State v. Roberts, Unpublished Decision (12-2-2005)

2005 Ohio 6391
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 2, 2005
DocketAppeal No. C-040547.
StatusUnpublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 2005 Ohio 6391 (State v. Roberts, Unpublished Decision (12-2-2005)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law.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State v. Roberts, Unpublished Decision (12-2-2005), 2005 Ohio 6391 (Ohio Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

OPINION
{¶ 1} Defendant-appellant Layton Roberts appeals his convictions for rape and gross sexual imposition. The victim of both offenses was Roberts's stepdaughter, who was eight years old at the time of the first offense.

{¶ 2} Roberts has assigned six errors on appeal. Roberts challenges the sufficiency and weight of the evidence upon which his convictions were based, and the trial court's denial of his Crim.R. 29 motions for judgments of acquittal. Roberts also argues that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury on a lesser-included offense, by imposing prison terms that exceeded the statutory minimum, and by adjudicating him a sexual predator. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the trial court's judgment.

Evidence of the Rape Offense
{¶ 3} At the time of the trial in this case, the victim was ten years old. The victim testified that when she was eight years old, she lived in an apartment with her mother and her stepfather, Roberts. One day while her mother was washing dishes, the victim and Roberts were in the victim's upstairs bedroom watching a movie. At one point, Roberts told the victim to shut the bedroom door because her mother was making too much noise.

{¶ 4} Roberts and the victim were lying on the victim's bed when Roberts began to fondle her. The victim testified, "And then he started rubbing my vagina inside really hard, and it hurt."

{¶ 5} Then the following exchange took place between the prosecutor and the victim:

{¶ 6} "Q. Now, when you say he was rubbing, was he using his hand again, or was he using something else?

{¶ 7} "A. His hand.

{¶ 8} "Q. And do you remember, were you wearing any clothing on this incident?

{¶ 9} "A. That I remember, yes.

{¶ 10} "Q. And do you remember if you were wearing underwear?

{¶ 11} "A. Yes.

{¶ 12} "Q. And was he rubbing on top of your underwear or underneath your underwear?

{¶ 13} "A. Underneath.

{¶ 14} "Q. Now, on this incident, you said that he was rubbing your vagina hard and that he rubbed it on the inside?

{¶ 15} "A. Yes.

{¶ 16} "Q. Can you tell me what you mean by that?

{¶ 17} "A. I don't really know how to explain it.

{¶ 18} "Q. Okay. Do you recall if he was using his whole hand to rub you or did he use just one or two fingers to rub you?

{¶ 19} "A. I don't remember.

{¶ 20} "Q. Okay. How do you know * * * that he was rubbing you on the inside of your vagina?

{¶ 21} "A. Because I felt it and it hurt.

{¶ 22} "Q. Okay. I know this is uncomfortable for you, but I have to have everybody understand what happened. Okay? So if you don't mind, I'm going to come up here a little bit closer to you, and if we can, just use my hand to demonstrate. Okay? And if this is your vagina, right here, okay, where was he rubbing you on your vagina? Can you demonstrate?

{¶ 23} "A. Here (indicating).

{¶ 24} "Q. So you're putting your finger in between my fingers. Okay. And what happened after that?

{¶ 25} "A. I don't remember anything else.

{¶ 26} "Q. That's what you remember happening?

{¶ 27} "A. Yes.

{¶ 28} "Q. And how did this end, this incident?

{¶ 29} "A. I think that my mom told him to like get out of my room, and she talked to him about something."

{¶ 30} The victim's mother, Betty Michelle Garrett Roberts, testified that she remembered the day of the incident because she had told Roberts and the victim to leave the bedroom door open while they watched the movie. Mrs. Roberts testified, "And before I knew it, the door was shut. And I kept trying to make voice contact back and forth with, `What's going on,' and this and that with them, but obviously with the door shut, you know, I couldn't be heard, and I would go and open the door up. I went and opened the door."

{¶ 31} "I observed them both under the covers. And [Roberts] had his arm, you know, like there on the bed. * * * Lying on his back, on the bed (indicating). * * * I said, `That doesn't look right. You shouldn't be in there. And you should come out. If you want to watch the movie, come out.'"

{¶ 32} The victim did not immediately tell her mother what had happened in the bedroom. Mrs. Roberts testified that on a later date she had gone to pick the victim up from Mrs. Roberts's mother's home, and that her mother, Iva Norris, told her that the victim had been unusually withdrawn that day.

{¶ 33} When Mrs. Roberts spoke to the victim, the victim told her that she did not want to go home. The victim told her that Roberts had touched her "privates," and that "[h]e rubbed me really, really hard." As the victim spoke, Mrs. Roberts testified, "she pointed to her vagina."

{¶ 34} Mrs. Roberts left her daughter at her mother's home and went to her apartment to confront Roberts. She told Roberts to leave the home, but Roberts said that he did not have anyplace to go. When Mrs. Roberts asked him about what had happened with the victim, Roberts said, "Well, maybe I was tickling her and I accidentally touched her."

{¶ 35} Roberts moved out of the apartment for a few weeks. In the meantime, Mrs. Roberts spoke to her daughter and told her that she would have to be examined. Mrs. Roberts testified, "I scared her because I told her what would happen. And I shouldn't have told her. I should have let it been a surprise. And she told me that she couldn't do that, that she was too afraid, and that she would say that it didn't happen or that it was a dream."

{¶ 36} Mrs. Roberts allowed Roberts to move back into the home because she was pregnant with his son, with the condition that Roberts would never be alone with the victim. Mrs. Roberts testified that she had spoken to the victim about Roberts's return, and "we said, well, since I'm pregnant with [his baby], we'll give him a second chance, because I didn't know to the extent it had went." So Mrs. Roberts arranged for her mother, Norris, to pick the victim up from school and to stay with her until Mrs. Roberts got home from work. Mrs. Roberts told Norris that Roberts was never to be alone with the victim.

{¶ 37} The following school year, the victim told a friend at school that her stepfather had tried to kiss her. The friend relayed the story to a teacher, who then reported it to the school counselor. When the counselor spoke to the victim, the victim said that the incident had only been a dream. At trial, when asked why she had described the incident as a dream, the victim testified, "[B]ecause my mom had told me what would happen, and I guess I was afraid."

{¶ 38} After receiving a telephone call from the school principal, Mrs. Roberts and Roberts spoke with the school counselor. Roberts told the counselor that he thought that the victim was jealous of her baby brother.

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Bluebook (online)
2005 Ohio 6391, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-roberts-unpublished-decision-12-2-2005-ohioctapp-2005.