State v. Toombs

2016 UT App 188, 380 P.3d 390, 820 Utah Adv. Rep. 64, 2016 Utah App. LEXIS 188, 2016 WL 4578417
CourtCourt of Appeals of Utah
DecidedSeptember 1, 2016
Docket20140386-CA
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2016 UT App 188 (State v. Toombs) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Toombs, 2016 UT App 188, 380 P.3d 390, 820 Utah Adv. Rep. 64, 2016 Utah App. LEXIS 188, 2016 WL 4578417 (Utah Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

TOOMEY, Judge:

¶1 In this appeal, Jay William Toombs challenges his convictions for attempted sexual abuse of a child. The primary issue on appeal is whether a communication alleging abuse to law enforcement amounted to a “report of the offense,” triggering a four-year statute of limitations period. We conclude it did not and therefore affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶2 In July 2012, Toombs was charged with five counts of sodomy on a child and five counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, each a first degree felony. The amended information alleged that Toombs sexually abused V.W., a child, between 1998 and 2001.

¶3 Toombs moved to dismiss the charges, claiming the offenses had been reported to law enforcement in late 2000, triggering thé four-yeár statute of limitations. Specifically, he argued that one of his former neighbors (Neighbor) told law enforcement about an incident when Toombs bathed V.W.

¶4 A detective with the Logan City Police Department (Detective) contacted Neighbor after Toombs was arrested in January 2000 on charges of aggravated sexual, abuse of a child for offenses against another child. Detective recorded his conversation with Neighbor and after talking to her asked her “to please write ... the most detailed statement that [she] could possibly write about anything and everything that [she knew]” about Toombs’s misconduct. Neighbor informed Detective that Toombs admitted to her that he had sexually abused Neighbor’s son and that Toombs’s wife told her Toombs had been seen in the neighborhood “loving and kissing” a teenage boy. Finally, based on what.she knew about Toombs and had heard from V.W.’s grandmother, Neighbor told Detective she was concerned Toombs may have molested V.W. Specifically, Neighbor told Detective she had heard that V.W. had gone to Toombs’s farm with Toombs and his sons, and when they returned V.W. “had been bathed and [was] ready for bed.” She said that, after hearing that Toombs had “thrown [his sons and V.W.] in and gotten them all washed,” she was concerned V.W. had been molested. In her two-page written statement, Neighbor provided details about Toombs’s abuse of her own son and Toombs’s inappro *392 priate behavior with another neighborhood boy. Neighbor also wrote that V.W.’s grandmother (who lived with V.W.) told her V.W. had been oddly tired lately but loved to go to Toombs’s farm. She recounted that V.W.’s grandmother had been “pleasantly surprised” when V.W. returned from the farm after “he had been put through the tub and was. all clean” after he had played in..the mud. Neighbor stated that hearing about this “incident set off .... blaring red lights” and made her “sick to [her] stomach,”

. ¶5 The district court held an evidentiary hearing regarding Toombs’s motion to dismiss. It heard testimony from Detective and received into evidence a transcript of Neighbor’s interview, and a copy of her written statement. Toombs’s counsel argued that Neighbor’s communications with Detective constituted a report of his offenses and were “sufficient to meet the standard reflected in [State v. Green, 2005 UT 9, 108 P.3d 710].” 2 Toombs’s trial counsel explained that Detective created a police report based on Neighbor’s statement's, and argued that the fact that [law enforcement] didn’t [interview V.W.'] does not mean that the Green test was not met.”

¶6 Detective testified that in 2000 he had investigated allegations that Toombs had been “fondling” many young boys, some of whom were friends of Toombs’s children. He recounted that in his investigations of several allegations involving many victims, Neighbor informed him she was concerned Toombs may have, molested VW, Detective, explained that he had prepared one police report for all of the allegations against Toombs and that V.W.’s case was “one page of probably a 60-page police report.” Detective also explained that the report dealt with “anybody and everybody that [he] ever spoke to whether [they were] victim, [or] not victim.” Further, Detective “documented everything [he] did and who [he] spoke to ..., good or bad.”

¶7 Regarding Neighbor’s statements, Detective explained that although Neighbor was concerned, V.W.’s family members, including his mother and grandmother, were not concerned about Toombs bathing V.W. He recounted that, even after he “explained everything to her and what [his] concerns were,” V.W.’s mother “was very adamant that [Toombs] was not molesting V.W.” V.W.’s mother “refused to allow [Detective] to speak to her son” and because V.W, was “only fopr or five years old,” Detective did not try to contact V.W. directly. Detective also explained there was insufficient evidence to investigate this further, stating that Neighbor’s suspicions stemmed from “small talk of [V.W.] going to play on the Toombs’ farm.” He also conceded that Neighbor’s statement concerned him “enough for [him] to look into [her allegations] and try to go find out .,. if there was something there” but that “not everybody Che] came in contact with was molested by [Toombs]” and “[Toombs] didn’t molest everyone, just some.” Thus, although he was concerned Toombs may have sexually abused V.W., he did not think he had enough evidence to reach any conclusions or enough information to investigate further.

¶8 The district court ultimately denied Toombs’s motion to dismiss. It explained that, based on the parties’ arguments and Detective’s testimony, “something further could have been done with the investigation or there could have been some additional discovery had more been done, but that is not sufficient to create a situation where that initial report in fact is a report of an offense that qualifies under the statute of limitations.” The court found that Detective “did learn from [Neighbor] that V.W. had been to the farm” and “had been bathed and returned ready for bed.” But it concluded that “the evidence presented fails to satisfy the third factor of the Green test” because, although Neighbor’s “communication was sufficient to raise suspicion against the defendant, it did not contain a sufficient level of specificity bearing on the elements of a crime as would place the law enforcement agency on *393 actual notice that a crime has been committed.”

¶9 In preparation for trial, several witnesses testified at a second evidentiary hearing, including Detective, V.W., V.W.’s mother, and another law enforcement agent. In particular, V.W. testified that Toombs abused him more than twenty times at the farm and at “least a hundred” times at Toombs’s house. V.W. also testified that he first reported the abuse to a therapist in December 2010 and that V.W. “didn’t remember [the abuse] until [he] watched a video about someone else being abused” in a group therapy session. V.W.’s mother generally testified that she did not want Detective to interview V.W. in 2000 “[b]ecause [she] had questioned [V.W.] several times and he had vehemently denied that anything had happened and [she], like an awful lot of people, were in a position of defense of [Toombs].”

¶10 Before trial, Toombs entered a Sery plea, 3 pleading guilty to three counts of attempted sexual abuse of a child.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2016 UT App 188, 380 P.3d 390, 820 Utah Adv. Rep. 64, 2016 Utah App. LEXIS 188, 2016 WL 4578417, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-toombs-utahctapp-2016.