State v. Rittenhour

678 N.E.2d 293, 112 Ohio App. 3d 219
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 28, 1996
DocketNo. 3-95-27.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 678 N.E.2d 293 (State v. Rittenhour) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Rittenhour, 678 N.E.2d 293, 112 Ohio App. 3d 219 (Ohio Ct. App. 1996).

Opinion

Evans, Judge.

This appeal is brought by William R. Rittenhour (“appellant”) from the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas of Crawford County upon a jury verdict finding appellant guilty of one count of felonious sexual penetration, pursuant to R.C. 2907.12, and two counts of attempted rape, pursuant to R.C. 2907.02. Appellant was sentenced by the trial court to seven to twenty-five years in prison for the felonious sexual penetration conviction and five to fifteen years in prison on each count of attempted rape. The sentences imposed for attempted rape were to run concurrent to each other but consecutive to the sentence imposed for the felonious sexual penetration.

The events leading up to appellant’s conviction are as follows. On the evening of May 29, 1995, appellant and his wife of twenty years, Denise Rittenhour, returned home after attending a cookout at a relative’s house. Appellant had been drinking and resurrected a long-standing argument with Denise concerning her sexual relationships before their marriage. When Denise refused to speak on the subject, appellant resorted to vulgarity and physical violence. During an ensuing struggle, appellant pinned Denise to the floor by sitting on her chest and proceeded to beat her repeatedly about the face and head. Eventually, appellant forcibly removed Denise’s pants and initiated the sex acts for which he was later convicted. When the abuse ended, Denise was able to escape from appellant and seek treatment for her injuries at a hospital. Appellant was subsequently arrested and charged with two counts of felonious sexual penetration and two counts of attempted rape. After a trial held in September 1995, appellant was found guilty of three of the four original charges as noted above.

Appellant appeals his conviction and sentence averring three assignments of error.

*221 Assignment of Error No. 1

“As the Defendant was charged with sexual activity with his spouse, and as the defendant and his spouse were not separated nor was there any action to terminate their marriage pending, a conviction of sexual activity with his spouse violates the Defendant’s rights under Stanley v. Georgia and Griswold v. Connecticut.

In his first assignment of error, appellant contends that his convictions for felonious sexual penetration and two counts of attempted rape against his spouse are violations of appellant’s constitutional right to privacy. Appellant attempts to extend the right to privacy set out in Stanley v. Georgia (1969), 394 U.S. 557, 89 S.Ct. 1243, 22 L.Ed.2d 542, Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510, and Loving v. Virginia (1967), 388 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010, to forcible, nonconsensual sexual conduct simply because the parties in this case were married at the time of the offenses.

We find appellant’s argument entirely unprecedented and utterly without merit. The right to privately possess obscene material in Stanley, the right of married couples to use contraceptives in Griswold, and the freedom to marry outside one’s race in Loving are privacy rights upheld in the cases cited by appellant. However, none of these cases supports the right of one spouse to physically and sexually abuse the other. The state is not regulating consensual sex between married couples in R.C. 2907.12(A)(2) or 2907.02(A)(2). Rather, appellant’s conduct is unlawful because it was compelled by force against another person. See R.C. 2907.12(A)(2) and 2907.02(A)(2).

Following appellant’s argument, a marriage license would give a spouse free rein to assault and sexually abuse his or her mate to any degree without fear of prosecution because of some impenetrable shield of marital sexual privacy. Meanwhile, the victim spouse would be stripped of his or her right to personal safety and bodily integrity. We find no authority, constitutional or otherwise, which vests spouses with the categorical right to harm their mates in such a manner.

Moreover, the legislature has directly proscribed the use of any marital defense in R.C. 2907.12(C) and 2907.02(G) to the crimes of felonious sexual penetration and rape. For these reasons, we overrule appellant’s first assignment of error.

Assignment of Error No. 2

“When a trial court instructs the jury three different times but the court’s instructions regarding essential elements fail to follow the statute, such instructions are prejudicial to the defendant.”

*222 The trial court in this case initially delivered an incomplete charge to the jury before sending it to deliberate. The judge instructed the jury, in part, as follows:

“Before you can find the Defendant guilty [of felonious sexual penetration], you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that * * * the Defendant without privilege to do so, inserted an instrument, body part, or apparatus or other object into the vaginal cavity of another.
“It is not a defense to a charge that the offender and the victim were married or were cohabitating at the time of the commission of the offense.
« $ ‡ $
“The Defendant has also been charged with two counts of Attempted Rape. Before you can find the Defendant guilty of count one, you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that * * * he did engage in attempted sexual intercourse. And basically attempt is when a person does something which is an act constituting a step in the course of conduct culminating in his commission of rape.
“Before you can find the Defendant Guilty of the second count you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that on or about the 29th of May, 1995, the Defendant did attempt to cause the victim to engage in fellatio.
“Now, basically those two are the same elements however one being actual intercourse with the vagina and the other with the mouth or oral and again I have them marked on the verdict forms so you will know.”

However, upon prompting by counsel and before sending the jury out for deliberations, the court added:

“Needless to say ladies and gentleman of the jury, when I explained the elements of the crimes to you of Felonious Sexual Penetration and Attempted Rape, basically, I did not use or recall using the magic words:' The Defendant did purposely compel the victim to do this. And if I did not use any wording indicating that, please assume that is in all of these charges. The Defendant had to intend for these crimes to occur or purposely desired them to occur.”

After deliberating for an hour, the jury dispatched a note to the trial judge requesting a copy of the state law on each count. Upon request of counsel, the trial court read the actual language from the Ohio Revised Code to the jury. For the charges of sexual felonious penetration the court read R.C. 2907.12(A)(2) verbatim to the jury along with R.C. 2907.12(C).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
678 N.E.2d 293, 112 Ohio App. 3d 219, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-rittenhour-ohioctapp-1996.