Gore v. State

37 So. 3d 1178, 2010 Miss. LEXIS 331, 2010 WL 2616194
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 1, 2010
Docket2009-KA-01090-SCT
StatusPublished
Cited by69 cases

This text of 37 So. 3d 1178 (Gore v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gore v. State, 37 So. 3d 1178, 2010 Miss. LEXIS 331, 2010 WL 2616194 (Mich. 2010).

Opinions

RANDOLPH, Justice,

for the Court:

¶ 1. John T. Gore was indicted for “gratifying his lust or indulging his depraved licentious sexual desires,” on May 11, 2007, by “intentionally handling], touch[ing] or rub[bing] with his hands or any part of his body or any member thereof,” his twenty-one-month-old granddaughter, M.G.1 From his subsequent conviction and sentence in the Circuit Court of Rankin County, Mississippi, Gore appeals regarding evidentia-ry rulings of the circuit court and the sufficiency of the evidence.

FACTS

¶ 2. Just weeks prior to the May 11, 2007, occurrence, Thomas Daniel Gore (“Daniel”), Defendant Gore’s son and M.G.’s father, testified that his family had visited Defendant Gore’s home.2 According to Daniel, Defendant Gore was “heavily intoxicated.” Daniel testified that his daughter, M.G., had fallen asleep on defendant Gore’s bed. At some point, Defendant Gore left the room where the family was socializing and was gone for several minutes. Daniel went to look for him and found Defendant Gore in the bedroom, “with his pants down to his ankles and spooning [M.G.], it was like behind [M.G.], on her ... with his pants around his ankles .... ” M.G. had no shirt or pants on. According to Daniel:

I really didn’t think ... much of it at the time other than he was just belligerently wasted, maybe crawled in the bed and his pants fell off. So it kind of gave me a ... fatherly feeling ... that something could have been wrong with that, and it just didn’t occur to me at the time that it had anything to do with such a thing.

¶ 3. On the morning of May 11, 2007, Lindsey Bohn,3 accompanied by M.G.4 and a family friend, Matt, left to attend a music festival at which Daniel was setting up lighting and stage equipment. En route, Bohn stopped at Defendant Gore’s home between 10:80 a.m. and noon, and asked if he would like to accompany them. Gore declined, but insisted on babysitting M.G. Bohn agreed. According to Bohn, Gore had a drawer full of diapers, wipes, and clothing for M.G. at his home.

¶ 4. When Bohn returned to Defendant Gore’s home between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m., [1181]*1181she discovered M.G. “laying on the bed next to [Gore], ... completely naked, no diaper, no nothing.” According to Bohn, the:

first words out of [Gore’s] mouth to me were, she found my vibrator. [5] And I, kind of shocked me a little bit, so I said, and? Well, she knows how to turn it on. And I also said, and? Well, she put it on herself.[6] And so I grabbed up [M.G.], and I’m holding her. And she wakes up, and she wants to get down, I sat her down. And [Defendant Gore], by this time, is sitting in his bathroom .... And [M.G.] grabs up a ... yellow tin, and it’s called Burt’s Bees. It’s kind of a hand soft, lotion thing. And she'tells me, Papa, owee’s butt, pats her behind. And at that point, I got a little leery, so I grabbed up her stuff, and me and [Matt], we went back to my house with [M.G.].

¶ 5. While getting M.G. ready for bed, Bohn:

piekfed] up her bottom to put a diaper on her, and can see down into [M.G.’s] anus. It was the size of a nickel.... I lost it.... I just screamed, oh my God, what happened to my baby. I called in [Matt] to see if he thought it looked funny to him. He screamed, too.

Bohn told Matt, “I’m going [to] kill [Defendant Gore]. He hurt my baby.” Bohn grabbed a shotgun and a “four-ten,” but neither were loaded, so she took a “combat knife,” left M.G. with Matt, and returned to Defendant Gore’s home to confront him. Upon seeing Defendant Gore, Bohn “tried to stab him, but he got away....” Then, while screaming “what happened to my baby, what’s wrong with her.” Without any mention that M.G.’s anus was enlarged, “the words out of [Defendant Gore’s] mouth are, maybe she did it to herself or maybe she’s got to poop.”7 Bohn then “got the knife to his throat, telling him, you better call the police or you’re going to die tonight. You’re going to die, call the police right now. He wouldn’t call them, ... so I sat the knife down and grabbed the phone and called 911 myself.” Bohn told the 911 dispatcher, “get down here quick because I’m going to kill an old man right now, he molested my baby.” As the police were slow to arrive, Bohn “kind of clicked back, ... I need to get back to my baby.” When Bohn arrived back home, Matt informed her that he had also called the police. As the police had still not yet arrived, she called them a third time.

¶ 6. Deputy Joseph Head of the Rankin County Sheriffs Department was dispatched to Bohn’s home. According to Deputy Head, he entered Bohn’s residence and, without any provocation, M.G. “was running down the hallway to the den where the couch was, and was saying the words, butt butt, and was pointing at her rear-end area.” Deputy Head testified that he then briefly examined M.G.’s anus and found that it was red, but not in a rash-like sense.

¶ 7. Bohn took M.G. to the emergency room at St. Dominic’s Hospital, where she was examined by Dr. Dan Williams. Dr. Williams recalled “getting a frantic mom [1182]*1182coming in ... who ... reported that she was very suspicious that her child had been molested.... ” Dr. Williams stated that M.G. was initially upset and crying. Upon examination, Dr. Williams testified that M.G.’s “anus was enlarged and appeared dilated. And considering that the child was in the bed with someone, and the mother had stated that ... the father-in-law said that the child knew how to use the dildo, [it] raised a lot of suspicion.... ” Dr. Williams concluded his testimony by stating that, in his expert opinion, M.G. had been sexually abused.

¶ 8. In the early morning hours of May 12, 2007, Deputy Head and Sheila Tucker, a juvenile investigator with the Rankin County Sheriffs Department, arrived at Defendant Gore’s home. According to Investigator Tucker, Gore was “intoxicated, dirty, unkept, a little slouchy looking.” On his front porch, Gore was informed of his Miranda rights.8 Gore first offered that he had run out of diapers for M.G., and her clothes had been dirty, so he had put her down for a nap naked. Gore stated that he then had fallen asleep next to her. When he awoke, Gore claimed he had found M.G. playing with a white vibrator that he kept in a wooden box underneath his bed.9 Both officers testified that Gore told them M.G. was rubbing the vibrator on her private parts. According to Deputy Head, Gore then offered to retrieve the vibrator. After leading the officers into his bedroom, according to Deputy Head, Gore “tried to get it.” At that point, Deputy Head “said, show me, because I was worried [there] may be a gun in the house, ... and ... we pulled the box out from under the bed.” Later that afternoon, Gore was arrested.

¶ 9. Investigator Tucker interviewed Defendant Gore on the afternoon of May 12, 2007,10 and again on June 1, 2007. According to Investigator Tucker, over the course of these interviews, as well as Gore’s statement in the early morning hours of May 12, 2007, Gore offered “several” inconsistent explanations for the toddler’s condition. Investigator Tucker testified that Gore:

told me the night that we went and talked to him to start with, that the child got the vibrator.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
37 So. 3d 1178, 2010 Miss. LEXIS 331, 2010 WL 2616194, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gore-v-state-miss-2010.