Shamblin v. State

601 So. 2d 407, 1992 WL 118663
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedJune 3, 1992
Docket89-KA-0709
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 601 So. 2d 407 (Shamblin 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
Shamblin v. State, 601 So. 2d 407, 1992 WL 118663 (Mich. 1992).

Opinion

601 So.2d 407 (1992)

James T. SHAMBLIN
v.
STATE of Mississippi.

No. 89-KA-0709.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

June 3, 1992.

*408 Boyd P. Atkinson, Cleveland, for appellant.

Michael C. Moore, Atty. Gen., Charles W. Maris, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Before HAWKINS, P.J., and PITTMAN and BANKS, JJ.

HAWKINS, Presiding Justice, for the Court:

James T. Shamblin appeals from his conviction in the circuit court of Bolivar County of two counts of sexual battery and two counts of touching a child for lustful purposes. He was sentenced to fifteen (15) years for the sexual battery convictions and five (5) years for the latter convictions in the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with the sentences to run concurrently. Finding no error, we affirm.

FACTS

James T. Shamblin and his first wife had five children, namely:[1] Edward Martin, Cynthia Lynn, Jeffrey Dale, Samuel Dean, and Amanda Clare. In 1977, when Amanda Clare was two years old, Shamblin's first wife died. Shortly thereafter he remarried a widow, and she helped rear his younger children who were still at home. Mrs. Shamblin also had children from a previous marriage.

In 1988 Shamblin and Mrs. Shamblin lived in Cleveland, along with Samuel, 16, and Amanda, 13 years of age.[2] Shamblin, 56 years old, and Mrs. Shamblin were both employed by area industries.

On November 16, 1988, Amanda telephoned her sister, Mrs. Cynthia Collins in Drew, reporting that Shamblin had sexually molested her; she was crying. Mrs. Collins reported the matter on the child abuse hotline, and Anita Reginelli, social worker with the Bolivar County Welfare Department, on November 18, went to Amanda's school in Cleveland and talked with Amanda. Reginelli then notified George Serio, investigator with the Cleveland *409 Police Department, who also questioned Amanda Clare. Following this Shamblin was arrested.

Amanda went to her sister's home in Drew, and following a youth court hearing, stayed in Mrs. Collins's home until March 25, 1989, when she was taken to a child abuse shelter in Greenville. On November 19, 1988, William B. Profilet, M.D., a gynecologist in Cleveland, made a physical examination of Amanda, and found her hymen intact.

On March 29, 1989, Amanda was counseled by Paul Davey, a child psychotherapist with the regional mental health center. Davey held a master's degree in counseling psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi. In June, 1989, he counseled her upon three separate occasions, totaling three and one-half hours in time spent with her.

On April 19, 1989, the grand jury of the Second Judicial District of Bolivar County indicted Shamblin on four counts of sexual assault, namely:

(1) On October 28, 1988, feloniously engaging in sexual penetration with Amanda by inserting his finger into her vagina;
(2) On the same date feloniously engaging in sexual penetration with Amanda by inserting his penis into her mouth;
(3) On November 4, 1988, feloniously, for purpose of gratifying his sexual desires, touching and rubbing Amanda with his penis;
(4) On November 1, 1988, for purpose of gratifying his sexual desires, handling and rubbing Amanda with his hands.

Trial was held June 5, 1988. Amanda testified that when she was twelve, her father rubbed his penis in her presence and asked her if she had ever seen one. She told him "no." He said, "This is my way of teaching you about sex."

In October and November, 1988, her brother Samuel, a high school student, was employed at a local grocery. Mrs. Shamblin used Friday nights to do her grocery shopping for the ensuing week, and would be gone from the house an hour or two. Amanda also testified that on the Friday nights in question, Samuel was working at the store.

She testified that on Friday night, October 28, the two were in the living room when Shamblin told her to go put on her mini-skirt without any panties. She did so, and she said, "He started rubbing on me and then he put his hand under my skirt and put his finger inside me." After this happened:

He got up and he went into the bathroom and he told me to get on my knees and when I got on my knees he put his penis in my mouth and he said to put my mouth on it as far as it would go and I started fake choking so he would stop.

(R. 76)

On the Friday nights of November 4 and 11, Shamblin's acts consisted of rubbing her on her breasts, asking her to rub his penis, and taking her into the bathroom and standing behind her and rubbing his body up against hers. Following this, he ejaculated into the commode.

Davey testified that he had in the past five years seen from 220 to 225 children who had been sexually abused, and had seen over a hundred in the past year.

On direct examination he testified:

Q. Mr. Davey, based on your expertise in the field, what characteristics are evident in a sexually abused child?
A. Children sometimes respond in different ways when they have been abused, but, generally, at the first appointment when I am seeing a child, I look for certain things in what the child tells me. I look at whether or not the child has difficulty remembering certain events over others, whether or not they have difficulty in describing sexually related material in the children's terms, whether or not the child is making a one shot statement, that kind of thing, where the child says it only happened once and it never happened again. I look for whether or not the child can talk about what happened *410 out of context. I also look for the emotional reactions of the child — do they have some emotions about what they say happened. I look at whether or not the child always has to start at the beginning when they are talking about what happened to them and whether or not there is some unfolding statements that the child makes of the time. Those are generally the things that I consider, taking the history and getting through that first appointment with the child.
Q. And are these what you consider the behavioral characteristic indicators of a child who has been sexually abused?
A. The things that I look for in those are — the child having difficulty talking about what happened, having emotional reaction, which can be depression — you can be depressed as the result of being sexually abused. I also and quite often see the kids that have been, that they have a little problem of trust, you know, they don't trust other people. They have a little problem with feelings of shame and feelings of self blame, feeling like they have done something wrong. Generally speaking, I would say that those are the characteristics that most kids have that come in.
Q. When you saw [Amanda], what, if any of these characteristics — behavioral characteristics were indicated by [Amanda]?
A. [Amanda] had difficulty initially talking about what she had experienced. She was tearful in her first session — said she was having some feelings of depression — feeling depressed about what she said had happened to her. She also said that she had a great problem being able to trust people and figuring out who she could trust as opposed to who she couldn't. She felt like she was to blame and she had a good many feelings of what had happened to her was somehow her fault, that it somehow happened because of her.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
601 So. 2d 407, 1992 WL 118663, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shamblin-v-state-miss-1992.