United States v. Private E2 JOSHUA C. DAVIS

75 M.J. 537, 2015 CCA LEXIS 530, 2015 WL 7717241
CourtArmy Court of Criminal Appeals
DecidedNovember 25, 2015
DocketARMY 20130996
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 75 M.J. 537 (United States v. Private E2 JOSHUA C. DAVIS) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Army Court of Criminal Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Private E2 JOSHUA C. DAVIS, 75 M.J. 537, 2015 CCA LEXIS 530, 2015 WL 7717241 (acca 2015).

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT

WOLFE, Judge:

A general court-martial composed of officer and enlisted members convicted appellant, contrary to his. pleas, of one specification of rape in violation of Article 120, [539]*539Uniform Code of Military Justice [hereinafter UCMJ], 10 U.S.C. § 920 (2012). The panel acquitted appellant of two specifications of rape, one specification of sexual assault, and one specification of communicating a threat. The panel sentenced appellant to a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for six months, and to be reduced to the grade of E-l. The convening authority approved the sentence as adjudged and one day of confinement credit.

Appellant’s case is now before us for review pursuant to Article 66, UCMJ. Appellant raises two assignments of error, both of which merit discussion, but neither of which merits relief.. Appellant personally raises two issues pursuant to United States v. Grostefon, 12 M.J. 431 (C.M.A. 1982), neither of which merits discussion or relief.

BACKGROUND

Appellant and Private First Class (PFC) BJH were friends, having gone through basic training and advanced individual training together, to include serving in the same platoon. Both were subsequently assigned to Germany. Private First Class BJH testified that prior to the offense for which appellant now stands convicted, there were two other instances of sexual conduct between her and appellant. The first was a consensual episode which PFC BJH ended by telling appellant to stop (and to which he subsequently complied without incident). As to the second instance, PFC BJH testified that while the two of them were driving together at night, appellant parked the car in a deserted area and forcibly raped her.1 Approximately two weeks later, after finishing morning physical training, PFC BJH ran into appellant and decided to confront him about the prior alleged assault. Appellant asked to speak to her and to go up to her barracks room. Private First Class BJH testified that she was comfortable talking to appellant in her room because unlike the previous occasion, she was sober, it was in the middle of the morning, and she left her room door open.

Private First Class BJH provided the only witness testimony about the assault in her barracks room. Upon entering her barracks room with appellant, PFC BJH left the door to the room open and went into the bathroom to change out of her physical training gear and into her duty uniform. As she was pulling up her fatigue pants, she looked up and saw that the room door had been closed and appellant was walking towards her. Appellant stated, “You don’t need to put those pants on,” picked up PFC BJH, and then dropped her onto her bed. While pinning her arms, appellant retrieved a dildo from BJH’s nightstand and forcibly inserted it into her vagina. Appellant kept inserting the dildo into PFC BJH’s vagina while she told him to stop. At some point, she began to cry. Private First Class BJH further testified that once she started to cry, appellant stopped assaulting her with the dildo, got up, and threatened to rape her with an empty wine bottle if she did not “do him.”2 The encounter eventually ended when PFC BJH was able to text her girlfriend, Specialist (SPC) BH, for help and appellant left the room.

Upon receiving PFC BJH’s text, SPC BH went to PFC BJH’s barracks room. When SPC BH arrived at PFC BJH’s barracks room and heard what had happened, SPC BH decided to confront appellant. Specialist BH called appellant and found out he was in his barracks room in the same building. Both women went to his room.

As the testimony addressing the encounter between SPC BH, PFC BJH, and appellant is critical to resolving the first assignment of error, we include a portion of the record at length.3

Private First Class BJH testified to the encounter as follows:

[540]*540[S]o we both went and knocked on [appellant’s] door. And I was standing off to the side when [SPC BH] was in the middle of the doorway, she was yelling at [appellant] like, “What the fuck did you do?” And that’s whenever [appellant] said, “I didn’t do anything.” And then whenever I came over to where he could see me that’s when I—don’t remember exactly what I said, but I was basically was like, “How are you going to lie? It just happened?” Aid that’s whenever [appellant] said, “I thought she was joking until I saw her crying.”

On direct examination by the government, SPC BH testified to the same encounter at appellant’s doorway as follows:

Q: When you heard [about the assault], what did you do?
A: I instantly pulled my phone out, called him, and I asked [appellant] where he was. And he said that he was downstairs in his room and I didn’t even get off the phone, I was already down the stairs in his room, opened the door, and I then confronted him about it.
Q: Was [PFC BJH] with you?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Tell me how the confrontation happened.
A: I opened the door and I blatantly said, “What the fuck did you do to her?” And he was like, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” And I was like, “Bullshit. She is crying. She is telling me that something happened.” And he was like, “Oh, I thought it was a joke. I didn’t think she was being serious. And I didn’t realize it until she started crying.”

In addition to the testimony of PFC BJH and SPC BH, the government also introduced pictures of bruises on PFC BJH’s arms taken immediately after the assault and evidence that there was male DNA at the base of the dildo consistent with the DNA profile of appellant.4

In defense, appellant offered testimony that PFC BJH was not a truthful person and expert testimony that the age of the bruises depicted in the photographs was inconsistent with the timeline proffered by PFC BJH. The defense also admitted some evidence of a stormy romantic relationship between SPC BH and PFC BJH and argued that the panel could infer that the bruises were the result of a domestic battery.5

In rebuttal, the government offered expert testimony attacking the validity of the defense expert’s ability to date bruises based on a photograph. Additionally, the government offered additional eyewitness testimony on the appearance of the bruises immediately after the assault.

The government did not offer physical evidence or expert testimony regarding the offenses for which appellant was acquitted.

DISCUSSION

A Instructions

As noted, in his first assignment of error, appellant argues the military judge failed to sua sponte instruct the panel members on the defense of mistake of fact. Appellant argues that his statement after being confronted with an allegation of rape of “I thought she was joking until I saw her crying” reasonably raised a mistake of fact as to consent defense.

A military judge has an affirmative duty to instruct on special defenses reasonably raised by the evidence. Rule for Courts-Martial [hereinafter R.C.M.] 920(e)(3).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
75 M.J. 537, 2015 CCA LEXIS 530, 2015 WL 7717241, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-private-e2-joshua-c-davis-acca-2015.