United States v. Roberts

55 M.J. 724, 2001 CCA LEXIS 235, 2001 WL 1103283
CourtNavy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals
DecidedSeptember 14, 2001
DocketNMCM 99 01801
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 55 M.J. 724 (United States v. Roberts) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Navy-Marine Corps 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. Roberts, 55 M.J. 724, 2001 CCA LEXIS 235, 2001 WL 1103283 (N.M. 2001).

Opinion

DORMAN, Senior Judge:

Contrary to his pleas, a general court-martial composed of officer and enlisted members convicted the appellant of raping a fellow Sailor. The appellant’s crime violated Article 120, Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. § 920. The approved sentence includes confinement for 90 days and a bad-conduct discharge.

We have carefully reviewed the record of trial, the appellant’s two assignments of error, the Government’s Answer, and the appellant’s Response to the Government Answer. In deciding this case we have also considered the excellent oral arguments presented by military appellate counsel at the Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island, on 28 June 2001. Following our review of all these materials and the oral arguments, we conclude that the findings and sentence are correct in law and fact and that no error materially prejudicial to the substantial rights of the appellant was committed. Arts. 59(a) and 66(c), UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. §§ 859(a) and 866(c).

Facts

On 16 August 1997, Airman A, the “victim” in this case, arrived at the Bachelor Enlisted Quarters [BEQ] in Naples, Italy, and was assigned to a room on the second floor. She was there on temporary duty to receive dental work of a nature more complicated than she could receive on her ship. At the time she was also taking several medications to include, Percocet, Cleocin, and Motrin. The next afternoon, she attended a party near the BEQ, where she began to consume alcoholic beverages. She was at the party for several hours and then went to the club where she drank more alcoholic beverages. While at the club, she danced with several individuals. She recalls much of what went on there until after she drank some tequila.

Although the appellant was at the club on the evening of 17 August 1997, Airman A does not recall having met him that evening. In fact she testified that she did not meet the appellant until she saw him at the Article 32, UCMJ, investigation into the charge of which the appellant has now been convicted. Airman A does recall seeing him at the club on the evening of 17 August. Record at 391-92.

Shortly after Airman A drank some tequila, she was seen leaving the club with the appellant. Engineman Fireman Parke joined them and assisted in walking Airman A back to her BEQ room. Before leaving the club though, the appellant told Parke that he “had a chance with Airman [A].” Parke cautioned against it, because she was “too intoxicated.” Id. at 333. Although Parke was not in the club all evening — he had gone in and out a few times — he noticed over the course of the evening that Airman A was losing her faculties. Her speech was getting slurred, she was stumbling, and, towards the end of the evening, she was “really, really, intoxicated.” Id. at 332. See also id. at 402-03.

As the appellant and Parke escorted Airman A back to her BEQ room they had to hold her up so she would not fall, with Airman A positioned between the two of them. Arman A was walking very slowly. When they came to the BEQ, they basically carried her up the stairs. Id. at 336. When they arrived at her room she fumbled around for her keys. While she was doing that the door opened, and Airman A stated with surprise, “Oh, I have a roommate.” Id. and at 400. In fact, Airman A had not met her roommate, Boatswain’s Mate Third Class [BM3] Jennifer White, as she had checked in while Airman A was out of the room. Id. at 399-400. Parke and the appellant brought Airman A into the room and sat her on her bed. Parke then twice suggested to the appellant that they needed to go. Id. at 337, 400. Parke talked with White for about five minutes and then he left, telling the appellant that it was time to go. Parke then went to the television lounge area of the BEQ, just outside Airman A’s BEQ room. White felt uncomfortable in the room, because it seemed like the appellant and Airman A were a couple. She, however, didn’t think Airman A was physically capable of “do[ing] [726]*726anything.”1 Id. at 403, 412. She then went to the television lounge where she saw Parke and Fireman Ryan Thibodeaux, who expressed concern that the appellant was in the room alone with Airman A.2 Id. at 339, 403. When White left her room, the lights were on in the room.

When Thibodeaux learned that the appellant was in the room with Airman A, he told Parke that they needed to get him out of there, and they went to the room. Upon knocking on the door, the appellant answered the door, and cracked it open enough for Thibodeaux to see the appellant’s head and a bit of his shirt. The lights were turned off in the room. They told the appellant that he needed to get out of the room. The appellant acknowledged their concerns but then shut the door. Thibodeaux and Parke returned to the lounge, and Thibodeaux continued to watch the door to Airman A’s BEQ room. When the appellant did not exit the room, Parke returned to the room, but there was no answer and the door would not open. Id. at 339, 454. Parke and Thibodeaux then sent White down to her room, and she-opened the door with her key. The room was still dark inside. Although she could not see clearly what was going on in the room, she noticed that the appellant quickly got up from the bed, and when she asked if everything was okay, he said it was.3 Between 15 and 30 minutes after White had initially left her room, the appellant came into the lounge, and asked White to be sure to wake Airman A by 0600. The appellant did not appear nervous when talking with White.

When she returned to her room, White observed Airman A lying in bed with just a shirt on and naked from the waist down. Id. at 411, 423. White found this surprising because she did not think that Airman A was capable of doing anything physical that evening. During her testimony, Airman A testified that she was never able to find the panties that she had been wearing that night. Furthermore, there is no evidence in the record suggesting that the appellant and Airman A had engaged in any sort of sexual or sensual activity prior to their being in the BEQ room together. In fact both White and Thibodeaux testified that they had seen no such contact between the appellant and Airman A. Id. at 436, 464.

Airman A testified that she began drinking on the afternoon of 17 August 1997, and continued drinking that evening at the club. She remembers very little about what happened to her after she drank the shot of tequila. She does not recall who walked her back to her BEQ room. Id. at 381. She testified that she recalled that upon returning to her room she mentioned to someone that she had a roommate. She also recalls trying to set her alarm clock, but that someone took it away from her. Her testimony continued:

And after that I remember someone handing me a teddy bear that I had in my arms as I was laying down on my side. After that, I remember somebody asking me if they wanted — they asked me, would you like me to stay with you and I said, huh-uh. And they asked me, are you sure, and I said Uh-huh.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
55 M.J. 724, 2001 CCA LEXIS 235, 2001 WL 1103283, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-roberts-nmcca-2001.