State v. Bell

106 So. 3d 295, 11 La.App. 3 Cir. 720, 2013 WL 85263, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 5
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 9, 2013
DocketNo. 11-720
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 106 So. 3d 295 (State v. Bell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Bell, 106 So. 3d 295, 11 La.App. 3 Cir. 720, 2013 WL 85263, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 5 (La. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

GREMILLION, Judge.

| defendant, Robert W. Bell, was indicted by a grand jury on March 6, 2008, for aggravated rape, a violation of La.R.S. 14:42, and sexual battery, a violation of La.R.S. 14:43.1. The indictment alleged Defendant engaged in oral sexual intercourse with H.N., a juvenile born March 16, 1994, and made H.N. touch his penis with her hand during a period of time from January 1, 1997, to December 31, 2003.1 Defendant filed a motion for discovery and inspection and two motions for bill of particulars on May 2, 2008. The State filed a motion for production of physical evidence on May 22, 2008. The trial court granted the State’s motion on June 10, 2008, and ordered Defendant to “provide all physical evidence of photographs of his penis to the State of Louisiana for comparison through Calcasieu Parish Sheriffs Office on June 11, 2008.” Photographs of Defendant’s penis were taken on June 11, 2008, by Corporal Tim Soileau.

The State responded to Defendant’s motion for bill of particulars on June 18, 2008, by furnishing a copy of the indictment and by responding, “The answers can be obtained by reading the Discovery materials.” The State objected to furnishing a further response.

The jury found Defendant not guilty on the first count of aggravated rape and guilty of attempted sexual battery as a responsive verdict on the second count. He was sentenced to five years at hard labor with credit for time served. Defendant filed a motion in arrest of judgment, a motion for judgment of acquittal, and a motion for new trial, which were denied. He alleges eight assignments of error on appeal. We affirm.

| ¡.FACTS

H.N. was sixteen years old at the time of trial. She had never seen or lived with her biological father. H.N. has three brothers, two older and one younger than [298]*298she. In 1997, H.N. was three years old, and Defendant was her stepfather.

At trial, H.N. testified Defendant made her “touch him in bad ways whenever [she] was a little girl.” The first time occurred when H.N. was three or four years old. She peeked in the bathroom door, and Defendant told her to come in. His pants were down, and “he had [her] feel him ... with [her] hand.” She touched his penis with her hand. The touching always occurred in the bathroom when her two older brothers were at school and her mother was at work.

When H.N. touched Defendant’s penis, she noticed “a bump” on it; Defendant told her “he swallowed a banana Runt [candy], and it got stuck.” His penis felt “kind of hard, kind of squishy ... the same at one time.” Defendant would tell H.N. “to try and hang on it.” Defendant continued to make H.N. touch his penis until she was around eight or nine years old.

On one occasion, Defendant “grabbed a rag and then he said he needed to clean [her]. And he brought me to momma’s room and laid me down and put his hand down there. And the rag, it wasn’t the rag.... Because it was warm and slimy and a rag is rough.” She recalled seeing the rag on his hand, and she did not look down. This incident occurred before H.N. started attending school.

H.N. said she told Defendant she wanted to tell someone about what happened to her. Defendant “told [her] to tell ... over and over again,” but she never did until she told her friend, Brittany Campbell, around age thirteen. H.N. also told Brittany’s sister, Brooke; she asked them not to tell anyone because she “was scared.”

|aWhen H.N.’s mother first questioned her about whether Defendant had done anything to her, she told her no “because [she] didn’t want them to know.” H.N. and her mother went to the sheriff’s office the day after H.N. “talked to her about everything,” and over the next couple of days H.N. told them things she remembered as she “would get nerve enough where [she] was able to tell them — tell her.” She told how she would wake up and Defendant “would have a porno in; and he would have [her] sit down and watch it with him,” how Defendant “would tell [her] to go get a knife, and he said that it was too big and he needed to cut it off now,” and “how [they] used to take showers together.”

At trial, H.N. explained she used pictures of a girl and a man at the child advocacy interview to show what happened to her. She circled the vagina “because he licked me down there,” and she circled the hands because he touched her with them. On the picture of a man, she circled the penis “[b]ecause he made [her] touch him there,” and she circled the mouth “[b]e-cause he touched [her] with that.”

H.N. testified she told the truth at trial and did not lie to get back at Defendant, her stepfather, for anything. She did not tell her mother sooner “[b]ecause [she] was scared. [She] thought [she] was going to get in trouble. And [Defendant] was [her] dad. [She] didn’t want him going anywhere.”

Brittany Campbell was eighteen at the time she testified at trial. She had known H.N. since the third grade, and they were good friends. When Brittany was around age twelve or thirteen in the fifth grade, H.N. told her Defendant had made her watch dirty movies with him and made her touch him when she was younger. H.N. asked Brittany not to tell anyone, and Brittany told H.N. she should tell her mom when she was ready. Brittany did not believe H.N. would lie about something like this; when H.N. told Brittany, “She [299]*299was like crying.... She was|4very upset. She didn’t want to tell me at first.” Brittany promised H.N. she would not say anything, but she encouraged H.N. to tell her mother. From her point of view, Brittany believed Defendant was a good man, based on how he treated her personally.

April Bell, Defendant’s former wife and H.N.’s mother, testified that she met Defendant in July 1996. Defendant watched H.N. after school several times, and he moved into a trailer with April in August 1997. In January 1999, April began attending school, and Defendant took care of H.N. while April was in class. April and Defendant were married on May 12, 2000. Throughout 2001 and 2002, Defendant watched H.N. after school.

April’s divorce from Defendant became final in October 2005. Their custody agreement involved visitation of their child together, but H.N. would also visit Defendant sometimes. Defendant and April reconciled around March 2006, and were together for about a year, and H.N. spent time with Defendant in 2007.

In January 2008, April’s son asked H.N. if something had happened to her after a discussion of possible abuse involving H.N.’s younger half-brother. H.N. was eating, and she put her head down and burst into tears. April then asked her about exactly what happened; she called the sheriffs department and made an appointment for the next day.

Detective Michael Primeaux, of the Cal-casieu Parish Sheriffs Office, received an arrest warrant for Defendant on January 24, 2008, and arranged for Defendant’s arrest in Beauregard Parish. Detective Primeaux first asked Defendant how many times H.N. had touched his penis with her hand. Defendant said, “never, never happened, couldn’t have happened, didn’t happen.” Detective Primeaux then asked Defendant “about the time when she had disclosed to [them] about the oral sex when he would wipe her with a rag.” Defendant said “that | ¡¡never happened, he the [sic] never did oral sex on her, never could have happened, didn’t happen.” Defendant also denied H.N. could have walked into the bathroom after he had taken a shower. Defendant did say he was urinating in the restroom on one occasion when H.N. walked in on him. He was able to turn away, and H.N.

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Related

State v. Bell
140 So. 3d 830 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2014)
State of Louisiana v. Kenneth Bell, Sr.
Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2014

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
106 So. 3d 295, 11 La.App. 3 Cir. 720, 2013 WL 85263, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 5, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-bell-lactapp-2013.