurred during the exams complained of by Ms. Davis and Ms. Adams.

The State called Dr. Robert Wendell Ross, a family-practice doctor for thirty-nine years, who explained how his office runs, including the procedures with nurses, gowns, and paper sheets for covering. He testified that he would never disrobe a female himself, that he had never unbuttoned someone’s pants and pulled them and their underwear down, and that there is always a paper sheet that lays across the patient’s lap. He said he could not think of a reason why he would need to examine a woman’s vagina in connection to lower-back pain. He testified that he would refer someone to a specialist if anti-inflammatory medicines and muscle relaxers did not help their lower-back pain. He said he has never had a woman remove her panties for a back exam, and that he would not examine a woman’s breasts if she | fihad come to him with a sore throat.

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Bluebook (online)
377 S.W.3d 404, 2010 Ark. App. 358, 2010 Ark. App. LEXIS 381, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/arendall-v-state-arkctapp-2010.