State v. Sellers

253 P.3d 20, 292 Kan. 346
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedApril 22, 2011
DocketNo. 101,208
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 253 P.3d 20 (State v. Sellers) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Sellers, 253 P.3d 20, 292 Kan. 346 (kan 2011).

Opinions

[348]*348The opinion of the court was delivered by

Beier, J.:

This is a direct appeal from defendant Jerry D. Sellers, Jr.’s jury conviction on two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, in violation of K.S.A. 21-3504(a)(3)(A). Sellers received a consecutive 72-month prison sentence on Count 1 and 59-month sentence on Count 2. The district court judge also ordered that Sellers be subject to lifetime postrelease supervision and lifetime electronic monitoring.

Sellers raises five issues for our consideration: (1) Whether the district judge erred in denying his motion for a psychological evaluation of the victim; (2) whether his convictions were multiplicitous; (3) whether the order for lifetime postrelease is unconstitutional; (4) whether the district judge erred in modifying his sentence; and (5) whether the district judge erred by ordering lifetime postrelease and lifetime electronic monitoring.

Factual and Procedural Background

The Incidents and Accusation

Sellers lived with C.M. and her 13-year-old daughter, M.R.C., in C.M.’s home. Sellers and C.M. had previously been deployed together in the Army National Guard, serving in Kuwait. Sellers’ relationship with M.R.C. became strained, and C.M. and M.R.C. began to argue about him. The worst of these arguments occurred in early December 2007.

On December 3, 2007, C.M. went to her sister’s home to talk about the situation. C.M. asked her sister to try to talk to M.R.C. to find out what was bothering her. The sister did as asked the same evening while making dinner with M.R.C. When M.R.C. learned from the sister that Sellers was going to ask C.M. to many him, M.R.C. told the sister that Sellers had touched her. Upon urging by the sister, M.R.C. also told C.M. that Sellers had touched her “up top and down below.”

Later that evening, C.M. told Sellers that M.R.C. had said he touched her breast and “down there.” C.M. told Sellers she would get him some help. When Sellers left for work the next morning, however, C.M. took M.R.C. to the police station to report the incident.

[349]*349C.M. and M.R.C. arrived at the police station at 6 a.m. and met with Officer Joshua Lowe to give an initial report. Lowe interviewed C.M. and M.R.C. and prepared a report before referring the case to a detective for further investigation.

M.R.C. reported that Sellers put his hands up her shirt and felt her chest and touched her on her pubic area. Lowe asked a series of yes/no follow-up questions, including whether “Jerry had put his hands down her pants.” M.R.C said Sellers had not done so. M.R.C. believed that the touching incident occurred around Saturday, November 17, 2007. Lowe asked M.R.C. if she was home alone with Sellers when the touching occurred, and she replied that she was. In addition, in response to Lowe’s question about how Sellers went about touching her, M.R.C. said that Sellers just walked up and touched her.

Lowe eventually would testify that his purpose with the initial interview was to get enough information to see if the matter warranted calling in a detective to conduct a forensic interview.

At 10 a.m. the same day as the Lowe interview, Detective Michael Yoder interviewed M.R.C. at the Heart to Heart Advocacy Center. M.R.C. told Yoder that she did not get along with Sellers and worried that he would divert her mother’s affection. M.R.C. giving; she thought it happened on November 16.

Describing the incident, M.R.C. told Yoder that between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., she went to lie down with her mother on her mother’s bed. M.R.C. lay on one side of the bed and her mother on the other, and the two held hands. Sellers joined them on the bed, lying between M.R.C. and her mother with his head level with M.R.C.’s waist. Sellers put his arm over M.R.C.’s leg, then moved his hand so it was between M.R.C. and the mattress, and then moved it from touching her stomach to her chest. M.R.C. told Yoder that when Sellers’ hand had reached her breast, he moved his hand around over her breast. Sellers then stopped touching M.R.C. and left the room to go check on the family’s dog, which was making noise in another room.

M.R.C. told Yoder that Sellers then came back into the room, checked to see if her mother was asleep, lay back down, and put [350]*350his hand on M.R.C.’s leg. He moved his hand up to M.R.C.’s pubic area. Sellers then got off the bed again and walked over to her mother’s side of the bed to see if she was still asleep. He then walked to M.R.C.’s side of the bed and started to push M.R.C.’s shirt up. At that point, M.R.C. squeezed her mother’s hand and woke her up.

Yoder asked M.R.C. if there had been any other incidents in which Sellers touched her inappropriately; and she said there was another incident the previous Halloween. M.R.C. said that Sellers touched her on her buttocks when she, Sellers, and her mother were cooking in the kitchen. M.R.C. also reported a third incident, in which she hugged Sellers goodnight and he grabbed her on the buttocks.

The Charges and Pretrial Proceedings

Sellers was charged with three counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child under K.S.A. 21-3504(a)(3)(A). Count 1 was for touching M.R.C.’s breast on or about November 17, 2007. Count 2 was for touching M.R.C.’s pubic area on or about November 17, 2007. Count 3 was for touching M.R.C.’s buttocks around Halloween 2007.

At Sellers’ December 19,2007, preliminary hearing, M.R.C. testified. Her story about the touching on the bed around Thanksgiving was the same as that she had told to Yoder. On cross-examination, M.R.C. admitted that she initially dismissed the Halloween touching of her buttocks as accidental. She also admitted that she did not tell anyone about Sellers touching her until she learned about Sellers’ and her mother’s marriage plans and that this news upset her.

About a month after the preliminary hearing, Sellers filed a notice of alibi, stating that he was on duty with the Army National Guard on November 17, 2007, i.e., the date of the incidents supporting Counts 1 and 2.

The State filed its first amended complaint the next day, changing the dates for Counts 1 and 2 to “on or about November 24, 2007.”

[351]*351A week later, Sellers served a motion for psychological evaluation of M.R.C. on the State. In his motion, Sellers argued that there was no evidence corroborating M.R.C.’s story. He further contended that M.R.C. had admitted that she was afraid Sellers’ interest in her mother would interfere with her mother’s affections for her. Sellers also argued that M.R.C. had demonstrated a lack of veracity by giving investigators two different stories about the circumstances of the Thanksgiving touchings and by changing their date from November 17 to November 24.

At Sellers’ second preliminary hearing on the first amended complaint, M.R.C. testified that her testimony at the first preliminary hearing was accurate except for the date underlying Count 1 and Count 2. M.R.C. testified that she had remembered a friend’s birthday party the night of November 24, which helped her to identify the correct date.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
253 P.3d 20, 292 Kan. 346, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-sellers-kan-2011.