State of Tennesse v. Jonathan Mitchell Grimes

CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedJune 26, 2015
DocketW2014-00786-CCA-R3-CD
StatusPublished

This text of State of Tennesse v. Jonathan Mitchell Grimes (State of Tennesse v. Jonathan Mitchell Grimes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State of Tennesse v. Jonathan Mitchell Grimes, (Tenn. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT JACKSON February 3, 2015 Session Heard at Memphis1

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. JONATHAN MITCHELL GRIMES

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Gibson County No. H8987 Clayburn L. Peeples, Judge

No. W2014-00786-CCA-R3-CD - Filed June 26, 2015 ______________________

The defendant, Jonathan Mitchell Grimes, was indicted by the Gibson County Grand Jury in count 1 for rape of a child and in count 2 for aggravated sexual battery of a child under the age of thirteen. At trial, the State dismissed count 2. The jury subsequently convicted the defendant in count 1 of the lesser included offense of aggravated sexual battery, and he was sentenced to ten years at one hundred percent release eligibility. On appeal, the defendant argues: (1) the evidence is insufficient to sustain his conviction; (2) the trial court erred in allowing evidence of uncharged crimes, wrongs, or acts under Rule 403 and Rule 404(b) of the Tennessee Rules of Evidence; (3) the trial court erred in allowing the victim to testify after speaking with prosecutors during a break at trial; and (4) the State‟s bill of particulars did not provide adequate notice to him of the time frame for the charged offense, and there was a fatal variance between the bill of particulars and the evidence presented at trial. Upon review, we affirm the judgment of conviction, vacate the judgment forms in counts 1 and 2, and remand the case for entry of correct judgment forms.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Affirmed; Case Remanded

JOHN EVERETT WILLIAMS J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which ROGER A. PAGE, J., joined. CAMILLE R. MCMULLEN, J., filed a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Beau E. Pemberton, Dresden, Tennessee, for the defendant, Jonathan Mitchell Grimes.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Jeffrey D. Zentner, Assistant Attorney General; Garry G. Brown, District Attorney General; and Edward L. Hardister 1 Oral Argument was heard in this case on February 3, 2015, at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee, as a part of the S.C.A.L.E.S (Supreme Court Advancing Legal Education for Students) project. and Jason Scott, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

Trial. This case concerns allegations by the victim that the defendant, her stepfather, molested her. The defendant was subsequently indicted for rape of a child and aggravated sexual battery.

The thirteen-year-old victim testified that when she was eight years old, she moved to Medina, Tennessee, where she lived with her mother, brother, and grandmother for approximately a year and a half. She remembered having her ninth birthday while they lived in Medina. The victim said that her mother and the defendant began dating some time during that time period and that the defendant moved in with her family shortly after her family moved to Medina.

The victim recalled an incident during the time period that they lived in Medina when the defendant was tickling her and her brother and the defendant touched her vagina on the outside of her underwear. She stated that she was wearing a skirt at the time of this incident. When this incident occurred, her mother was standing at the door, and her brother was being tickled as well. The victim did not immediately tell anyone about this incident. In addition, the victim said that each night the defendant would tuck her into bed, he would touch her “private spot.” On one particular night, the defendant placed his hand under her clothes and penetrated her vagina with his finger. When this occurred, she rolled over, and the defendant stopped touching her. She said the defendant penetrated her vagina with his finger on only one occasion. The victim told her brother about these incidents of abuse, and when the defendant deployed to Iraq, she told her mother that the defendant had been touching her inappropriately. When the victim‟s mother confronted the defendant about the victim‟s accusations, the defendant denied any abuse. The victim said her mother never contacted the police about the defendant‟s abuse of her.

On a different occasion, the victim awoke to discover that she was on top of the defendant and that her pants had been pulled down. When she pulled her pants up, the defendant asked her what was wrong, and she told him she was scared of monsters and returned to her room. On a different occasion, the defendant told her that he wanted to tickle her naked, so he took her to the room she shared with brother, placed her on the top bunk, removed her clothing, and tickled her naked after blocking the door with his foot so that her brother could not get into the room. She explained that the defendant was able to tickle her on the bed and still have his foot blocking the door because the room was very small. During this incident, the victim screamed for her brother, told the defendant to -2- stop, and covered her body with the sheets as her brother tried to get in the room. The defendant finally stopped touching her and left the room. When her brother gained entry into the room, she told him what the defendant had done to her moments before. The victim said that after she told her brother about the defendant‟s abuse, her brother disclosed this abuse to a school counselor. The victim later told this counselor that she had been abused by the defendant.

The victim stated that when the defendant returned home from military deployment, they moved to a house in Milan, Tennessee, where the victim lived from age nine to age ten. She stated that there were other incidents involving the defendant that occurred after the family moved to Milan. On one occasion, when her mother was at work, the defendant tried to make her try on old clothing and told her that she had to disrobe completely. When she refused, he spanked her. She then told the defendant, “I‟m going to get you back.” She explained that this meant she was “going to tell on him.” However, she acknowledged that by the time her family moved to Milan, she had already told her mother about the defendant‟s abuse of her in Medina, even though her mother “didn‟t do anything.” On another occasion, when the victim was nine years old and her mother was at work, the defendant helped her get conditioner out of her hair and “stroked parts of [her] body.” She said, “[the defendant] was just taking the sponge and was scrubbing me on my stomach and then he went down to my private part, of course, and he said you need to wash it.” The victim said she told him to get away and was unsure whether she told her mother about that incident.

On still another occasion, when they were playing “cops and robbers,” the defendant tied the victim‟s hands to the bedpost and pulled down her pants against her will and then walked away. The victim stated that the defendant did not touch her inappropriately during the incident. Her brother, who had been trying to get into the defendant‟s bedroom, was able to enter the room and free her. The victim also recalled an incident when the defendant bent over to help her with her homework and placed his elbow on her pants so that his elbow was in contact with her vagina. She said she pushed him away because she did not “want anything touching [her] there[.]” In addition, the victim recalled an incident, although she did not know her age at the time, when the defendant instructed her to masturbate in the shower, and she complied. The victim stated she watched movies containing sexual content with the defendant and her family. She denied watching these movies with the defendant alone.

The victim stated that she had never been molested by any adult other than the defendant.

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Bluebook (online)
State of Tennesse v. Jonathan Mitchell Grimes, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennesse-v-jonathan-mitchell-grimes-tenncrimapp-2015.