State of Tennessee v. Joseph Nathaniel Nance

393 S.W.3d 212, 2012 WL 1744500, 2012 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 316
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedMay 16, 2012
DocketE2010-01221-CCA-R3-CD
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 393 S.W.3d 212 (State of Tennessee v. Joseph Nathaniel Nance) 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 Tennessee v. Joseph Nathaniel Nance, 393 S.W.3d 212, 2012 WL 1744500, 2012 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 316 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

OPINION

D. KELLY THOMAS, JR., J.,

delivered the opinion of the court,

in which JOSEPH M. TIPTON, P.J., and CAMILLE R. MCMULLEN, J„ joined.

The Defendant, Joseph Nathaniel Nance, was convicted of six counts of rape of a child and one count of aggravated sexual battery. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court imposed an 18-year sentence for each rape of a child conviction and a 10-year sentence for the aggravated sexual battery conviction. The court ordered consecutive service of several of the convictions, resulting in a total effective sentence of 64 years. On appeal, the Defendant raises the following issues for our review: (1) whether the trial court erred by excluding sexual entries from the victim’s MySpace page as irrelevant and inadmissible; (2) whether the trial court erred by allowing evidence of the victim’s prior sexual history to be used only for impeachment purposes; (3) whether the evidence was sufficient to support the Defendant’s convictions; and (4) whether the Defendant’s effective 64-year sentence was excessive. 1 Following our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On July 7, 2008, the Defendant was charged with six counts of rape of a child and one count of aggravated sexual battery against the victim, M.L. 2 A three-day trial was held August 18 through 20, 2009. At trial, the State claimed that on or about November 1, 2007, through May 2008, the Defendant sexually penetrated M.L. on six different occasions and, on one occasion, engaged in unlawful sexual contact with the victim.

M.L. provided that her birthdate was April 20, 1997, thus, making her 12 years old at the time of trial. She testified that in November 2007, she moved into a mobile home in Campbell County with her mother, her sister, and the Defendant, who was one of her mother’s “ex-fiances.” At that time, she was in the fifth grade. Because the victim’s mother was employed at McDonald’s in Lake City working fluxuat-ing shifts, the Defendant, who was a truck driver, was often alone with the victim and her sister. According to the victim, the rapes took place in the Defendant and her mother’s bedroom, her bedroom, and the living room of the home. During many of the episodes, the Defendant advised the victim of “rule number one” — that he *216 would kill her if she told anyone about the rapes.

The victim testified that on one occasion, the Defendant called her into his bedroom to help clean and simultaneously sent her sister outside to rake leaves. According to the victim, there were “no leaves in the yard because it was like spring or right before fall.” The victim testified that once inside the bedroom, the Defendant took her clothes off and pushed her down on the bed. He then spread her legs and put his penis all the way inside her. The victim told the Defendant that she “didn’t want to,” but the Defendant said, “Well, too bad[.]”

According to the victim, another rape occurred on an old, pink sofa in her bedroom when her mother was at work and her sister was away from the house. The Defendant pushed her down onto the sofa and removed her pants. The Defendant “started to put his penis inside” her. She told him no and tried to push him off, but he slapped her in the face with “[t]he back of his hand” when she told him no. He was wearing a ring on the hand he used to slap her, and the slap resulted in a “huge” bruise. She stated that when he raped her it “hurt.” A few hours after the rape, she noticed “blood all over [her] panties[,]” and upon informing the Defendant of this, he told her to throw the underwear behind the washing machine. The Defendant later retrieved the panties and showed them to the victim’s mother, who confronted her with them. The victim told her mother that she thought she had started her period and “freaked out so [she] throwed [sic] it behind the washer.” She also told her mom that she got the bruise on her face when she was playing basketball with her sister and her sister hit her in the face with the ball.

The victim recounted that one afternoon, she was reading a Harry Potter book on her bed, when the Defendant came into her room. He “grabbed the book” from her and “told [her] to take off [her] clothes and get on [her] hands and knees.” According to the victim, the Defendant had previously tried to anally rape her but stopped because she started screaming and her mother was due home. Despite this fact, she complied with the Defendant’s demands to get on her hands and knees this time because she was afraid of him. The Defendant then stuck “his penis up [her] butt,” which she stated “hurt really bad.” During the ordeal, the Defendant instructed her to watch out the window for her mother’s return from her neighbor’s house. She tried to get away, but the Defendant overpowered her. When asked about the measures she took to try to get away from the Defendant, she responded: “I would push away, and he would grab my arms and just lock on. And sometimes he would grab my hair or he would slap me or anything that I tried to get away, but he wouldn’t let me.” After anally penetrating her on this occasion, he turned her over, “[p]ut the white stuff on [her] bed[,]” and instructed her on “rule number one.” He then “wiped it off with the covert,]” put his pants back on, and “acted like nothing ever happened.” Following this rape, she could not go to the bathroom without severe pain for a period of time.

Next, the victim recalled an incident when, just after getting a new television satellite, she was lying on the sofa eating and watching the children’s cartoon “Spon-geBob SquarePants” on the television. According to the victim, it was approximately 7:10 a.m. on a weekend morning, and her mother and sister were still asleep. The Defendant came into the living room in his “orange and white Tennessee pajamas” and said they needed to hurry before the victim’s mother woke up. She said, “What are you talking about,” *217 and he said, ‘You’ll see.” He then took off the victim’s pants, spread her legs open, and “started penetrating [her.]” The Defendant put his hands on either side of her neck during this encounter. She did not fight him because she was afraid of him by this time as he had already hit her in the face and “pulled [her] hair and everything, so [she] learned not to do anything.”

The victim testified of another anal rape that took place in the Defendant and her mother’s bedroom when she was looking at some of her dead grandmother’s pictures. The Defendant came in and took the pictures from her, telling her she was “done[.]” The Defendant then removed their clothes. He then “bent [the victim] over at the foot of their bed, and he started putting his penis in [her] butt.” Although no one else was home, she started screaming and crying. The victim said that on this occasion, she fought with the Defendant, trying to get away from him; however, the Defendant pulled her hair and backhanded her with his ring hand. When he finished, “he had white stuff all over the bed” and again informed her of “rule number one.” The victim stated that the Defendant never “put anything on his penis ... [t]o prevent her hurting[,]” and after this rape, it hurt when she walked for two or three weeks.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
393 S.W.3d 212, 2012 WL 1744500, 2012 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 316, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennessee-v-joseph-nathaniel-nance-tenncrimapp-2012.