State v. Cramer

2002 UT 9, 44 P.3d 690, 439 Utah Adv. Rep. 15, 2002 Utah LEXIS 13, 2002 WL 91630
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 25, 2002
Docket991065
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 2002 UT 9 (State v. Cramer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah 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. Cramer, 2002 UT 9, 44 P.3d 690, 439 Utah Adv. Rep. 15, 2002 Utah LEXIS 13, 2002 WL 91630 (Utah 2002).

Opinion

DURRANT, Justice.

1 1 Albert J. Cramer appeals his conviction on two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, raising two independent claims. The first raises the question of whether the Utah Constitution entitles an accused to full disclosure of the privileged medical records of a victim who testifies against the accused. In a pretrial ruling, the trial court denied Cram-er's request that his attorney be permitted to evaluate the child victim's medical records to determine whether any of them were material to his defense. Instead, the court sereened the records in camera. Based on its in camera review, the court did not disclose any of the records to Cramer, having determined that none of them was material to his defense. We hold that this in camera review did not violate Cramer's rights under the Utah Constitution.

12 Cramer's second claim on appeal concerns a spectator's statements to the child victim while the child waited to testify against Cramer. The statements occurred outside the court's presence, the court having excluded the child and other witnesses from the courtroom pursuant to Cramer's request. Upon learning of the spectator's statements, Cramer moved for a new trial, alleging that the spectator told the child victim about (1) other witnesses' testimony and (2) Cramer's abuse of the spectator's children in an unrelated matter. The court rejected Cramer's motion, determining that the evidence Cram-er presented in support of his motion did not prove prejudice sufficient to warrant a new trial. We conclude that the trial court did not exceed its discretion in denying Cramer's motion for a new trial.

T3 Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's rulings and Cramer's convictions.

BACKGROUND

T4 On October 21, 1996, Cramer was designated a Court Appointed Special Advocate ("CASA") for M.L. At the time of Cramer's appointment, M.L. was approximately seven years, three months old, and was housed at the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute ("UNI"). In his role as M.L 's CASA, Cramer often took ML. on outings.

T5 After M.L.'s adoption, M.L.'s adoptive mother, sensing "something wasn't right" with him, took ML. for an interview with Detective Alex Huggard of the Murray Police Department on August 8, 1997. During this initial interview, M.L. denied that Cram-er had inappropriately touched him.

T6 In March 1998, the Division of Family Services called Detective Huggard and suggested he interview ML. a second time. During this second interview, conducted on March 6, 1998, M.L. claimed that Cramer had inappropriately touched him. Cramer was subsequently arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child. On August 13, 1998, ML. testified at a preliminary hearing that Cramer had touched M.L.'s "front private part"-the part "use[d] to go to the bathroom"-"more than one time." ML. also testified that Cramer touched his "back private part." According to ML., Cramer touched ML 's "private parts" sometimes over M.L.'s clothes and sometimes under them.

I. MOTION TO COMPEL DISCLOSURE OF MLS UNI RECORDS

T7 Before trial, Cramer filed a motion to compel disclosure of M.L.'s records maintained by UNI. Cramer argued that this information was critical to his defense since the case depended on M.L 's credibility. In his memorandum in support of this motion, Cramer requested full disclosure of M.L.'s records, but at a hearing on this motion, Cramer's attorney stated that, at a minimum, the court should conduct an in camera review of the records. At this hearing, M.L's guardian ad litem argued against disclosure on the ground that the records were privileged medical records. See Utah R. Evid. 506(c) (allowing guardian to claim privilege on behalf of protected person). The court ruled that it would conduct an in camera review of the records pursuant to Pennsylva *693 nia v. Ritchie, 480 U.S. 39, 107 S.Ct. 989, 94 L.Ed.2d 40 (1987), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not entitle an accused to "conduct his own search of the State's files," whether or not the files contain privileged information. Id. at 56 & n. 15, 57-60, 107 S.Ct. 989 (ruling that, when an accused establishes a sufficient basis to justify an in camera review, a court must conduct the review and disclose material information to the accused). Upon conducting an in camera review, the trial court ruled that none of the records was "material" to the defense within the meaning of Ritchie, and thus did not disclose any of the records to Cramer.

II. MOTION FOR A NEW TRIAL BASED ON SPECTATORS STATE MENTS TO M.L. AT CRAMERS TRIAL

T8 At the beginning of Cramer's trial, the court granted Cramer's request under Utah Rule of Evidence 615, which provides, subject to exceptions, that "[alt the request of a partyl,] the court shall order witnesses ex-eluded so that they cannot hear the testimony of other witnesses...." Pursuant to this ruling, the court also instructed the prospective witnesses, including ML., 1 not to speak to anyone or let anyone approach them about the case. Accordingly, ML. waited to testify outside the courtroom.

T9 Susan Mineer, who was not a witness, attended the trial. In an unrelated case, Cramer pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges involving two of Mineer's sons. During breaks in Cramer's trial, Mineer spoke to M.L. outside the court's presence while he waited to testify against Cramer.

110 ML. testified at trial that Cramer touched his front and back "private parts," both over and under his clothing. When asked to describe how Cramer would touch ML .'s "front private part," ML. testified that Cramer "would grab it hard and ask me if it'd felt good [and] rub on it." When asked why he had not told Detective Huggard about Cramer's abuse in the first interview, M.L. explained that he had been "scared" he would get in trouble and that he revealed the abuse when his adoptive parents reassured him "everything would be fine."

111 Cramer's attorney then cross-examined ML. about the differences among his statements. ML. admitted that when he testified in the preliminary hearing about Cramer touching M.L.'s "back private part" he did not mention that Cramer had "pinched" it. However, M.L. claimed that he had mentioned in the preliminary hearing that Cramer, when grabbing M.L.'s "front private part," grabbed it "hard" and asked if it "felt good."

12 The jury convicted Cramer on the two counts of aggravated sexual abuse. Thereafter, Cramer moved for a new trial, claiming that Mineer's statements to the child violated the court's exclusion order under rule 615 and that this violation prejudiced him by causing the child to substantially change his earlier statements regarding the crime. In support of this motion, Cramer submitted affidavits from two witnesses who attended the trial: his wife, Diane Cramer, and Jennifer Durham, who had known Cramer since the time he worked with her father "years ago."

1 13 In response to Cramer's motion for a new trial, the court conducted a hearing. At this hearing, Cramer called Diane Cramer and Durham to testify.

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Bluebook (online)
2002 UT 9, 44 P.3d 690, 439 Utah Adv. Rep. 15, 2002 Utah LEXIS 13, 2002 WL 91630, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-cramer-utah-2002.