Webb v. Lewis

44 F.3d 1387, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 34997, 94 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6461, 94 Daily Journal DAR 11858, 40 Fed. R. Serv. 86, 1994 WL 733476
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedAugust 24, 1994
DocketNo. 93-16167
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 44 F.3d 1387 (Webb v. Lewis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Webb v. Lewis, 44 F.3d 1387, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 34997, 94 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6461, 94 Daily Journal DAR 11858, 40 Fed. R. Serv. 86, 1994 WL 733476 (9th Cir. 1994).

Opinions

Opinion by Judge NOONAN; Dissent by Judge T.G. NELSON.

ORDER

The opinion filed August 24, 1994, 33 F.3d 1079, and amended October 13, 1994 has been amended as fohows:

Shp opinion p. 12581, ¶ 2, hne 6 [at p. 1084] strike “In this case” after “the hearsay”. Insert: “We are not bound by the dictum in Swan, supra at 1391 interpreting Wright as suggesting the contrary. While the evidence here is not essential to our holding,”

OPINION

NOONAN, Circuit Judge:

Terry L. Webb appeals the denial by the district court of a writ of habeas corpus freeing him from imprisonment by the state of Arizona. Holding that there has been a gross denial by Arizona of a right secured to Webb under the Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution, we reverse the judgment of the district court and direct the issuance of the writ.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

In the summer of 1986 Leslie Morton was separated from her husband and living in a trailer park with her two children, David, age 10, and Heather, age 2% She worked the night shift at the Little Brown Jug, finishing around midnight or in the small hours of the morning.

Because of her work, Leslie Morton had to find babysitters for her children. She usually left David with her own parents but because of Heather’s difficult behavior she thought her parents would not be able to cope with her. She found other babysitters in her next-door neighbors in the trailer park, Terry Webb and his companion Cindy Hammontree, who had a child of their own, Cody. Leslie Morton thought of Terry and Cindy as her best friends.

During the summer months Heather Morton stayed on occasion with Terry and Cindy and wrestled with Cody. When Heather stayed overnight with Terry and Cindy, her mother would bathe her in the morning. Her mother never noticed any signs suggesting abuse by Terry or by Cindy. Heather never spoke to her mother of any abuse. In late August 1986, when her mother was putting on cream for a bladder infection and referred to it as “medicine,” Heather said to her, “Terry put medicine on me.” Her mother had “no idea” of what Heather meant.

In September 1986 Leslie Morton began to use a new babysitter during the day, Connie Martin. Connie used her home to babysit a number of children, supplementing her income as a church custodian. On four other occasions Connie Martin had reported to the [1389]*1389authorities that a child in her care had suffered sexual abuse.

On September 23, 1986, when Connie was “hustling about trying to find her checkbook” and paying little attention to the children as “there was kind of a lot of chitter-chat,” Heather said that Terry had put medicine in her. She then said, “Terry is a bad man, he hurt me.” Connie Martin’s husband then asked Heather to tell his wife why Terry was a bad man. Heather went on, according to Connie Martin, to accuse Terry Webb in childish language of digitally assaulting her genitals and of instructing her not to tell. Connie Martin’s response was “to mask the horror of it the best that I could,” to put her arms around her, and to ask her questions “in the most non-threatening way” in order “to derive some basic information.” Connie was immediately convinced of Terry’s criminal guilt: “I emotionally didn’t feel like I could stand the horrendousness of this heinous crime that was committed against this child.”

On September 30, 1986, Connie Martin told Heather. “Heather, you know what Terry did to you was very very bad, and that Heavenly Father and Jesus does not like bad things to happen to his little children, and He has given us special friends to help us.” According to Martin, this statement was made as a way of preparing Heather for “special friends” from the Children Protective Service of the Division of Economic Security of the State of Arizona.

Also on September 30 Connie Martin for the first time informed Leslie Morton of what Heather had said to her about Terry. This conversation was overheard by Heather, who ran over and said, “Terry no do those things to me, Connie.”

Connie Martin then informed the district attorney’s office of LaPaz County, Arizona about what she said Heather had first said to her by way of accusations against Terry Webb. Allan Duprey from the Victim Witness Office in LaPaz County arranged to have Heather interviewed in San Diego, California at the Center for Child Protection at Children’s Hospital and Health Center. Du-prey accompanied Heather and her mother to the Center on October 16, 1986. At the Center for Child Protection Heather was interviewed by Linda Proctor, a social worker holding a B.A. and M.A. in Social Work from San Diego State University. This interview was videotaped and constituted part of the state’s case against Terry Webb. It is discussed at greater length below.

After the interview with Proctor, Heather was medically examined at the Center for Child Protection by Sylvia Strickland, a physician specializing in child abuse cases and often consulted by law enforcement and child protection services. Strickland found fibroblasts in Heather’s hymen that she interpreted to be sear tissue from the use of force on the hymen; she also formed the opinion that the opening of the hymen had been enlarged beyond its normal size. She believed that the abrasions would have been caused by several episodes over a period of no less than two months. She had no means of knowing when the episodes would have occurred, except that it would have been more than two weeks before the examination and not over a year from October 1986.

Webb was indicted. A pretrial hearing was conducted on February 18, 1987 as to the admissibility of certain statements against him. The hearing was convened pursuant to Arizona Criminal Code § 13-1416, which made admissible a statement by a minor under the age of 10 describing any sexual offense witnessed by the minor provided that, in a hearing before the judge, it was established “that the time, content and circumstances of the statement provide sufficient indicia of reliability” and that the minor testified or, if unavailable, there was corroborative evidence of the statement. In 1987 the Arizona Supreme Court found this statute to be unconstitutional. State v. Robinson, 153 Ariz. 191, 735 P.2d 801, 808 (1987). At the hearing in 1987 held prior to this decision, the trial court found the videotape and other hearsay reports of Heather’s statements to be admissible.

Webb’s trial followed. No person who had seen the alleged criminal acts of Webb testified. Heather Morton herself refused to answer questions put to her by the judge outside the courtroom. The state did not pres[1390]*1390ent her as a witness. Neither did the state present as a witness Terry Webb’s companion Cindy, who, if some of the hearsay was correct, had actually witnessed the abuse. The state’s entire case connecting Webb to the injuries found by Dr. Strickland was made up of hearsay reported by Connie Martin, Leslie Morton and Linda Proctor and of the videotaped interview with Heather. The videotape was taken by the jury into the jury room during its deliberations.

Webb was convicted of both counts and sentenced to consecutive prison terms of 17 years and 20 years for a total of 37 years imprisonment.

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44 F.3d 1387, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 34997, 94 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6461, 94 Daily Journal DAR 11858, 40 Fed. R. Serv. 86, 1994 WL 733476, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/webb-v-lewis-ca9-1994.