State v. Penigar

408 N.W.2d 28, 139 Wis. 2d 569, 1987 Wisc. LEXIS 684
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedJune 24, 1987
Docket85-1382-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by37 cases

This text of 408 N.W.2d 28 (State v. Penigar) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin 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. Penigar, 408 N.W.2d 28, 139 Wis. 2d 569, 1987 Wisc. LEXIS 684 (Wis. 1987).

Opinions

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.

This is a review of an unpublished decision of the court of appeals filed on February 25, 1986, affirming a judgment of conviction for third degree sexual assault and an order denying a new trial. The judgment and order were entered by the circuit court for Eau Claire county, Thomas H. Barland, Circuit Judge.

This case presents two issues. The first issue is whether the erroneously admitted and false testimony of the complainant that she never had sexual intercourse prior to the disputed assault had such a pervasive effect on the trial that the real controversy has not been fully tried and the judgment of conviction should be reversed under the court’s discretionary power to reverse a judgment in the interest of justice. The second issue is whether a university counselor’s testimony describing the complainant’s behavior (not immediately reporting the disputed assault to the police) and the defendant’s behavior (remaining in the complainant’s apartment after the disputed assault) as behavior typical of rape victims and assailants was admissible.

Because we conclude that the erroneously admitted and false testimony of the complainant that she had never had sexual intercourse before the disputed assault so pervasively affected the trial that the issue of consent was not fully tried, we reverse the conviction and grant a new trial in the interest of justice. Sec. 751.06, Stats. 1985-86. For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that we need not reach the issue of the admissibility of the counselor’s testimony. We reverse the decision of the court of appeals affirming [573]*573the conviction and remand the cause to the circuit court for a new trial.

HH

We put these two issues in perspective by first describing the complainant’s and the defendant’s testimony about the disputed assault and then describing the procedural posture of the case.

The complainant described the assault as follows. On April 18, 1984, she was studying in a bedroom of the two-story apartment she shared with two roommates, both of whom were out for the evening. At approximately 2:00 A.M. she went downstairs in response to a knock at the door. The defendant was at the door. The complainant recognized the defendant as a friend of one of her roommates to whom she had once been introduced. The defendant asked if the roommate was home and stated that the roommate had asked him to wait there for her. The complainant let the defendant into the apartment. They talked for about 15 minutes. The defendant came over to the chair where the complainant was sitting and kissed her. The complainant asked the defendant to stop and then to leave. Instead, the defendant grabbed her hands and pulled her out of the chair and said that if she was not nice to him, he would not be nice to her. The defendant pushed her onto the couch and had intercourse with her. The complainant then went upstairs to her bedroom, as instructed by the defendant. When she left at 8:00 A.M. she saw the defendant asleep on the couch in the living room.

The complainant told her roommates about the assault that evening and told a priest the following day. The complainant did not report it to the police [574]*574until nine days after it occurred because she did not want her mother to know.

The defendant’s testimony differed from the complainant’s in several details but the major difference was that, according to the defendant, the two of them conversed about sex and then the complainant consented to sexual intercourse and to his spending the night on the couch.

The defendant was initially charged with second-degree sexual assault, that is, sexual intercourse without the consent of the victim by use or threat of force. Sec. 940.225 (2)(a), Stats. 1985-86.1 After the complainant testified at the preliminary hearing that she contracted gonorrhea as a result of the assault, the state amended the charge, over defendant’s objection, to another form of second degree sexual assault, that is, sexual intercourse without the consent of the victim causing a venereal disease. Sec. 940.225 (2)(b).2

[575]*575To prove that the defendant caused the venereal disease, the complainant testified at trial that neither before nor after the assault had she had sexual intercourse, had any one touched her vaginal area, or had she ever touched anyone else’s genitals.3 The state, however, was unable to establish at trial to the required reasonable scientific certainty the presence of venereal disease in either the complainant or the defendant. Consequently, at the conclusion of its case in chief, the state, without any objection from the defendant, sought court permission to amend the charge to third degree sexual assault, that is, sexual intercourse without the consent of the victim. Sec. 940.225 (3), Stats. 1985-86.4 The circuit court permitted the amendment.

[576]*576The defendant and complainant agreed that sexual intercourse had taken place. The only issue in dispute and for the jury to decide was whether the complainant had consented. Apparently concluding that the complainant had not consented to intercourse, the jury found the defendant guilty of third degree sexual assault. After the trial, and at a presentence investigation interview, the complainant admitted that she had had an incestuous relationship with two of her brothers. Her admission directly contradicted her testimony at trial that before the assault she had never had any sexual experience.

The defendant moved for a new trial on several grounds, including newly discovered evidence (that is, that the complainant’s testimony was false) and the interest of justice. The state conceded that the trial testimony was false but argued that the false testimony was given erroneously, not intentionally. There was testimony that the complainant’s repression of the incestuous relationships was a mechanism for coping with the trauma of incest. The circuit court denied the motion for a new trial, stating that a probability of a different result upon retrial did not exist. The court of appeals affirmed the conviction and the order denying the new trial.

Although the parties’ briefs and oral arguments before this court framed the issue in various ways,5 the [577]*577parties’ arguments revolved largely around the pervasive effect of the erroneously admitted false evidence on the trial. We believe that the issue is best stated thus: Did the erroneously admitted and false testimony of the complainant that she had never had sexual intercourse before the disputed assault have such a pervasive effect on the trial that the real controversy was not fully tried, thereby justifying reversal of the judgment of conviction in the interest of justice under sec. 751.06, Stats. 1985-86.6

This court has both inherent power and express statutory authority to reverse a judgment of conviction and remit the case for a new trial in the interest of justice, even where the circuit court has exercised its power to order or deny a new trial in the interest of justice. State v. McConnohie, 113 Wis. 2d 362, 369-71, 334 N.W.2d 903 (1983). A new trial may be in the interest of justice under sec.

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Bluebook (online)
408 N.W.2d 28, 139 Wis. 2d 569, 1987 Wisc. LEXIS 684, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-penigar-wis-1987.