Lanham v. State

540 N.E.2d 612, 1989 Ind. App. LEXIS 476, 1989 WL 67423
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 22, 1989
Docket55A01-8812-CR-411
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 540 N.E.2d 612 (Lanham 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
Lanham v. State, 540 N.E.2d 612, 1989 Ind. App. LEXIS 476, 1989 WL 67423 (Ind. Ct. App. 1989).

Opinion

ROBERTSON, Judge.

Appellant-defendant Donny Lanham appeals from his convictions for child molesting and criminal confinement.

Lanham was charged with the above offenses after he went to the home of an acquaintance, removed the nine-year old daughter of the acquaintance, the victim, as she slept, and carried her to a nearby lot and molested her. Accompanying Lanham was Richard Burchett, who was also charged with molesting the victim that *613 night in a separate cause. At trial, the victim testified that several men had put a blanket over her face and taken her from her home to the lot and molested her beneath a bus. However, she was not able to testify to the details of the acts, and the court permitted the State to show a videotaped statement of the victim. Richard Burchett testified that he had been an unwilling accomplice that night and he admitted briefly fondling the victim. He testified that Lanham had performed deviate sexual conduct on the victim and had struck her and threatened her to be quiet. Burchett said he left the scene before Lan-ham released the victim.

The jury convicted Lanham as charged. Following the verdict, Lanham filed a motion for new trial based on newly-discovered evidence, which the trial court denied. Lanham appeals, presenting these three issues:

I. . Whether the videotaped statement of the victim was admitted in lieu of the victim's in-court testimony?
II. Whether the trial court erred in not applying credit for pre-trial confinement to both sentences when they are to be served consecutively?
III. Whether the trial court erred in denying Lanham's motion for new trial on the basis of newly-discovered evidence?

I.

Lanham contends that the State failed to lay a proper foundation for admission of the victim's videotaped statement in which she gives details of her sexual abuse. The State may not put into evidence a witness-declarant's version of the facts solely through the admission of the witness's prior statement under the pretext of the Patterson rule. Lewis v. State (1982), Ind., 440 N.E.2d 1125. See, Patterson v. State (1975), 263 Ind. 55, 324 N.E.2d 482. Lewis mandates that at some point the State must put the declarant of the prior statement on the stand and elicit direct testimony as to the facts at issue. Lewis, supra.

The facts of this case are identical to those of Thurston v. State (1985), Ind., 472 N.E.2d 198. There, the prosecutor was unable to elicit further direct testimony from the young victim about what had occurred during the Thursdays the victim had spent with defendant in his apartment. In her tape-recorded statement she had divulged that the defendant had fondled her and performed an act of sexual deviate conduct on her. The supreme court held that declarant's statement need not be offered at the time the declarant-witness is on the stand. In the instant case, the victim was present in court, had testified to facts related to those contained in her videotaped statement, and was available for cross-examination on those facts. We find no error in the admission of her videotaped statement.

IL.

The trial court pronounced sentence after finding that substantial aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances. Lanham received ten years on the child molesting count with no credit time given, and five years on the confinement count, to be served consecutive to the sentence on count I. The court applied 879 days of credit time against the 5-year sentence for confinement, corresponding to Lanbam's pre-trial time in jail. The court then suspended the sentence on the confinement count, subject to five year's probation.

Lanham confines his argument to the trial court's failure to give him 879 days eredit on both counts for which he was sentenced. This precise issue was squarely decided in Simms v. State (1981), Ind. App., 421 N.E.2d 698. That holding is adverse to Lanham's position. Simms also had received consecutive sentences, but was awarded credit time under only the first sentence. The court held that where a defendant is confined during the same time period for multiple offenses for which he is convicted and sentenced to consecutive terms, credit time is applied against the aggregate sentence, not against each individual sentence. Simms, id. The court observed that if credit were given against *614 each sentence, defendant would receive a "double" credit, which would result in a defendant who posted bail serving more total time than the defendant who had not posted bail. Id. at 702.

Lanham attempts to distinguish Simms, asserting that Simms' sentence was manda-torily consecutive, unlike his sentence, which the trial court had ordered to run consecutive in its discretion, utilizing statutory guidelines. Lanham reasons that a defendant charged with two offenses for which the court would be required to make consecutive upon conviction would be apprised in advance that he would only receive credit against the aggregate of those sentence. He also argues that a court ordering consecutive sentences in its discretion is retroactively removing credit time on two offenses already earned. We find little merit in Lanham's argument; the issue is not whether defendant may or may not anticipate receiving consecutive sentences, but whether defendant may be assured how his credit time will be applied for any given outcome. Our cases remove any doubt with respect to how credit time will be applied. Lanham should not have expected to received "double" credit; therefore, no credit time was "retroactively removed." The trial court has not abused its discretion in sentencing Lanham.

II.

Lanbham's argument on his final issue is that the trial court erred when it denied his motion for a new trial. Lanham claimed that certain records concerning Richard Burchett's history of sexual misconduct and violent behavior toward his mother was newly-discovered evidence which he had not, with due diligence, been able to discover before trial. Whether to grant a new trial on the basis of newly-discovered evidence is a matter which rests in the trial court's sound discretion. The trial court's decision will be overturned on appeal only for an abuse of discretion. Sanders v. State (1977), 175 Ind.App. 209, 370 N.E.2d 966.

The evidence consists of a request for authorization to file a delinquency petition, an order so authorizing, and a dispositional decree following Burchett's adjudication as a child in need of services. The various papers allege that Burchett had gotten his sister to take a photograph of him with his pants down, and had on occasion struck his mother and stolen items from the home. Lanham believes this evidence meets the criteria for newly-discovered evidence and shows that Burchett has a propensity to lie and that his past sexual misconduct shows it was more likely Burchett committed criminal deviate conduct on the victim.

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Bluebook (online)
540 N.E.2d 612, 1989 Ind. App. LEXIS 476, 1989 WL 67423, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lanham-v-state-indctapp-1989.