State of Iowa v. Blake Allen Huffman

Court of Appeals of Iowa·Decided September 10, 2015·No. 14-1143·Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 14-1143

Filed September 10, 2015

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

BLAKE ALLEN HUFFMAN, Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Grundy County, Joel A. Dalrymple, Judge.

Defendant appeals from his conviction and sentence for five counts of second-degree sexual abuse, one count of third-degree sexual abuse, and one count of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse. AFFIRMED.

Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Melinda J. Nye, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Aaron Rogers, Assistant Attorney General, Kirby D. Schmidt, County Attorney, and Erika Allen, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.

Considered by Danilson, C.J., and Vogel and Tabor, JJ.

DANILSON, C.J.

Blake Huffman appeals from his conviction and sentence for five counts of second-degree sexual abuse, one count of third-degree sexual abuse, and one count of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse. He maintains the district court abused its discretion by allowing an expert witness to testify as to the credibility of the two complaining witnesses. In the alternative, if we find error was not preserved, Huffman maintains trial counsel was ineffective for allowing the expert witness to vouch for the witness’s credibility without proper objections. Huffman maintains counsel was also ineffective for failing to move to dismiss the strict liability charges because the application of strict liability against a juvenile violates his right to substantive due process. Finally, if we do not remand for a new trial for any of the aforementioned claims of error, Huffman maintains he must be resentenced after an individualized hearing because he received a long aggregate sentence for acts committed as a juvenile.

Because we find the expert testimony, allowed in over trial counsel’s objection, was cumulative, Huffman was not prejudiced by its admission, and reversal is not warranted. Because error was not preserved on the other testimony Huffman complains of, we analyze his claims of error under an ineffective-assistance framework, and we find he has not established he was prejudiced by counsel’s failure to object. Moreover, we find Huffman’s trial counsel had no duty to move to dismiss the strict liability crimes as violating Huffman’s right to due process. Finally, because the district court provided Huffman a “meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated

maturity and rehabilitation,” and did not impose any mandatory minimums, there is no need for a separate individualized hearing. We affirm. I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

On February 26, 2013, Huffman was charged by trial information with five counts of sexual abuse in the second degree (Counts I-V), one count of sexual abuse in the third degree (Count VI), and one count of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse (Count VII). Each of the second-degree-sexual-abuse charges were alleged to have occurred while Huffman was under the age of eighteen. The counts of sexual abuse in the third degree and assault with intent to commit sexual abuse were alleged to have occurred while Huffman was age fourteen to eighteen.

Huffman pled not guilty to each of the charges, and the matter proceeded to trial February 24–26, 2014. At trial, Katie Strub, a forensic interviewer who works with children who are suspected victims of abuse, testified as an expert witness for the State. She was asked about child abuse dynamics in general, as well as her interviews with John Doe and Jane Doe.1 The following exchange occurred during direct examination of Strub:

Q: So when you talk to children who are coming in and telling you about this, you know, it sounds like there’s kind of a wide variety of how people react to things; correct? A: Yes.

Q: Are there some flags that you look for? Some red flags, I guess? A: In regard to?

Q: In regard to when they come in and talk to you. I mean, if they come in and they use words that are completely above kind of their developmental stage, is that something that concerns you? A:

Yes. We want to make sure that what the children tell us is developmentally appropriate. So we would expect a three-year-old

1 The children were referred to as Jane Doe and John Doe in the trial information. Because the children share initials, we continue to use the pseudonyms here.

to describe something to us in words that a three-year-old understands instead of in words that we would expect only an adult to use. Just the same way we would expect a 14-year-old to talk to us in 14-year-old terms instead of in a way that a three-year-old would talk to us.

We want to make sure that, like I said before, the kids are using their own words. They’re not using someone else’s words and they’re not making something up.

....

Q: Do you remember if she ever mentioned a knife? A: I don’t recall [Jane Doe] mentioning a knife.

Q: Would that surprise you? A: If someone said she did?

Q: No, if, say, she said now that there had been a knife?

A: No.

Q: Why? A: Because—

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Objection, Your Honor. I think this is starting to get into the province of the jury as far as truthfulness.

THE COURT: It’s overruled.

Q: Go ahead. A: Because like we’ve talked about before, sometimes kids or just people remember different things later on than at a time they were initially questioned about something.

Q: Now you also talked to [John Doe]? A: Yes.

....

Q: And even at the time that they talked with you they weren’t able to necessarily pin down the date that this happened? A: Correct. They were able to give me approximate ages, but we don’t really ask the children to pin down dates with us because generally kids aren’t able to give us a lot of specific information about dates, especially if they were little when something happened.

....

Q: So if they were able to talk about the year in school they were because they remember a particular teacher or they remember a particular event, that’s more how kids are able to remember time than anything else? A: Usually, yes.

Q: And what about this idea that [Jane Doe] talked about there being more times that it happened and she could only talk about a few? Is that typical? A: Yes.

Q: Tell us about that. A: Because if something similar happened over and over again, it would be unlikely for a child to be able to tell us everything that happened time one, time two, time 15, time 37. Especially if it was a very similar act over and over and over. Sometimes kids then, just as we adults, would start to talk about something that typically happened or usually happened rather than being able to separate each specific incident.

Q: And it’s easier, would you not agree with me, to separate something if there’s a particular part of that that stands out to them?

A: Yes.

On redirect, the following occurred:

Q: So there were things that she didn’t tell you that—would you consider that to be normal? A: Yes. I didn’t ask her.

Q: And there was some idea that somehow, you know, you would find it unusual if [John Doe] and [Jane Doe] hadn’t spoken at some point about what happened to them? A: Yes.

Q: To each other? But you asked them both if they knew what had been done to the other and when they talked to you they hadn’t known what had been done to the other. A: Correct.

Q: You also talked about, on cross, this idea of family dynamics and how we can’t ever know about somebody’s family dynamic, but you were giving us some features that you look for when kids talk about using appropriate language. Did [John Doe]

and [Jane Doe] use appropriate language? A: Yes.

Q: And them being able to correct you if you were wrong about something and both of them were able to do that? A: Yes.

Q: So those things didn’t appear in your interviews? A:

Correct.

At the conclusion of trial, the jury found Huffman guilty of each of the seven charges.

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