Kyle W. Dilts v. State of Indiana

80 N.E.3d 182, 2017 WL 2665954, 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS 266
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 21, 2017
DocketCourt of Appeals Case 15A04-1610-CR-2316
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 80 N.E.3d 182 (Kyle W. Dilts v. State of Indiana) 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
Kyle W. Dilts v. State of Indiana, 80 N.E.3d 182, 2017 WL 2665954, 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS 266 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

Pyle, Judge.

Statement of the Case

Kyle W. Dilts (“Dilts”) appeals his •sentence for Class A felony child molesting. 1 Dilts was convicted of two counts of Class A felony child molesting for acts that occurred over a period of three years. The trial court sentenced him on one conviction and vacated the other. .The State successfully appealed the trial court’s decision to vacate -the second conviction, and we remanded to the trial court to sentence Dilts on the second conviction. The trial , court did so, and Dilts now appeals this second sentence. He argues that the trial court abused its discretion when it sentenced him and that his sentence was inappropriate under Appellate Rule 7(B) in light of the nature of his offense and his character. Because we find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Dilts and that Dilts’ sentence was not inappropriate, we affirm his sentence.

We affirm.

Issues

1.' Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it sentenced- Dilts.

' 2. Whether Dilts’ sentence was inappropriate in light of the nature of his offense and his character.

Facts

We stated the facts underlying Dilts’ convictions in our opinion for his first appeal, as follows:

In 2011, Dilts was separated from his wife, Samantha Dilts (“Samantha”), with whom he had a daughter, K.D., born in *184 March 2001. At that time, K.D. and Samantha lived in Kentucky with K.D.’s siblings and half-siblings, and Dilts lived in Aurora, Indiana with his girlfriend, Christie Rutledge (“Rutledge”), and her children.
During the time when Dilts lived in his house in Indiana, he inappropriately touched'K.D. on multiple occasions when she visited him. The first time, which was sometime in 2011, K.D. was in the bathroom when Dilts went into the bathroom and “started fingering [her]” or touching her in her '“vaginal area” with his fingers “moving in a circular motion.” ([Trial] Tr. 503, 504).[ 2 ] Dilts, who was wearing no pants and had been masturbating, then picked up K.D., put her on his lap with her facing out, and “proceeded in fingering [her] again.” ( [Trial] Tr. 505). Dilts then “[p]artial[ly] inserted his penis into KD.’s vagina.” ( [Trial] Tr. 506).
Subsequently, a few weeks later, Dilts again touched K.D. in the bathroom at his house in Indiana. Dilts “stuck his hands down [K.D.’s] pants[,]” “took all of [her] clothes off[,]” picked her up, placed her on his lap as he sat on the toilet, and “inserted his penis” into K.D. ([Trial] Tr. 509, 510). At this time, K.D. saw and felt that Dilts had a “bump” on his penis. ([Trial] Tr. 510).
On a third occasion at Dilts’s house, he went into K.D.’s bedroom, where she was getting dressed, “pull[ed] [her] pants down about halfway” and then “fingered” and “licked” her “vaginal area.” ([Trial] Tr. 511). After each molestation, Dilts warned K.D. not to tell anyone about what he had done.[ 3 ]
In August 2013, K.D. confided in her friend, T.A., that Dilts had molested her. K.D. was “shaky” and “crying.” ([Trial] Tr. 388). K.D. told T.A. not to tell anyone. Around that same time, T.A.’s mother, Melanie Bowman (“Bowman”), noticed a change in KD.’s demeanor from being a “bubbly kid” to “act[ing] strange” and not wanting to go around Bowman’s husband. ([Trial] Tr. 400). T.A. eventually told her mother, who then informed K.D.’s mother, Samantha, about what Dilts had done. Thereafter, K.D.’s allegations were reported to the Indiana Department of Child Services (“DCS”) and the Dearborn County Sheriffs Department.
On August 29, 2013, K.D. spoke to Stephanie Back (“Back”), a forensic interviewer with the Child Advocacy Center (“CAC”). Detective John Vance (“Detective Vance”) of the Dearborn County Sheriffs Department’s Special Crimes Unit and Teresa Patrick (“Patrick”), a family case manager with DCS, were present for the CAC interview and listened from a separate room. During the interview, then twelve-year-old K.D. disclosed to Back that Dilts [had] started to sexually abuse her when she was nine years old. K.D. stated that, when she was at Dilts’s house in Indiana, he had touched her vagina with his fingers, mouth, and penis. Additionally, K.D. alleged that Dilts had molested her when they lived in Kentucky and had also molested K.D.’s sister. After K.D.’s interview at the CAC, she went to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for a physical *185 examination. Dr. Berkeley Bennett (“Dr. Bennett”), who examined K.D., discovered that K.D.’s hymen had a “transection” or a “significant tear” that was consistent with sexual abused[ 4 ] ([Trial] Tr. 718).
The following day, on August 30, 2013, Detective Garland Bridges (“Detective Bridges”) went to Dilts’s house and took a recorded statement from him. During that interview, Dilts confirmed that he had a bump on his penis.
Sometime after KD.’s allegations against Dilts, DCS filed a petition alleging that K.D. was a child in need of services (“CHINS”). Dilts was subpoenaed to appear at a CHINS hearing scheduled for September .11, 2013, but he did not appear. At that time, Dilts voluntarily admitted himself to a community mental health facility after he had apparently expressed some suicidal ideation.
Shortly thereafter, on October 2, 2013, the State charged Dilts with Count [1], Class A felony child molesting (based on sexual intercourse); and Count [2], Class A felony child molesting (based on deviate sexual conduct). These acts were alleged to have occurred between January 2011 and August 2013.

Dilts v. State, 49 N.E.3d 617, 619-21 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015), trans. denied.

The trial court held a jury trial from September 15-18, 2014. At trial, Dilts requested that the trial court dismiss Count 2, arguing that:

The evidence that’s been presented is that these allegations are—the factual allegations behind the two charging in-formations are identical and, therefore, having two counts of child molest—the second count is redundant, Your Honor. There’s no evidence that one count is alleged to have occurred at a different time than the other. They are identical in nature, they are identical in time, and, therefore, we would ask that Count No. 2 be dismissed.

Id. at 625. The State argued that the two charges involved the separate acts of sexual intercourse and deviate sexual conduct. Id. The trial court denied Dilts’ request, and the jury subsequently found Dilts guilty of both charges. However, at Dilts’ sentencing hearing, the trial court vacated Dilts’ conviction for Count 2, concluding that “[u]nder the double jeopardy analysis, since it was charged during the same period of time, the incidents occurred rather simultaneously.” Id. at 626.

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Bluebook (online)
80 N.E.3d 182, 2017 WL 2665954, 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS 266, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kyle-w-dilts-v-state-of-indiana-indctapp-2017.