Charles Alan Rickman v. State of Arkansas

2020 Ark. 138, 597 S.W.3d 622

• Court: Supreme Court of Arkansas
• Decided: April 16, 2020
• Status: Published

Opinion

Cite as 2020 Ark. 138 SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS No. CR-19-156

Opinion Delivered: April 16, 2020 CHARLES ALAN RICKMAN APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE BENTON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT V. [NO. 04CR-17-1949]

STATE OF ARKANSAS HONORABLE BRAD KARREN, JUDGE APPELLEE

AFFIRMED.

JOHN DAN KEMP, Chief Justice

A Benton County Circuit Court jury convicted appellant Charles Alan Rickman of

two counts of rape and one count of kidnapping, aggravated residential burglary, and first-

degree battery. He was sentenced to consecutive life terms for the rape, kidnapping, and

burglary convictions and a consecutive term of twenty years’ imprisonment and a $15,000

fine for the battery conviction. For reversal, he argues that the circuit court erred in

denying his motion to suppress, denying his proffered jury instructions, and refusing to

accept his guilty plea. We affirm.

I. Facts

Rickman does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal, so only a

brief recitation of the facts is required. Smith v. State, 2018 Ark. 277, 555 S.W.3d 881. On October 2, 2017, Susan Hazard, who lived alone in a remote area near Gravette, celebrated

her sixty-ninth birthday and went to bed early that evening. At approximately 1:30 a.m. on

October 3, she heard a knock on the door. She answered the door and saw Rickman, who

had worked at her home as a contractor. Rickman said that his car had broken down and

that he needed to use her phone. She cracked the door, handed him her cell phone, and

listened to his conversation. When he returned the phone, he forced his way inside,

grabbed her, wrapped a table runner around her head, and tied it around her neck. He

stripped off her clothes, took her upstairs to the bedroom, tied her hands and feet with

cords, and beat her. For a five-hour period, he raped her vaginally, anally, and orally with

his penis and with foreign objects. At one point, he took her downstairs, placed her in the

bathtub and rinsed her off because she “was full of blood,” only to rape and beat her again.

Before leaving, he untied her but left her blindfolded, threatened to kill her if anyone

“drove into [her] driveway,” and instructed her to tell anyone who might ask that she fell

down the stairs. After he left, a coworker called, and Hazard informed her that she had

been “brutally raped and beaten” and needed to go to the hospital.

Hazard was hospitalized for almost three months. Visible marks on her hands, feet,

and neck indicated that she had been bound and strangled. She sustained extensive

injuries to her vaginal and rectal areas and required multiple surgeries. At the hospital, she

developed sepsis, which required the amputation of both arms and legs.

On October 3, 2017, Rickman was arrested on an unrelated outstanding warrant

for driving on a suspended license and was taken into custody. That day, Detective

2 Susanne Matthews interviewed and Mirandized Rickman, and Rickman signed a waiver

and statement of rights. During the interview, Detective Matthews asked about an article of

bloodstained clothing—women’s underwear—that the officers found in his car, and

Rickman divulged that he liked to wear women’s clothing while watching pornography.

When the officer began inquiring specifically about a reported incident at Hazard’s home,

Rickman responded, “I think maybe you need to just get me a lawyer or something,

because you’re—you’re gonna—I’m not answering any more of your questions.” Detective

Matthews terminated the interview, which lasted approximately five minutes.

On October 5, 2017, Benton County officers met with Rickman in one of the

booking rooms. Captain Ed Motsinger advised him of his charges and informed him that if

he changed his mind and wanted to speak to someone, then he would need to make a

request with the jail staff. The officers did not question Rickman at that time. At 2:26 p.m.

that day, Sergeant Desiree McCain, a booking officer, emailed Detective Matthews stating,

“Charles Rickman is requesting to speak with you or Alyson [Detective Alison Nguyen]—I

just couldn’t figure out her e-mail.” Detective Matthews then requested that Rickman be

brought to the interview room to see what he wanted. There, Detective Matthews and

Captain Motsinger again Mirandized Rickman and had him sign a second waiver and

statement of rights. During this second interview, Rickman stated that he had been

drinking and “got high on some meth” on the night of October 2, 2017. He confessed to

the crimes and provided a number of details to the officers.

3 On July 6, 2018, the State filed an amended criminal information charging

Rickman with aggravated residential burglary, kidnapping, two counts of rape, and first-

degree battery. Rickman filed a motion to suppress his October 5 custodial statement.

Following a hearing, the circuit court denied his motion to suppress. On July 10, the

morning of trial, Rickman stated that he wished to plead guilty and to be sentenced by a

jury. The prosecutor objected, and the circuit court rejected Rickman’s offer to plead

guilty. The case proceeded to trial, and the jury found Rickman guilty on all counts and

sentenced him to consecutive life sentences on the rape, kidnapping, and burglary

convictions and twenty years’ imprisonment and a $15,000 fine on the first-degree battery

conviction. Rickman timely filed his notice of appeal.

II. Arguments

A. Motion to Suppress

For his first point on appeal, Rickman argues that the circuit court erred in denying

his motion to suppress his October 5 custodial statement. Specifically, Rickman contends

that he did not initiate contact with law enforcement after he had requested to speak to

counsel at the end of his October 3 interview, and as a result, his October 5 statement

should not have been introduced into evidence.

We review a circuit court’s decision denying a defendant’s motion to suppress a

confession by making an independent determination based on the totality of the

circumstances, and the ruling will be reversed only if it is clearly against the preponderance

of the evidence. Airsman v. State, 2014 Ark. 500, 451 S.W.3d 565. The Fifth Amendment

4 right to counsel attaches during custodial interrogation. Id., 451 S.W.3d 565. When an

accused has invoked his right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation, a

valid waiver of that right cannot be established by showing only that he responded to

further police-initiated custodial interrogation even if he has been advised of his rights. Id.,

451 S.W.3d 565. Instead, an accused, having expressed his desire to deal with the police

only through counsel, is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities until

counsel has been made available to him, unless the accused himself initiates further

communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police. Id., 451 S.W.3d 565.

Although the accused may initiate further contact with the police, the impetus must come

from the accused, not the police. Id., 451 S.W.3d 565.

To illustrate, in Stevenson v. State, 2013 Ark. 100, 426 S.W.3d 416, Stevenson was

taken to an interrogation room where he asserted his right to an attorney, and the

interrogation was terminated. The police officer escorted him to a holding cell and stated

that he could file a written request if he wished to speak with the officers again. Stevenson

stated that he wished to speak with the officer. On appeal, he argued that the circuit court

erred in denying his motion to suppress his statement because he had invoked the right to

counsel. We stated,

Stevenson invoked his right to counsel. When Addison told Stevenson that any further contact with law enforcement would only be upon written request, Stevenson said to Addison that “he would rather just go ahead and get this over with and talk to me now. He didn’t want to have to go through that aspect of writin’ a letter.” While this statement is in response to the declaratory statement by Addison regarding how to contact the police, Addison’s statement was not during interrogation and was not a statement that would reasonably elicit an incriminating 5 response. Stevenson expressed a desire to go ahead with the interview, and that he wished to speak with law-enforcement officers. The circuit court’s denial of Stevenson’s motion to suppress was not clearly against the preponderance of the evidence and we affirm its decision.

Id. at 7–8, 426 S.W.3d at 421.

In the present case, the record is clear that Rickman initiated further contact with

the police before giving his second statement. Sergeant McCain testified at the suppression

hearing that she “was sitting at one of the booking terminals, farther from the detox cell

where [Rickman] was housed at, when he signaled his hand over to get my attention. . . .

[H]e said that he would like to speak with somebody in CID [Criminal Investigation

Division] about his case.” Sergeant McCain stated that she emailed Detective Matthews

that Rickman “requested to speak with somebody” about the case. Detective Matthews

testified that Rickman was brought to an interview room, and she began the interview by

reviewing the “Statement of Rights Form” and confirmed with Rickman that he

understood his rights and agreed to speak with her. Thus, the evidence demonstrates that

Rickman initiated further contact with the officers. That is to say, the impetus came from

Rickman—not the Benton County police. Based on the totality of the circumstances, we

conclude that Rickman initiated further contact with law enforcement, and we hold that

the circuit court properly denied his motion to suppress.

B. Proffered Jury Instructions

6 For his second point on appeal, Rickman argues that the circuit court erred in

rejecting his proffered jury instructions on Class B felony kidnapping and on concurrent or

consecutive sentencing.

A party is entitled to a jury instruction when it is a correct statement of the law and

when there is some basis in the evidence to support giving the instruction. Hundley v. State,

2020 Ark. 89. The circuit court’s decision to give or reject an instruction will not be

reversed unless the court abused its discretion. Id. When the circuit court determines that

the jury should be instructed on an issue, the model criminal instructions must be used

unless the court concludes they do not accurately state the law. Grubbs v. State, 2020 Ark.

42, 592 S.W.3d 688. If a proffered instruction is not a correct statement of the law, that is

a valid and appropriate reason to refuse to give a particular jury instruction. Id., 592

S.W.3d 688. Nor will it be error for the circuit court to refuse to give a proffered

instruction if other instructions adequately covered the issue. Id., 592 S.W.3d 688.

1. Kidnapping instruction

Kidnapping is a Class Y felony, but the charge can be lowered to a Class B felony if

the defendant shows by a preponderance of the evidence that he voluntarily released the

person restrained, alive and in a safe place prior to trial. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-11-102(b)

(Repl. 2013). A victim has not been voluntarily released if the release was caused by the

defendant’s attempt to escape apprehension. Woods v. State, 302 Ark. 512, 790 S.W.2d 892

(1990). In determining what constitutes a safe place, the victim’s familiarity with the place

is one factor to be considered. Ratliff v. State, 359 Ark. 479, 199 S.W.3d 79 (2004). 7 However, a place is not safe merely because it is familiar to the victim. Huff v. State, 2012

Ark. 388, 423 S.W.3d 608 (holding that Huff’s release of the victim in her front lawn and

in the path of his vehicle was not a safe place); Whitt v. State, 281 Ark. 466, 664 S.W.2d

876 (1984) (holding that a victim left in the trunk of her car was not left in a safe place).

Further, in Davis v. State, 368 Ark. 401, 246 S.W.3d 862 (2007), the defendant

attacked his stepdaughter and left her to be rescued in her home that she shared with her

mother and the defendant. We stated,

A case that bears much similarity to the case at hand, Clark v. State, 292 Ark. 69, 727 S.W.2d 853 (1984), is instructive here. The defendant in Clark kidnapped a family and later left the wife and children handcuffed to a pillar in their garage and the father handcuffed to a banister in his place of work. Id. Although the family was technically left in safe places—their home and work—we held that they were not “released,” as contemplated by Ark. Code Ann. § 5-11-102(b), because they were left handcuffed to immovable structures, dependent upon being discovered by others.

In the instant case, Davis left Leslie with a mask over her face, a gag in her mouth, her feet bound together, and her hands bound behind her back. She was left in a house that was in a rural area, and no one was expected home for several hours. While Leslie was lucky to find the cellular phone and scissors, she was unable to physically release herself from her restraints. In fact, by the time law-enforcement officers arrived, Leslie had begun losing the feeling in her limbs. Based upon this evidence, we cannot say that the circuit court erred in refusing to lower the charge from a Class Y to a Class B felony.

Id. at 408, 246 S.W.3d at 868.

While this court’s holding in Davis is instructive, the victim in this case was not

released in a safe place. Hazard testified at trial that after five hours of being raped and

beaten in her own home, she did not ask for help or seek help because she thought that “if

[she] didn’t fully cooperate . . . he would kill me.” She also testified that Rickman stated

8 emphatically that “if anyone drives into your driveway, I will kill you.” After Rickman left,

Hazard unwrapped the table runner that had been tied around her head and neck, received

a call from her coworker, and said, “I have been brutally raped and beaten. I need to go to

the hospital. . . . [B]ring one of the men that work there . . . because I didn’t know if he is

still around—if just two ladies—he may attack them. So I didn’t want them to be in danger.”

Here, Hazard was left—blindfolded, bleeding, and alone—in a debilitating physical

condition in her home in a rural area. Her home was the scene of the crimes, and Rickman

repeatedly threatened to kill her if she sought help after he left. Thus, we conclude that

Rickman did not release Hazard in a safe place. Having considered this evidence, we hold

that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in declining to give the Class B

kidnapping jury instruction under these circumstances, and we affirm.

2. Sentencing instruction

Next, Rickman contends—without much argument, case law, or analysis—that the

circuit court abused its discretion by refusing to allow the jury to make a nonbinding

recommendation on concurrent or consecutive sentences.

It is well established that the question of whether two separate sentences should run

consecutively or concurrently lies solely within the province of the circuit court. Brown v.

State, 316 Ark. 724, 875 S.W.2d 828 (1994); Abdullah v. State, 290 Ark. 537, 720 S.W.2d

902 (1986); see also Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-403 (Repl. 2013); Ark. Code Ann. § 16-90-109

9 (Repl. 2016). Further, the appellant assumes a heavy burden of showing that the circuit

court failed to give due consideration to the exercise of its discretion in the matter of

consecutive sentences. Edwards v. State, 300 Ark. 4, 775 S.W.2d 900 (1989). Because the

decision of whether to run sentences consecutively or concurrently lies within the province

of the circuit court, Rickman has failed to establish that the circuit court abused its

discretion. Accordingly, we affirm the circuit court’s ruling.

C. Guilty Plea

For his third point on appeal, Rickman argues that the circuit court erred in

refusing to accept his guilty plea when the prosecutor objected. Specifically, Rickman

contends that Rule 31.1 of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure should allow him to

plead guilty over the prosecutor’s objection and to be sentenced by a jury.

We have previously rejected this argument. This court has interpreted Rule 31.1 to

provide that no defendant in any criminal cause may waive a jury trial unless the waiver is

assented to by the prosecuting attorney and approved by the court. State v. Smittie, 341 Ark.

909, 20 S.W.3d 352 (2000); State v. Singleton, 340 Ark. 710, 13 S.W.3d 584 (2000); State v.

Vasquez-Aerreola, 327 Ark. 617, 940 S.W.2d 451 (1997); Fretwell v. State, 289 Ark. 91, 708

S.W.2d 630 (1986).

Rickman offers no sound argument that we should depart from this precedent.

Because the State did not assent to Rickman’s guilty plea, we hold that the circuit court

was without discretion to allow Rickman to plead guilty over the State’s objection.

Accordingly, we affirm on this point.

10 III. Rule 4-3(i)

Because Rickman received a life sentence, this court has complied with Arkansas

Supreme Court Rule 4-3(i) (2019) and has examined the record for all objections, motions,

and requests made by either party that were decided adversely to him. No prejudicial error

has been found.

HART, J., concurring in part; dissenting in part.

JOSEPHINE LINKER HART, Justice, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Rickman’s crimes are obviously condemnable, and I join the majority opinion—except that

Rickman, as required by law, should have received a jury instruction on the Class B Felony

formulation for the Kidnapping charge. On that point, I dissent.

In Arkansas, Kidnapping is generally a Class Y Felony, but under certain

circumstances, this charge is reduced to a Class B Felony. This reduction is applicable

where the evidence shows that the defendant “released” the victim “alive” and in a “safe

place.” Ark. Code Ann. § 5-11-102(b).1 Furthermore, one is entitled to a jury instruction

for a given legal proposition if there is “any rational basis” for giving it, based upon the

evidence presented at trial. See, e.g., Grillot v. State, 353 Ark. 294, 318, 107 S.W.3d 136,

1 Ark. Code Ann. § 5-11-102(b) provides as follows:

(b)(1) Kidnapping is a Class Y felony.

(2) However, kidnapping is a Class B felony if the defendant shows by a preponderance of the evidence that he or she or an accomplice voluntarily released the person restrained alive and in a safe place prior to trial. 11 150 (2003) (“An instruction should only be excluded when there is no rational basis for

giving it.”) (emphases added).

In this case, the evidence at trial reflected that he left the victim alive and in her

own home. Plainly, there is at least “some basis in the law” for the proposition that the

defendant left the victim in a safe place, so the defendant should have received the

instruction for Class B Felony Kidnapping and been allowed to argue that issue to the jury.

Whether the victim’s home in this case is a safe place is a question for the jury to decide.

By refusing to give a jury instruction on Class B Felony Kidnapping, the circuit court

impermissibly usurped the jury’s role, thus committing reversible error.

The majority’s reliance on Davis v. State, 368 Ark. 401, 246 S.W.3d 862 (2007) is

clearly misplaced. The jury in Davis was instructed on both Class Y and Class B

kidnapping. Davis was arguing that the reduction to Class B Kidnapping was so

appropriate that the circuit judge should have dismissed the Class Y Kidnapping charge as

a matter of law (before the case was given to the jury), not that an instruction was required

to allow the jurors to decide the facts based upon the evidence presented. Davis, supra.

Importantly, after the circuit judge denied the motion for directed verdict, Davis received

the instruction on Class B Felony Kidnapping and was able to argue that issue to the jury.

On the other hand, Rickman is appealing from the refusal to allow a jury

instruction after the close of all the evidence. Here, unlike Davis, there was zero chance

that the jury in Rickman’s case could conclude that the B Formulation of Kidnapping was

appropriate because Rickman was not allowed to present that issue for their consideration. 12 In other words, Davis was afforded what Rickman was not: the opportunity to have his

level of guilt determined by a jury. The majority’s declaration that “the victim in this case

was not released to a safe place” is simply fact-finding in plain disregard of our role as an

appellate court.

The purpose of a jury trial is to seek the truth—by having twelve unbiased members

of one’s community consider the relevant evidence in light of the applicable law, and then

determine what is proven and what is not. Jury instructions are central to this purpose. As

I observed in Douglas v. State:

Our system of justice relies upon the parties to present each side of the case through adversarial representation and the jury to decide what is actually proven at the trial. The parties' attorneys, tasked with presenting the best case for their respective clients, play a large and important role in this process. This system contemplates that the jury will receive and consider the evidence objectively, follow jury instructions (several, probably) from the trial court about any applicable legal authorities, listen to arguments (several, probably) from each party's counsel about how the legal propositions set forth in those instructions should or should not apply to the evidence presented, and then proceed to deliberations where it will separate the wheat from the chaff.

In other words, there is (and must be) a lot of room between a trial judge's determination that there is “any rational basis” for giving a particular instruction in a particular case, and the jury's determination that the legal proposition set forth in that instruction was actually established at trial. A jury is free to reject the legal propositions contained in a thousand different jury instructions if it finds that the applicable burdens of proof for those legal propositions are not satisfied by the evidence presented at the trial, but a jury cannot agree with a legal proposition if that legal proposition is never set forth in an instruction for the jury's consideration. This is why we require a jury instruction where there is “any rational basis” for giving it.

13 2019 Ark. 57, at 15–16, 567 S.W.3d 483, 494 (Hart, J., dissenting). To refuse an

appropriate jury instruction is to invade the province of the jury. It subverts the design and

function of a jury trial, undercutting the jury’s ability to do its job and the reliability of its

conclusions. In this case, Rickman should have received a jury instruction on Class B

Felony Kidnapping, and the circuit court’s refusal to give that instruction was error.

Because the majority refuses to acknowledge this error, thereby perpetuating an illegitimate

legal proposition that will likely be weaponized in future cases, I dissent.

Scholl Law Firm, P.L.L.C., by: Scott A. Scholl, for appellant.

Leslie Rutledge, Att’y Gen., by: Joseph Karl Luebke, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.