Com. v. Mitchell, W.

CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJune 26, 2015
Docket1734 MDA 2014
StatusUnpublished

This text of Com. v. Mitchell, W. (Com. v. Mitchell, W.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Com. v. Mitchell, W., (Pa. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

J-S31004-15

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA Appellee

v.

WILLIAM FRANKLIN MITCHELL,

Appellant No. 1734 MDA 2014

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered May 29, 2014 In the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-36-CR-0003085-2013

BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., ALLEN, J., and WECHT, J.

MEMORANDUM BY BENDER, P.J.E.: FILED JUNE 26, 2015

William Franklin Mitchell (Appellant) appeals from the May 29, 2014

judgment of sentence of an aggregate term of 4 to 8 years’ incarceration

after being found guilty at a bench trial of sexual assault1 and corruption of

minors.2 Appellant now challenges the sufficiency and weight of the

evidence supporting his convictions and the trial court’s discretion in the

exclusion of certain evidence. After careful review, we affirm the judgement

of sentence.

The trial court set forth a factual summary of this matter as follows:

On the morning of May 1, 2013, [Appellant] exchanged messages with S.R. [the victim], with whom he was friends, and ____________________________________________

1 18 Pa.C.S. § 3124.1. 2 18 Pa.C.S. § 6301(a)(1)(ii). J-S31004-15

urged her to leave school to hang out with him, drink alcohol and smoke marijuana. S.R. agreed to leave school early and met [Appellant] at a bridge near the school. Before they met, [Appellant] asked S.R., “You are coming by yourself, right? Not with nobody else?” S.R. did not know they were going to Mr. Rivera’s [Appellant’s Co-Defendant at trial] home or that they would be renting a motel room.

[Appellant] and S.R. walked to Mr. Rivera’s home, where they started drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. S.R. stated she drank approximately half a bottle of brandy and was intoxicated. At one point, [Appellant] left Mr. Rivera’s residence to get more alcohol, leaving S.R. alone with Mr. Rivera. Mr. Rivera began pressuring S.R. for oral sex, which made her feel uncomfortable, and she sent a message to [Appellant] telling him that Mr. Rivera was “creeping [her] out.” [Appellant] replied, promising her he would take care of it.

When [Appellant] returned to Mr. Rivera’s house, S.R. and Mr. Rivera left. Mr. Rivera purchased Xanax pills and rented a room at the Ephrata Motel, where S.R. thought they were going to drink. S.R. took some Xanax pills and was feeling intoxicated as a result of the alcohol, marijuana and Xanax. S.R. testified that while in the motel room, Mr. Rivera assaulted her, engaging in anal intercourse without her consent. As a result, she was physically hurt, bleeding and had fecal matter coming out of her. S.R. went into the small shower to clean up, and Mr. Rivera assaulted her again in the shower by forcing her to have oral intercourse with him.

S.R. was seated on the floor in the corner of the shower with her head down when [Appellant] entered the bathroom. She testified that [Appellant] “forced [her] to do the same thing [have oral sex with him]” and engaged in anal intercourse with her. She testified that she was in pain and felt betrayed, powerless and used since she “was blocked in the shower with nowhere to go,” and that she did not tell [Appellant] to stop because “at that point [she] had given up.”

S.R. left the bathroom to get her clothes, returned to the bathroom to get dressed and then returned to the room and sat on the bed, where Mr. Rivera assaulted her a third time. S.R. got dressed again and [Appellant] came back into the motel room with a third man, who tried to remove her clothing. When

-2- J-S31004-15

the third man attempted to remove her clothing, S.R. resisted and left the motel room.

During the course of the incident, S.R. had been sending text messages to Joseph Klepchick telling him what was happening. Mr. Klepchick met S.R. across the street after she left the motel room. When S.R. met Mr. Klepchick, she was crying and screaming at [Appellant] to get away from her. [Appellant], who was walking about 10 feet behind S.R., told Mr. Klepchick that “he wasn’t going to go down for this. He wasn’t going to go down for rape.” The next day, [Appellant] sent a text message to S.R. and apologized to her, stating “I didn’t think it would go down the way it did.”

On cross-examination, S.R. admitted she voluntarily left school on May 1, 2013, to drink with [Appellant], and that she was not forced or threatened to drink, smoke marijuana, or consume Xanax.

On May 2, 2013, after the incident was reported, police took photographs of the motel room and collected evidence, including the towels and bed linens. The shower in the motel bathroom was approximately three feet by three feet, but the entrance was partially blocked by the bathroom sink which protruded 17 inches from the wall. Blood and fecal matter were found on towels and S.R.’s jeans.

On the same date, Kyle Wojiechowski, R.N., performed a 3 SAFE examination of S.R. at Lancaster General Hospital. He documented several injuries to her anal and genital regions consistent with her description of the assaults. 3 During a SAFE examination, a trained nurse examines and collects evidence from a person who reports being sexually assaulted.

[Appellant] was interviewed by the Ephrata Borough police on May 7, 2013, May 21, 2013, and June 6, 2013. The audio recordings of these interviews were admitted into evidence and played during the course of the trial. During these interviews, [Appellant] admitted that he and Mr. Rivera plied S.R. with alcohol, marijuana and Xanax, and it was obvious that S.R. was intoxicated. [Appellant] also told the police he knew that Mr. Rivera had raped S.R., and that [Appellant] saw blood and fecal matter coming out of S.R. Despite this, he engaged in oral and anal sex with her while she was in the shower.

-3- J-S31004-15

Trial Court Opinion (T.C.O.), at 7-10.

On March 6, 2014, at the conclusion of a bench trial, Appellant was

found guilty and sentenced as stated above. He was found not guilty on the

remaining eight counts against him.3 Appellant filed a timely notice of

appeal and complied with the trial court’s order to file a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b)

statement. The trial court issued its Rule 1925(a) opinion on December 1,

2014. Appellant now presents the following issues for our review:

I. Was the evidence presented at trial insufficient to find Appellant guilty of the crimes of sexual assault and corruption of minors, a felony of the third degree where the victim gave no indication the sexual contact was not wanted and the Commonwealth established no course of conduct in violation of Chapter 31 (relating to sexual offenses)?

II. Alternatively, was the trial court’s finding that Appellant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of sexual assault and corruption of minors against the weight of the evidence?

III. Did the court abuse its discretion by denying Appellant the ability to cross-examine the victim regarding her use of alcohol and Xanax together only four days after the incident in question?

____________________________________________

3 Appellant was charged with two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse by forcible compulsion, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3123(a)(1); two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse by threat of forcible compulsion, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3123(a)(2); one count of rape by forcible compulsion, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3121(a)(1); one count of rape by threat of forcible compulsion, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3121(a)(2); one count of sexual assault, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3124.1; one count of corruption of minors, 18 Pa.C.S. § 6301(a)(1)(ii); one count of unlawful contact with a minor, 18 Pa.C.S. § 6318(a)(1); and one count of criminal conspiracy, 18 Pa.C.S.

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Bluebook (online)
Com. v. Mitchell, W., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/com-v-mitchell-w-pasuperct-2015.