Gaby v. State

949 N.E.2d 870, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 995, 2011 WL 2200792
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 7, 2011
DocketNo. 79A02-1006-CR-804
StatusPublished
Cited by60 cases

This text of 949 N.E.2d 870 (Gaby v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gaby v. State, 949 N.E.2d 870, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 995, 2011 WL 2200792 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

OPINION

MATHIAS, Judge.

Michael Joseph Gaby (“Gaby”) was convicted in Tippecanoe Superior Court of Class A felony child molesting. Gaby appeals and presents three issues for our review, which we renumber and restate as:

I. Whether the trial court erred in allowing the State to amend the charging information;
II. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in permitting the State to refresh the recollection of the victim when the victim did not evidence a lack of recollection;
III. Whether the State’s arguments constituted prosecutorial misconduct; and
IY. Whether the trial court erred in ordering Gaby to serve his sentence as a credit restricted felon.

We reverse Gaby’s conviction and remand for retrial.

Facts and Procedural History

Sometime in 1995 'or 1996, P.C. and her four daughters lived in the same apartment complex as did Gaby and his daughter. Gaby’s daughter was approximately the same age as P.C.’s daughter M.C., who was born in 1993. On one occasion, P.C. asked Gaby to watch M.C. for the day while she went to work. Only Gaby and M.C. were in the apartment. Gaby told M.C. to try on some clothes that his daughter had outgrown, and M.C. undressed. Gaby told M.C. to sit down, then put a blanket over her and inserted his fingers into her vagina. After this incident, M.C. did not go to Gaby’s apartment alone. Gaby and his daughter moved out of the apartment complex when M.C. was between the second and third grade.1

Several years later, Gaby asked P.C. to drive him and his daughter to church. When an opportunity arose that day, Gaby asked M.C. if she had ever told anyone about what he had done to her. She told Gaby that she had not. Years later, on April 20, 2009, when M.C. was approximately fifteen years old, she told her teacher what Gaby had done to her. M.C.’s teacher contacted the police, who interviewed her.

On May 6, 2009, Lafayette Police Detective Joseph Clyde interviewed Gaby. Gaby initially denied ever having been alone with M.C., but later claimed that he had been alone with the child once when she had thrown up on her clothes. Gaby claimed, however, that he had not helped M.C. change her clothes. Gaby then admitted that he did help M.C. change her clothes and may have unintentionally fondled her. The next day, Gaby spoke with Detective Scott Galloway and denied having inserted his finger into M.C.’s vagina. Gaby did ask, however, if the police could “help him remember if he had molested [M.C.] ” Tr. p. 183.

On June 10, 2009, the State charged Gaby with Class A felony child molesting. The State moved to amend the charging information on March 29, 2010, and Gaby filed an objection thereto the following day. On March 31, 2010, the trial court granted the State’s motion to amend. A two-day jury trial commenced on April 6, 2010, at the conclusion of which the jury found Gaby guilty as charged. At a sentencing hearing held on May 26, 2010, the trial court sentenced Gaby to twenty years and ordered him to serve his sentence as a [874]*874credit restricted felon. Gaby now appeals.2

I. Charging Information

Gaby first claims that the trial court erred in allowing the State to amend the charging information a week before trial.3 The original charging information, filed on July 10, 2009, alleged that Gaby molested M.C. on one occasion between 1997 and 1998 when M.C. was ten to eleven years old. This was impossible, as M.C. was born in 1993 and would have been between four and five years old at that time. The State filed a motion to amend the charging information on March 29, 2010, seven days before the scheduled trial date. The State’s proposed amended charging information changed the alleged date range of the molestation to 1997 to 2002, when M.C. was between four and eight years old. Gaby objected to the proposed amendment, but the trial court granted the State’s motion to amend, concluding:

The Court ... finds that the Amended Information does not prevent the defendant from presenting a defense, because the specific occasion is one where the defendant was babysitting for the complaining witness, after which the complaining witness never returned to the defendant’s apartment alone. While the date range is broad, the details of the occasion in question are not.

Appellant’s App. p. 11.

A. Amendment of the Charging Information

In general, Indiana Code section 35-34-l-5(b) permits the State to amend a charging information even in matters of substance at any time before the commencement of trial so long as the amendment does not prejudice the defendant’s substantial rights. See Brown v. State, 912 N.E.2d 881, 890 (Ind.Ct.App.2009), trans. denied. The “substantial rights” of a defendant include a right to sufficient notice and an opportunity to be heard regarding the charge. Id. “ ‘Ultimately, the question is whether the defendant had a reasonable opportunity to prepare for and defend against the charges.’ ” Id. (quoting Sides v. State, 693 N.E.2d 1310, 1313 (Ind.1998), abrogated on other grounds by Fajardo v. State, 859 N.E.2d 1201 (Ind.2007)). The substantial rights of the defendant are not prejudiced if: (1) a defense under the original information would be equally available after the amendment, and (2) the defendant’s evidence would apply equally to the information in either form. Id,. Our supreme court has also explained that “an amendment is of substance only if it is essential to making a valid charge of the crime.” McIntyre v. State, 717 N.E.2d 114, 125-26 (Ind.1999); accord Brown, 912 N.E.2d at 890.

We first observe that there is no indication that Gaby requested a continuance after the trial court granted the State’s motion to amend. The failure to request a continuance after the trial court allows a pre-trial substantive amendment to the charging information over defendant’s objection results in waiver of the issue on appeal. Wilson v. State, 931 N.E.2d 914, 918 (Ind.Ct.App.2010), trans. [875]*875denied. As such, Gaby’s argument regarding the amendment of the charging information is waived. Waiver notwithstanding, Gaby would still not prevail.

Gaby claims that his defense strategy was to argue that M.C.’s accusations should be particularly scrutinized because she was only three years old at the time and could not accurately remember the events. He further claims that, under the amended information, the State was able to argue that M.C. could have been several years older than even she remembered. This, Gaby claims, “foreclosed” his defense. We disagree. Even under the amended information, Gaby was able to argue that M.C. was, as she testified, only three years old at the time of the molestation and that her recollection of events at that time should therefore be suspect. The amended information did not deprive Gaby of this defense. Moreover, the State could have argued that M.C.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
949 N.E.2d 870, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 995, 2011 WL 2200792, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gaby-v-state-indctapp-2011.