State v. Russaw

2022 Ohio 2145
Ohio Court of Appeals·Decided June 23, 2022·No. 111315·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO

EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA

STATE OF OHIO, :

Plaintiff-Appellee, :

No. 111315

v. :

STANLEY M. RUSSAW, :

Defendant-Appellant. :

JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION

JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED

RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: June 23, 2022

Criminal Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CR-19-644949-A

Appearances:

Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Kevin Bringman, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Cullen Sweeney, Cuyahoga County Public Defender, and Noelle A. Powell and Aaron T. Baker, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellant.

EILEEN A. GALLAGHER, J.:

Defendant-appellant Stanley M. Russaw (“Russaw”) appeals his convictions for rape, sexual battery and gross sexual imposition. Russaw contends that the jury lost its way in crediting the testimony of the victim, his counsel rendered ineffective assistance and the trial court plainly erred by instructing the jury of the elements of the offenses after the testimony of the victim. We find that the victim’s testimony was not so contradictory that the jury lost its way in crediting her; that the trial court properly instructed the jury because it determined that the jury may be confused regarding the elements of the offenses; that Russaw has not shown that, but for the alleged errors, the outcome of the trial would have been different and, finally, that trial counsel’s decision not to pursue a motion to strike or instruction to disregard was a strategic choice. Accordingly, we overrule Russaw’s assignments of error and affirm his convictions. I. Factual and Procedural Background On October 18, 2019, a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury returned a true bill indicting Russaw on five counts: rape, sexual battery and three counts of gross sexual imposition. The scheduled trial was continued several times due to the coronavirus pandemic.

On July 27, 2021, this case was called for a jury trial. At trial, the state’s case rested primarily on the testimony of the victim, T.R.

T.R. testified that she was a student at the Citizen’s Leadership Academy (“CLA”) in the sixth grade at the time of the offenses. She identified Russaw as her father and testified that Russaw lived separately from T.R.’s mother. T.R. planned to spend spring break of her sixth-grade year, March 25, 2019, to March 29, 2019, with Russaw at his apartment. At the time of the offenses, T.R.

testified that Russaw had a leg injury that made him limp, but he did not need a walker or cane to get around.

T.R. testified that she and Russaw visited her paternal grandmother and went to the store before returning to Russaw’s apartment. She testified that Russaw then started a “tickle fight” that began “regular at first” but then turned into a massage. Russaw massaged in circles around T.R.’s breasts and then on her breasts in a figure eight motion and licked the deodorant off of her armpit. Later that night, Russaw acted “as a vampire” and said that he “want[ed] to suck [her] blood.” He licked her ears and neck and then began “licking my vagina over and over again and he took his finger, he just swiped it.” She said “okay, that’s enough” but “he just kept going.”

T.R. testified that Russaw later told her not to talk to anyone about the “tickle fight.”

T.R. testified that Russaw came into her room the next day while she was watching YouTube videos. He started to rub her stomach and she said: “I don’t like that and stuff.” She testified “[a]nd he just was like, I just want to rub you.” She testified that he touched her on her armpits, her ears, her neck, her breasts, her stomach and her vagina. She also testified that Russaw rubbed his genitals against her buttocks.

T.R. testified that she chose to tell her school counselor about these events and not her mother because she was worried that her mother would overreact. She testified that she first told the school counselor, Kathleena Zevallos

(“Zevallos”), near the end of the school year. The school counselor called T.R.’s mother and that same day the event was reported to Department of Children and Family Services. Two days later, T.R. was examined by Halle Maziasz (“Maziasz”), a social worker employed by University Hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic.

T.R. testified that she told the examiner during the examination what had happened to her. She also testified that she drew circles on a piece of paper that had a picture of a body on it to signify where Russaw touched her. She testified that after she talked about the assault, Russaw told her that she should lie to the court and say that “it was a prank.”

During cross-examination, Russaw’s counsel elicited testimony that T.R. had changed schools from Central to Citizens Leadership Academy (“CLA”). T.R. testified that she had changed schools because she kept getting into fights at Central and had been bullied. She testified that Russaw wore a bandage which covered “his whole leg * * * [from the top of his leg d]own to his ankle” but T.R.’s testimony was unclear on whether it was Russaw’s left or right leg that was injured.

During cross-examination, T.R. testified that Russaw had touched her breasts but, in the anatomical pictures, T.R. had not circled the breasts. T.R.’s explanation was that the interviewer “asked where he mainly touched me.” T.R. also testified that she told the social worker that Russaw “went figure eight” meaning that he had touched her breasts that way.

T.R. testified that she returned to school the week after spring break.

She wore a “black hoodie” and when a teacher asked her to remove the hoodie, T.R.

simply left the classroom. T.R. also had an argument with Russaw because she thought that he was focusing on her brother and neglecting her. It would be weeks later, on May 17, 2019, before T.R. told Zevallos about the abuse.

Following T.R.’s testimony, the trial court broke for the evening. The next day, before the subsequent witnesses testified, the trial court instructed the jury on the elements of the offenses. The court explained that the reason for these instructions was:

I just want to make sure, get you — continue to get you acquainted with the elements of the charges in this case so that by the time you go back to deliberate you’ll be fully conversant with them.

The major difference between these instructions and the instructions the trial court gave before voir dire is that these instructions included a specific section on the differences between sexual contact and sexual conduct.

And the reason I have been saying with strange emphasis either sexual conduct for [C]ounts 1 and 2, or sexual contact for [C]ounts 3, 4 and 5, is that they are two different things. So for the rape and the sexual battery charges, sexual conduct does include cunnilingus and without the privilege to do so the insertion, however slight, of any part of the body into the vaginal opening of another. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete vaginal intercourse.

For the three GSI charges, sexual contact means any touching of an erogenous zone of another including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region or if the person is a female a breast for the purpose of sexually arousing or gratifying either person.

So just keep in mind for the first two counts we are talking about sexual conduct and for the last three sexual contact.

Defense counsel did not object to these instructions.

After T.R. testified, the state next called Zevallos. Zevallos testified that she worked at CLA from December 2017 to August 2019. She started working for CLA as an intervention specialist and then took on the role of a guidance counselor. In this role, she helped students with social and emotional behaviors as well as executive functioning skills (skills like working memory, task analysis, keeping things organized and functioning in the classroom).

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