Kelly v. State

586 N.E.2d 927, 1992 Ind. App. LEXIS 149, 1992 WL 29002
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 20, 1992
Docket84A05-9105-CR-00133
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 586 N.E.2d 927 (Kelly 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
Kelly v. State, 586 N.E.2d 927, 1992 Ind. App. LEXIS 149, 1992 WL 29002 (Ind. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

SHARPNACK, Judge.

Kelley Kelly appeals his conviction of the crime of criminal deviate conduct, a class B felony pursuant to Ind.Code § 85-42-4-2. We affirm.

Kelly brings four issues for our review, which we restate as follows:

1. Did the trial court properly exclude testimony of the victim's alleged past sexual conduct?
2. Did the trial court properly instruct the jury on the elements of the charged offense?
8. Is the judgment of conviction supported by sufficient evidence?
4. Did Kelly receive effective assistance of counsel?

The following facts are those most favorable to the judgment of conviction. The victim in this case was incarcerated in the Vigo County jail due to a probation violation. At the time, the jail was overcrowded and several prisoners were forced to sleep *929 on mattresses on the floor of the cell block. The cells themselves were kept open in order to afford the overflow prisoners access to the toilet facilities located in the cells.

On the evening of the assault, the victim was watching a group of fellow inmates playing cards. Kelly, who was one of a group of inmates who had come to dominate the other residents of the cell block, came over and asked the victim what was wrong with black guys. When the victim said that he had black friends, Kelly punched him in the face twice. Kelly then dragged the victim into a cell and told him to sit on a stool. When the victim refused, Kelly struck him again. The victim sat on the stool, and Kelly exposed his penis and told the victim to kiss it. Another inmate asked Kelly if he wanted a mattress or a blanket. Kelly told the inmate that he did not need a mattress and that he already had a blanket. He then tied the blanket between two beds so that the next actions could not be observed from outside.

Once Kelly had positioned the curtain, he told the victim to perform fellatio upon him. He grabbed the victim's head and attempted to force the victim to comply. At first the victim refused, but eventually succumbed. When Kelly was finished abusing the victim, he called out to his compatriots, who had been waiting just outside the cell in a manner that cut off the victim's means of escape, and asked if any of them would like to abuse the victim. The others declined.

The victim returned to his cell. When he had the opportunity the next morning, he contacted his probation officer through his mother. When his officer arrived at the jail, she saw that the victim's face was swollen and that he was distraught. After he attempted to tell her what had happened, she had him removed from the cell block.

Kelly first argues that the trial court erred in sustaining the state's rape shield objection to certain evidence concerning the victim's alleged prior homosexual history. He claims that the evidence was relevant because it would have bolstered his claim that he hit the victim when the victim made a sexual proposition to him, and he argues that the rape shield statute was not intended to apply under such circumstances.

Under our statute evidence of the sexual history of the alleged victim of a sexual offense generally is inadmissible in the trial of the alleged offender. 1.C. § 35-87-4-4; Skaggs v. State (1982), Ind.App., 438 N.E.2d 301, 305, rehearing denied, 441 N.E.2d 19. The statute was enacted to prevent a general inquiry into the past sexual conduct of the victim in order to avoid "embarrassing the victim and subjecting her [or him] to possible public denigration." Thomas v. State (1984), Ind., 471 N.E.2d 681, 683.

The testimony here falls squarely within the terms of the rape shield statute. The testimony might have some small probative value in aid of the theory that the victim sexually propositioned Kelly, but the legislature has made the determination that evidence of prior sexual history, though arguably relevant to issues such as consent, is not admissible except for three strictly limited purposes. I.C. § 85-37-4-A4(b)(1), (2), and (8). The testimony which Kelly offered does not fall into any of these three exceptions, and we may not graft additional exceptions onto the statute.

Kelly next argues that the trial court committed fundamental error by failing to instruct the jury as to the elements of deviate sexual conduct because the jury instructions concerning the elements of the offense did not parrot the language of the charging information. We reject this argument both because Kelly has waived it and because the trial court's instructions on the elements of the offense were sufficient.

A criminal defendant waives the right on appeal to complain that trial court's instructions were incomplete or otherwise defective unless the defendant tendered correct instructions on the disputed issue: Clemons v. State (1981), Ind., 424 N.E.2d 113, 119. This rule applies even where the defendant complains that the trial court erroneously or incompletely instructed the jury on the elements of the *930 charged offense. See, eg., Kiper v. State (1983), Ind., 445 N.E.2d 1353, 1359-1360. Here, Kelly did not tender an instruction which defined the elements of the offense in the manner which he now claims is proper. He has, therefore, waived the right to assert in this court that the trial court's instructions were erroneous.

Even had Kelly not waived this issue, we would affirm. Kelly asserts that the trial court erred because it did not instruct the jury that it "had to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant, knowingly caused [the victim] to perform deviate sexual conduct, and additionally that said deviate conduct involved [the vie-tim's) mouth and the penis of Kelley Ln, Kelly." (Appellant's Brief, p. 15) (emphasis in original). In support of this assertion, he quotes the following language from our supreme court's decision in Abner v. State (1986), Ind., 497 N.E.2d 550, 553:

In a criminal action, the facts upon which the action is claimed to exist are those facts which constitute the essential elements of the crime charged. These elements and the nature of the offense must be set out in the information.

The quoted language does not mean that the trial court's jury instructions must recite the factual allegations of the charging instrument. Abner only stands for the proposition that the prosecution may not amend a charging information in a manner which materially changes the factual allegations which form the basis of the theory of prosecution. 497 N.E.2d at 555. It does not stand for the proposition that the jury instructions on the elements of the charged offense must include specific factual allegations.

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Bluebook (online)
586 N.E.2d 927, 1992 Ind. App. LEXIS 149, 1992 WL 29002, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kelly-v-state-indctapp-1992.