State v. Alexander

875 P.2d 345, 265 Mont. 192, 51 State Rptr. 474, 1994 Mont. LEXIS 106
CourtMontana Supreme Court
DecidedMay 24, 1994
Docket93-456
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 875 P.2d 345 (State v. Alexander) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Montana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Alexander, 875 P.2d 345, 265 Mont. 192, 51 State Rptr. 474, 1994 Mont. LEXIS 106 (Mo. 1994).

Opinion

JUSTICE WEBER

delivered the Opinion of the Court.

This is an appeal by defendant Paul A. Alexander from the judgment entered in the Eleventh Judicial District Court, Flathead County, following a jury conviction of one count of sexual intercourse without consent and one count of sexual assault, both felonies. We affirm in part and reverse in part and remand to the District Court for resentencing.

Alexander presents two issues for our review:

I. Did the District Court err in permitting the jury to hear improper hearsay testimony?

*194 II. Did the District Court err in refusing to continue the sentencing in order to allow the inclusion of a sex offender evaluation in the Pre-Sentence Investigation?

Paul A. Alexander (Alexander) was originally charged with two counts each of sexual assault and sexual intercourse without consent, all felonies, involving two of his step-grandchildren, a boy and a girl. The boy was eleven years old at the time Alexander was charged with the offenses. The charges regarding the five-year-old girl were later dismissed upon motion by the State that she was not competent to testify.

The alleged abuse of Alexander’s step-grandson had begun when he was in the first or second grade and had continued until he was in the fourth grade. Testimony showed that the victim was alone with his step-grandfather almost on a daily basis, that they shared a “special relationship” and spent a good deal of time together. The victim was often alone in the house with Alexander while his mother, grandmother and other household members were outdoors working horses or otherwise absent. Further, the victim, his parents and older brother had stayed with the Alexanders for a period of nine months in 1988 while their home was being constructed.

In April of 1992, Alexander and his wife separated. The victim’s mother testified that in August of 1992, her son (the victim) came to her very upset, crying and feeling he had done something wrong because of something Alexander had done to him. The mother took him to a counselor and the sexual abuse was subsequently reported to the police. Alexander was tried before a jury on June 16 and 17, 1993, for committing the two offenses involving his step-grandson. On June 17, 1993, the jury returned a guilty verdict for each of the offenses against the boy.

Prior to the trial, on June 16, 1993, Alexander filed a Motion in Limine to bar statements made by the victim to several persons as inadmissible hearsay. Although the court granted the defendant’s motion subject to allowance by the court pursuant to Rule 801(d)(1)(A) or (B), M.R.Evid., the prosecution made several references to the material covered by Alexander’s motion in its opening statement during the trial. Testimony elicited by the prosecution and objected to by Alexander as hearsay was allowed over his ongoing objections.

During a recess of the trial, Alexander moved the court for a mistrial based on the following four points: (1) in opening statements, the State violated the Order in limine by referring to statements *195 made by the victim to Brad Custer, a school counselor, that the abuse had occurred in Alexander’s home; (2) also in opening statements, the State violated the Order in limine by referring to statements made by the victim to Detective Maxine Lamb; (3) Brad Custer’s testimony stating that the victim had told him that the abuse occurred in his step-grandfather’s house; and (4) the testimony by the victim’s mother concerning what her son had told her about the alleged abuse and what a counselor had told her concerning the abuse. Alexander’s motion for a mistrial was denied.

Following that denial of his motion, Alexander again objected to statements introduced by Robert Piersall (Piersall), a licensed social worker in private practice in Kalispell, who had treated the victim for sexual abuse when the victim’s parents brought him to Piersall for counseling. The District Court allowed Piersall to testify about a post-traumatic stress disorder which Piersall had concluded that the victim suffered from and which was evident in children who had been sexually abused or had suffered from other traumatic events. Piersall further testified that he knew of no other traumatic events in the victim’s experience.

After the jury returned the guilty verdicts against Alexander on both counts regarding his step-grandson, a Sentencing Hearing was set for August 5, 1993. The District Court ordered a presentence investigation. On June 24,1993, Alexander filed a Motion for Evaluation requesting that an evaluation be conducted to assess his amenability to outpatient sexual offender treatment. The District Court ordered such an evaluation to be completed by Northwest Family Recovery in Kalispell and ordered further that it be included in the presentence investigation.

Andy Hudak (Hudak), director of Northwest Family Recovery was conducting the sex offender evaluation of Alexander. Hudak had not completed the evaluation by August 5, 1993, the date scheduled for the Sentencing Hearing. Alexander moved to continue the hearing until the evaluation was completed; this motion was denied by the District Court. The State presented information at the Sentencing Hearing concerning information Hudak had provided to the prosecutor regarding Alexander’s amenability to treatment. In spite of the fact that the evaluation had not been completed, the District Court sentenced Alexander to thirty years imprisonment and designated him a dangerous offender for parole purposes, with the added requirement that he must successfully complete the sex offender program at *196 the Montana State Prison to be considered for parole. Additional facts will be supplied as necessary throughout this opinion.

Issue I: Hearsay

Did the District Court err in permitting the jury to hear improper hearsay testimony?

Alexander contends that the District Court’s admission of hearsay statements made by the victim to Brad Custer, Detective Maxine Lamb, his mother and to Robert Piersall was error and resulted in substantial prejudice to him. He contends that the pretrial Motion in Limine and resulting Order acted to enjoin the State from “referring to or using, in any manner, hearsay statements made by the victims to Brad Custer, Maxine Lamb, Robert Piersall and Lauren Langmead, unless and until same are ruled allowable by the court pursuant to Rule 801 (d)(1)(B).” Alexander claims that the court then improperly allowed such hearsay statements during the trial, beginning with statements made by the State during its opening statements.

Alexander contends that the following statements made by the prosecutor during her opening statements to the jury constitute reversible error:

... And in Late August of 92, [the victim] began approaching his parents saying that he felt he had done something wrong and he would be crying. He would say that Paul would tickle him on his thighs, on his legs. And the parents, as any parent would, investigated. And they went and talked to the school counselor; and the school counselor called Maxine Lamb of the Sheriff’s Department; and Maxine Lamb of the Sheriff’s Department suggested they go see Brad Custer of the Department of Family Services.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
875 P.2d 345, 265 Mont. 192, 51 State Rptr. 474, 1994 Mont. LEXIS 106, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-alexander-mont-1994.