McGowan v. State

742 So. 2d 1183, 1999 WL 413269
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedJune 22, 1999
Docket96-KA-01249-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 742 So. 2d 1183 (McGowan v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McGowan v. State, 742 So. 2d 1183, 1999 WL 413269 (Mich. Ct. App. 1999).

Opinion

742 So.2d 1183 (1999)

Donald McGOWAN, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Mississippi, Appellee.

No. 96-KA-01249-COA.

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

June 22, 1999.

Tom Sumrall, Crestview, FL, Attorney for Appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by Deirdre McCrory, Attorney for Appellee.

BEFORE McMILLIN, C.J., SOUTHWICK, P.J., AND COLEMAN, J.

SOUTHWICK, P.J., for the Court:

¶ 1. Donald McGowan was convicted by a Harrison County Circuit Court jury of *1184 touching a child for lustful purposes. Four errors are alleged on appeal: 1) failure to prove venue, 2) error in admitting evidence of prior physical contact between the victim and McGowan, 3) error in allowing hearsay testimony, and 4) imposition of an illegal sentence. The State concedes that the sentence is illegal. We find no other error and reverse solely for resentencing.

FACTS

¶ 2. The victim was thirteen at the time of the trial and eleven at the time of the incident. The young boy testified at trial that in December of 1993, he was driven from his home in Long Beach by McGowan to attend a "Monster Truck Show" at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi. The two were alone in the vehicle. Within ten minutes of leaving the boy's home, McGowan placed his hand inside the boy's pants and felt his penis. McGowan denied that this occurred.

¶ 3. McGowan was indicted for this sexual offense, convicted, and sentenced to fifteen years without the possibility of parole.

DISCUSSION

Issue 1: Venue

¶ 4. All the events in this case occurred in Harrison County, but the county is divided into two judicial districts. The victim lived in Long Beach, which is in the First Judicial District, but he was traveling to a town in the Second Judicial District when the incident occurred. There are two statutes relevant to this venue issue. The first statute contains a general statement about venue:

The local jurisdiction of all offenses, unless otherwise provided by law, shall be in the county where committed. But, if on the trial the evidence makes it doubtful in which of several counties, including that in which the indictment or affidavit alleges the offense was committed, such doubt shall not avail to procure the acquittal of the defendant.

Miss.Code Ann. § 99-11-3(1) (Rev.1994). The second statute is a specific provision addressing a crime occurring partially in one county and partially in another. Separate judicial districts in one county are for venue purposes the same as separate counties. In the Interest of K.A.R., 441 So.2d 108, 109 (Miss.1983).

When an offense is committed partly in one county and partly in another, or where the acts, effects, means, or agency occur in whole or in part in different counties, the jurisdiction shall be in either county in which said offense was commenced, prosecuted, or consummated, where prosecution shall be first begun.

Miss.Code Ann. § 99-11-19 (Rev.1994).

¶ 5. McGowan was tried in the First Judicial District of Harrison County, which without dispute is the location for the beginning of the trip during which the unlawful touching was said to have occurred. The trial judge took what he said was "judicial notice" that "the defendant would had to have been driving at a rate of speed in excess of 75 or 80 miles an hour to make it out of the First Judicial District while traveling east on Highway 90" and enter the Second Judicial District prior to committing the crime.

¶ 6. Judicial notice can only be taken of a fact that is "not subject to reasonable dispute in that it is either (1) generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or (2) capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned." M.R.E. 201. The noticed fact must in some fashion be subject to review.

¶ 7. Among the examples approved in the comment to Rule 201 is that judicial notice could be taken that a local department store was on a particular street. M.R.E. 201 cmt. That example is a matter "generally known within the territorial jurisdiction" and "capable of accurate and ready determination." On the other hand, *1185 the comment also states that judicial notice is improper "when the fact is a dubious one or one in controversy." Id. Where this crime occurred and whether McGowan and his passenger had crossed over an invisible judicial boundary before this crime occurred is central to the controversy.

¶ 8. What has been judicially noticed here is a perception of time and distance. Perceptions as opposed to exact measurements are inherently inexact. Lay witness estimates of measurements are at least subject to cross-examination; the perceiver's powers of observation and even memory can be challenged. Here, whether the trial judge was correct on his estimate would be difficult to answer on the appellate record. Rule 201 permits judicial notice when there is some context for the opinion that permits its accuracy to be determined. There is troubling inexactness to the point in question. We hesitate to hold that judicial notice can remove that ambiguity.

¶ 9. However, we do not need to decide whether judicial notice applies. The uncertainty as to where the vehicle was located at the time of McGowan's touching of this child makes relevant the statutes that we have already quoted. The "evidence makes it doubtful in which of several counties" the offense occurred and consequently "such doubt shall not avail to procure the acquittal of the defendant." Miss. Code Ann. § 99-11-3(1) (Rev.1994). There was some evidence that the crime occurred in the first district, but there was no especially persuasive evidence dismissing the possibility of venue in the second district. In this circumstance, ambiguity as to venue does not require acquittal for the crime. This does not mean that the statute, for example, would have permitted a conviction in Hancock County, as there was no evidence that the crime could have occurred there. It does permit a conviction in either the first or second district of Harrison County. If the crime occurred, and the jury found that it did, it was committed in one of those two districts. The statute applies when evidence demonstrates that it is quite difficult to know where the crime occurred.

¶ 10. In addition, the offense arguably was "commenced, prosecuted, or consummated" in the first district. Miss.Code Ann. § 99-11-19 (Rev.1994). The supreme court has held that the filing of false land deeds in one judicial district can be the "commencement" of a crime for purposes of a prosecution in another judicial district on the charge of false pretenses. Rogers v. State, 266 So.2d 10, 19 (Miss.1972). Rogers had been tried in the Second Judicial District of Harrison County, but at the time the deeds were recorded, they had to be recorded in the First Judicial District. Id. at 10, 16. "The recordation of these deeds was the center from which the web was woven to wrongfully ensnare the State's money." Id. at 20.

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Bluebook (online)
742 So. 2d 1183, 1999 WL 413269, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcgowan-v-state-missctapp-1999.