State v. Watkins

754 S.W.2d 95, 1988 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 278
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedMay 4, 1988
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 754 S.W.2d 95 (State v. Watkins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Watkins, 754 S.W.2d 95, 1988 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 278 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1988).

Opinion

OPINION

DUNCAN, Presiding Judge.

The defendant, Charles Bennie Watkins, was convicted of rape and incest. He received a Range I sentence of ten (10) years for each offense, the sentences to be served concurrently.

In this appeal, the defendant contests the evidence, says certain evidence was improperly admitted, and claims error in the denial of certain special requests for instructions. For the reasons stated in this opinion, we reverse the defendant’s conviction of rape and affirm his conviction of incest.

The victim in this case was the defendant’s seventeen-year-old daughter.

According to the victim’s direct testimony, on the morning of May 29, 1986, she was at home with the defendant, her natural father. No one else was at home at the time. She was in the kitchen “fixing some breakfast.” The defendant came in the kitchen. When asked if he took her out of the kitchen, the victim responded, “[m]y room.” Further, she testified that he “touched” her, took her “pajamas off,” then took off his own clothes and had sex with her. After he accomplished the act, the defendant asked her “how it felt.” She stated that his “private parts” penetrated her “private parts.”

Additionally, the victim testified that shortly after the event, she went to a friend’s house. Her friend called the police, and thereafter she talked to Officer Harold Pinkley, telling him “basically” the same thing she had testified about, but thought she “remembered more then because it took longer.”

[97]*97On cross-examination, the following colloquy took place between defense counsel and the victim:

Q. Now, what were you doing in the Kitchen?
A. Cooking some sausage.
Q. Is that when your father came in there?
A. Yes.
Q. What, if anything, did he say to you?
A. I don’t — remember if he said anything. I don’t remember him saying anything.
Q. Now, did he touch you?
A. Yes.
Q. How long did this activity in the kitchen go on?
A. I — don’t remember. I don’t know.
Q. Well, was it as long as five minutes?
A. I don’t know. It was until he took me to my room. I don’t know — how long.
Q. I’m a little bit uncertain about what you said here. Maybe you can help me get this cleared up. Did your father not say anything, or did he say something and you don’t recall it?
A. I don’t remember him saying anything.
Q. Okay. Did you say anything to him?
A. I don’t remember saying anything to him.
Q. Do you recall ever asking what he was doing or why he was doing this?
A. No.
Q. Now, how did he get you from the kitchen to your room?
A. Just — guided me.
Q. Did he use any force?
A. No, I don’t — he just — guided me.
Q. Did he make any threats to you?
A. No.
Q. Did he use any obscene words?
A. I don’t remember him saying anything.
Q. Did you not resist?
A. No.
Q. Why?
A. Because I was — used to it. He — .
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Q. Jenny, while you and your father were in the bedroom did he say anything to you?
A. Only thing I can remember is he asked me how it felt.
Q. While you were in the bedroom, did he use any force?
A. No.
Q. Did he make any threats to you?
A. No.
Q. Why did you go in the bedroom with him?
A. I didn’t know what else to do.

Donnie Thomas, the defendant’s employer, testified that he visited the defendant at the jail the day after his arrest. The defendant admitted to him that he had sexual relations with his daughter. The defendant told him he was “going to teach her what could happen to her by going out with men, or stuff,” and that “undoubtedly,” he “just got carried away.” The defendant told Thomas that he wished he could “just back things up ... it’s hard to back things up once it happens.”

Detective John Paul Seavers testified that he took a statement from the victim about the event. The defendant’s objection to parts of the statement was overruled. Detective Seavers was then permitted to read in full the transcribed statement. The statement essentially corroborated the same things that the victim had mentioned in her testimony; however, the statement went further and included many things that were entirely outside the scope of the victim’s trial testimony.

For instance, according to the contents of the victim’s statement, the defendant touched her “between the legs” while they were in the kitchen; the defendant “pushed” her “next to him,” and she “pushed him away”; after the defendant told her “to kiss him on the cheek,” she did, and subsequently, he “guided” her into the bedroom; the defendant “kindly pushed” her “a little bit, not hard”; the defendant put her hand on his penis and “put himself inside of her”; then the defendant asked her if she “wanted him to put it in,” but she “didn’t say anything,” as “he was al[98]*98ready in”; the defendant had “never done it all the way like that ... just touched me, and stuff like that”; and that the defendant had sexually molested her by touching and feeling “at least” ten or fifteen times before the present occasion.

Other evidence showed that a chemical test on a sheet from the victim’s bed revealed the presence of a component of semen, but this component is also found in vaginal and other body fluids. Also a test was conducted on a vaginal slide and the victim’s panties and pajamas, but no spermatozoa were present.

The defendant testified and denied that he sexually molested his daughter. He stated that he was being falsely accused, indicating that his daughter was angry with him for not buying her a car. He also believed that her motive in falsely accusing him could have been because she thought he might have caught her smoking, or that it might have something to do with a “divorce deal.”1 Further, the defendant denied telling Donnie Thomas that he committed the crime. He told Thomas he was not guilty, and in his conversation with Thomas when Thomas mentioned “sexual relations,” he thought that term related to parents teaching their kids about sex. The defendant said that after he was arrested, the detective told him he was accused of rape and may have told him he was also accused of incest, but “[t]he rape was what shocked me so much.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
754 S.W.2d 95, 1988 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 278, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-watkins-tenncrimapp-1988.