State v. Moore

215 So. 3d 951, 16 La.App. 5 Cir. 644, 2017 WL 1011526, 2017 La. App. LEXIS 421
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 15, 2017
DocketNO. 16-KA-644
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 215 So. 3d 951 (State v. Moore) 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. Moore, 215 So. 3d 951, 16 La.App. 5 Cir. 644, 2017 WL 1011526, 2017 La. App. LEXIS 421 (La. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

JOHNSON, J.

11 Defendant, Brandon Michel Moore, appeals his conviction and sentence for attempted forcible rape from the 24th Judicial District Court, Division “B”. For the following reasons, we affirm Defendant’s conviction and remand the matter with instructions.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On August 26, 2013, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney charged Defendant with forcible rape of a known juvenile in violation of La. R.S. 14:42.1. On August 28, 2013, Defendant entered a plea of not guilty at his arraignment. Prior to trial, the State filed notices of intent to introduce evidence of similar crimes pursuant to La. C.E. art. 412.2, which were heard and granted by the trial court on November 18, 2013, and April 4, 2014. Trial commenced on April 22, 2014 before a 12-person jury.

At trial, J.J. testified.1 Before Hurricane Isaac struck, in late August of 2012, J.J., Defendant, and J.J.’s children—H.J. and B.M.—lived on East Hermes in New laOrleans.2 According to J.J., H.J. had known Defendant since she was one and one-half years old, and she and Defendant were very close.

When J.J. and Defendant got into an argument during August of 2012, Defendant moved out of the residence at East Hermes and began living with Nadia Moore, his son’s mother, in an apartment on Ute Drive on the westbank of Jefferson Parish. At the end of August 2012, Hurricane Isaac struck and Defendant evacuated with H.J., B.M., Nadia, and her children to his mother’s house in Texas. J.J. allowed Defendant to take H.J. and B.M. and stayed behind, since she and Defendant “weren’t seeing eye to eye.”

When Defendant, Nadia, and the children returned to the New Orleans area three or four days later, they went to stay at Nadia’s house on Ute Street because J.J. was due to have surgery during early September and there was still no electricity in New Orleans East. After living with Nadia, Defendant and the children returned home to East Hermes the first week of October 2012.3 J.J. noticed that [956]*956from August of 2012 until February of 2013, H.J. was withdrawn and stayed in her room. She said that H.J.’s grades dropped and the way she dressed had changed.

At trial, H.J., the victim, testified that she had known Defendant her entire life and thought of him as a father figure.4 H.J. state that Defendant began to act differently towards her sometime before Hurricane Isaac hit. She described one incident “in the east” where she was unaware that Defendant was watching her dance in the computer room. Afterwards, he alluded that she knew how to have sex. Around the time of Hurricane Isaac, H.J., who was 13 years old, had a boyfriend, N.R., who lived in Gretna. Defendant and H.J. spoke of her feelings for [aN.R.5 Defendant told H.J. that she “was ripe” and “ready” to start having sex. He drove N.R.’s house to have sex with him, and after H.J. and N.R. had sex, Defendant asked her how it felt.

H.J. testified that one evening a couple of weeks after she had sex with N.R., and while still living at Nadia’s house on the westbank, Defendant called her into the room he shared with Nadia and exposed himself. H.J. left the room but returned when Defendant called her back. H.J. described that Defendant rose out of a chair as he told her that he knew that she and her boyfriend had sex, and he pushed H.J. on the bed. H.J. testified that Defendant held her hands above her head as she squirmed to get him off. Defendant told H.J.: “Come on, you gave him some, why you can’t give me none.” He then pulled H.J.’s shorts to the side and put his exposed penis inside her vagina. H.J. attempted to squeeze her legs closed, tried to fight back, and kept telling Defendant to get off of her. Defendant eventually got off of H.J., insulted her, and told her to get out.6

H.J. described another incident that occurred after she had moved back to East Hermes when Defendant came into her room while she had the lights off and felt her vagina under her clothes. She testified that Defendant inserted his penis inside her anus. She also recalled the time when Defendant asked her for a hug, he reached in her shirt and put his mouth on her breast under her clothes. Defendant told H.J. that if she told anyone he would kill himself. H.J. testified that she loved Defendant, did not want him to kill himself, and was scared. She did not tell anyone what happened for a while, but eventually she told Mr. Armón Dauphin, a social worker at McMain.7 However, she did not tell Mr. Dauphin everything.

Around January or February of 2013, J.J. decided to speak with H.J. “about |4the birds and the bees,” after learning a friend’s 15-year-old niece was pregnant. J.J. questioned H.J. about whether she was “talking to boys,” as J.J. had told her not to. J.J. described that during this discussion, Defendant, who usually acted as a [957]*957father figure, retrieved a gun out of a closet and stated that he could shoot someone from 40 yards. H.J., who was crying, admitted to her mother that she had been talking to boys, and J.J. told H.J. she was going to take her to the doctor to see if she had been penetrated. H.J. was worried that her mother would find out about Defendant and her boyfriend, so she told J.J. that she wanted to take a ride with her to get something to eat. Before H.J. left, she told Defendant that she was going to tell her mother what happened, and Defendant told her she was going to have to lie.

During the ride, J.J. described that H.J. began crying so hard that she asked her' if she was pregnant. Concerned, J.J. told H.J to “just let it out ... You won’t be the first, you won’t be the last.” H.J told her mother that Defendant “had brought her by Nadia” and “brought her by a boy named [N.R.].”

After a few hours, J.J. and H.J. returned to the house but did not say anything. Later that evening, J.J. confronted Defendant and asked him where he had brought H.J. and what he did to her. J.J. stated that Defendant tried to console her as she was distraught. When J.J. woke up later, Defendant had taken the guns and left the house. On Monday morning, J.J. saw that Defendant had dropped off the car with his phone in it. J.J. called the police at four o’clock on Monday morning.

Officer Toka Clark with the New Orleans Police Department (“N.O.P.D.”) 7th District testified that, on February 25, 2013, she responded to a call of a possible sexual assault on East Hermes. On the scene, Officer Clark spoke with J.J. and H.J., and Defendant kept calling J.J. At first, Officer Clark instructed J.J. not to answer, but when he continued to call and J.J. was upset, Officer Clark told Rher to answer it. While Defendant and J.J. were on the phone, J.J. asked Officer Clark to follow her into her vehicle where she put Defendant on speaker. Officer Clark was able to hear Defendant apologizing to J.J. for touching his stepdaughter inappropriately but that it was only once and for taking her to her boyfriend’s house to have sex. Officer Clark subsequently notified the child abuse unit.

Detective Akron Davis, who was with the N.O.P.D. child abuse unit on February 25, 2013, was dispatched to East Hermes. Upon arrival, Detective Davis spoke with J.J., who informed him of H.J.’s allegation that she was sexually assaulted by her stepfather, who he learned was Defendant. Detective Davis referred H.J. to the Audrey Hepburn Child Advocacy Center at Children’s Hospital (“CAC”) and met J.J. and H.J at the CAC.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
215 So. 3d 951, 16 La.App. 5 Cir. 644, 2017 WL 1011526, 2017 La. App. LEXIS 421, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-moore-lactapp-2017.