State v. Dixon

159 Wash. 2d 65
Washington Supreme Court·Decided December 7, 2006·No. No. 77342-4·Published·Cited by 32 cases

Opinions

¶1 — A jury convicted Arthur Dixon of three counts of child molestation in the first degree, and he was sentenced as a persistent offender.1 At issue are two trial court rulings concerning the defense’s efforts to impeach on cross-examination the child victim, Dixon’s then 9-year-old daughter. We are asked to decide whether the trial court erred (1) in refusing to allow the defense to call the victim’s counselor, Peggy Zorn, as an impeachment witness and (2) in disallowing cross-examination of N.D. regarding a question about lying that she had allegedly asked her 16-year-old aunt, Amber Hansen.

Owens, J.

¶2 We find no abuse of discretion in either ruling and therefore affirm the Court of Appeals.

FACTS

¶3 Dixon was arrested on November 7, 2001, and charged with three counts of child molestation in the first [68] degree, pursuant to RCW 9A.44.083(1). Each count arose from Dixon’s alleged sexual contact with his daughter, N.D. (d.o.b. May 22, 1992). The information alleged that the criminal contact giving rise to the three counts occurred “during the month of December, 2000,” “between January, 2001, and October 1, 2001,” and “on or about October 12 through 13, 2001.” Clerk’s Papers at 50-51. The case went to trial in February 2002 in Mason County Superior Court.

¶4 At trial, the State called three witnesses: N.D.; her mother, Donna Dixon; and Detective Thomas Adams of the Shelton Police Department. As to the incident alleged in count one, the State elicited testimony from N.D. that, in December 2000, when the family was living on Willapa Road in Shelton, her father molested her early one morning when she accompanied him on his newspaper route. N.D. described seeing her “father’s private parts”:

A. He says he was only trying to teach me, and he brought it out of his pants and he says this is, this is what this is but I don’t know what he said.
Q. Okay. Did anything happen with his private parts?
A. Yes.
Q. What?
A. Gooey stuff came out.
Q. What color?
A. A white color.

3 Report of Proceedings (RP) at 256. N.D. disclosed the molestation to her mother that same morning shortly after returning home with her father. Id. at 252. N.D. stated that, after she made the disclosure to her mother, her father said, “it wasn’t true,” but “I says that he knows it’s true, and then I went to my room.” Id. N.D. acknowledged that she later told her mother “it didn’t happen because he said to me that he was only trying to teach me something.” Id.

¶5 Donna Dixon’s testimony corroborated N.D.’s. She testified that on a Sunday morning in December 2000, [69] Dixon and N.D. returned late from delivering papers and that within an hour of their arrival N.D., appearing hesitant and “nervous,” disclosed “that her father had inappropriately touched her [in her private spots] and had an inappropriate conversation with her.” Id. at 319, 320. Donna Dixon described N.D.’s disclosure as follows:

She didn’t go word for word, but she said, mom, she says daddy said some things that, that were pretty gross, from what I. . . . And I says, okay, and she says, they were yucky. And I says, well, what was said. And she said dad — that her father had referred to her lower private area as a pussy and his lower private area as a cock. And that he was trying to teach her that — how the basic, the two of them went together because I wasn’t willing to teach her about sex.

Id. at 320. Donna Dixon testified that she asked N.D. if she was telling the truth and N.D. “was very, very adamantly telling me, yes, that she was telling me the truth.” Id. at 324.

¶6 Donna Dixon stated that she immediately went upstairs and confronted her husband privately. Although he denied touching N.D., he confessed that he had had the conversation with her and had used the “exact words” N.D. recalled. Id. at 321. Donna Dixon testified that when she told N.D. that her father had denied touching her, N.D. was “[v]ery angry at first and became extremely withdrawn and then left, left the room and went to her room.” Id. at 322. According to Donna Dixon, N.D.’s “only question to [her] was how can he admit to having the conversation without admitting to touching me.” Id. Donna Dixon acknowledged indicating to N.D. that Dixon had denied the allegations because he “was just trying to teach her.” Id. at 323.

¶7 Donna Dixon recounted another conversation that she had with N.D. later that same day:

A. . . . She did come out to me later, still kind of in a withdrawn type state and told me that things — that it didn’t happen exactly the way she said. That the touching hadn’t happened.
Q. What was her, what was her demeanor?
[70] A. She was very withdrawn, very shaken. She was also very angry, and she was, she was very withdrawn for, for a couple of days.

Id. at 322. Choosing to believe Dixon’s denial and to view N.D.’s “retraction” as being more credible than her spontaneous disclosure and adamant assurances of truthfulness, Donna Dixon did not contact the police. Id. at 324.

¶8 N.D. made a second disclosure to her mother on Saturday morning, October 13, 2001, when the two were delivering papers. N.D. referred to the December 2000 molestation and described the acts giving rise to counts two and three. As to the crime alleged in count two, N.D. testified at trial that her father molested her after the family moved from Willapa Road to Cascade Street in Shelton. (According to Donna Dixon’s trial testimony, the family lived on Cascade from early May 2001 until July 10, 2001, when they moved to Ellinor Avenue.) N.D. stated that her father molested her on the living room couch and in her parents’ bedroom. She said that in the bedroom “[h]e took off his clothes and he took off [hers] too” and “got on top of [her]” and that on the couch “[h]e touched [her] private area” “[u]nderneath [her] clothes.” Id. at 254, 255.

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State v. Dixon, 159 Wash. 2d 65 (Wash. 2006).

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