Adams v. State

• Decision Date: 03 March 1993
• Docket Number: No. A92A1895,A92A1895
• Citation: 430 S.E.2d 35,208 Ga.App. 29
• Parties: ADAMS v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 35

430 S.E.2d 35

208 Ga.App. 29

ADAMS v. The STATE.

No. A92A1895.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

March 3, 1993.

Reconsideration Denied March 19, 1993.

Certiorari Denied May 6, 1993.

Claudia S. Saari, Decatur, for appellant.

J. Tom Morgan, Dist. Atty., Anne G. Maseth, Lee Anne Atkins, Elizabeth W. Morn, Asst. Dist. Attys., for appellee.

BIRDSONG, Presiding Judge.

This is an interlocutory review of the order of the trial court in a child molestation and sodomy case admitting similar transaction evidence where the similarity in essence is claimed to have been established by the introduction of certified copies of certain documents obtained from the State of Indiana and by an uncontested statement in place by the prosecutor as to the facts of the case at bar. Appellant is William A. Adams a/k/a William A. Adams, Jr., William Adams, and William Albert Adams, Jr. Appellant is charged with two counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of aggravated sodomy, and one count of child molestation. It is specifically averred in each of the molestation counts that the victim (who was appellant's stepson) was a child under 14 years of age and that each offense was committed "with intent to arouse and satisfy the sexual desires of said accused." The State established that the victim in this case was four years old. The prosecutor stated in his place, without objection or contradiction, that the child, after identifying a penis on a male doll as his "ding-ding," stated appellant had the victim "play with his ding-ding," "put his ding-ding on [the victim's] butt," and made the victim "lick [appellant's] ding-ding."

The documents admitted to establish the prior similar transaction offense include an Indiana Information (accusation) for child molesting, Class C felony; minutes of the Indiana superior court; a Plea Bargain Agreement and Disclosure Statement; and an Abstract of Judgment from the Indiana Department of Corrections, certified by the St. Joseph County (Indiana) Superior Court Clerk. Although no witness was called to testify as to the circumstances surrounding the Indiana offense of child molestation revealed in the official records admitted before the court, and the prosecutor in the case at bar made no statement in place as to the circumstances surrounding the Indiana offense, the trial court admitted the documents as similar transaction evidence concluding that the ruling in Miller v. State, 165 Ga.App. 487, 488, 299 S.E.2d 174 constitutes an exception to the general rule in Stephens v. State, 261 Ga. 467, 405 S.E.2d 483. Held:

1. (a) Pursuant to OCGA § 24-1-4, we take judicial notice in its totality of the following law of the sovereign State of Indiana, to-wit Indiana Code § 35-42-4-3, captioned Child Molesting, as published by authority in Title 35, Book 2, Burns Indiana Statutes Annotated Code Edition. Subsection (b) of this judicially noticed Code section pertinently provides: "A person who, with a child under twelve years of age, performs or submits to any fondling or touching, of either the child or the older person, with intent to arouse or to satisfy the sexual desires of either the child or the older person, commits child molesting, a class C felony." (Emphasis supplied.) We also take judicial notice that § 35-42-4-3 reports on its face that it was last modified in 1981 by, P. L. 301, § 1. (Although not made a part of this record, the State announced on the hearing record that they were in possession of a certified copy of Indiana Code § 35-42-4-3, and argued that the trial court could take judicial notice of that statute during trial.)

(b) The Indiana documents introduced in evidence contain much irrelevant information, as noted by the trial court, including information that two other "causes" were dismissed. However, such a deficiency is easily corrected by excising the offensive material in a suitable manner. These documents do, however, contain the following relevant information on their face: (1) An "Information For Child Molesting, Class C Felony" (the information count avers that on April 19, 1984, "William Albert Adams, Jr. did perform fondling and touching with Moniko Lattimer, a child who was then and there under the age of twelve (12) years, with intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of William Albert Adams, Jr.," said offense being in violation of Indiana Code § 35-42-4-3.) (Emphasis supplied.) (2) Minutes of the St. Joseph Superior Court of Indiana (the minutes show appellant initially entered a plea of not guilty). (3) A Plea Bargain Agreement And Disclosure Statement, bearing appellant's signature as William A. Adams, Jr., together with an attached "Certificate Of Counsel," signed by the attorney for defendant (this document reveals, inter alia, that appellant was 18 years of age at the time of his plea, that he agreed to plead guilty in cause number 24637, child molesting, a Class C felony, and it lists the various constitutional rights which appellant would retain if he chose to adhere to his plea of not guilty. The document also contains the following express statement by appellant: "I know that the court will not ordinarily accept a plea of guilty from anyone who claims to be innocent, and I make no claim of innocence. I stand prepared to state to the court the conduct that I believe makes me guilty of the offense to which I wish to plead guilty." (4) An Indiana Abstract of Judgment form (establishing that William A. Adams, Jr. was found guilty of child molesting, a Class C felony, in cause no. 24637 and sentenced by the superior court), which was certified by the Indiana Superior Court Clerk as true and correct.

(c) An accepted and entered plea of guilty is the strongest proof of guilt known in the law. Thus, the admitted Indiana documents conclusively establish that William Albert Adams, Jr. a/k/a William A. Adams, Jr., at age 18 (the age of majority in Georgia pursuant to OCGA § 39-1-1(a)) committed, was convicted of, and sentenced for, the felony offense of child molestation against a child of tender years by fondling and touching said child with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of the said Adams. See generally 21 AmJur2d, Criminal Law, § 490 ("[A] plea of guilty is an admission or a confession of guilt, and as conclusive as a verdict of a jury; it admits all material fact averments of the accusation.")

2. (a) Although it was held in Stephens, supra, that the trial court erred by permitting the State to introduce a certified copy of his prior conviction for the sale of cocaine and failing to offer any other evidence of the commission of the sale in order to present proof of the similarity at trial, as recognized by the trial court, in Miller, supra, this court citing Phelps v. State, 158 Ga.App. 219, 220, 279 S.E.2d 513 held, and has continually applied for the last decade, the well-established rule that "[t]he sexual molestation of young children, regardless of sex or type of act, is sufficient similarity to make the evidence admissible."

(b) The object of all legal investigation is the discovery of the truth, and the rules of evidence are framed to facilitate this prominent purpose. OCGA § 24-1-2. It has long been recognized as necessary to achieve this goal that "[t]he exception to the general rule that evidence of independent crimes is inadmissible has been most liberally extended in the area of sexual offenses." Johnson v. State, 242 Ga. 649(3), 250 S.E.2d 394; Oller v. State, 187 Ga.App. 818, 821(2), 371 S.E.2d 455. Of all the sex crimes imaginable, nowhere is a liberal extension of the rule more necessary to facilitate the search for truth than in the sordid area of sex crimes committed against children, particularly those of tender age whose inability to speak for themselves makes them the most vulnerable prey to the most dispiteous of criminal depredation. Thus, this court acknowledged the existence of a special rule, applicable to those cases where an accused is being tried for crimes, the substance of which involves the sexual abuse of a child and where the similar transaction evidence likewise involves some form of sexual abuse of a child. This established rule was restated succinctly in Oller supra at 820(2), 371 S.E.2d 455, as follows: "The sexual abuse of young children, regardless of the sex of the victims or the nomenclature or type of acts perpetrated upon them, is of sufficient similarity to make the evidence admissible" (emphasis supplied) when the accused is being tried for one or more crimes involving some form of sexual abuse of a child.

The reason for this rule rests not only in the legal difficulty encountered with a child victim but because a sexual offense committed against a young child requires a special "la[s]civious motivation or bent of mind which generally will have some probative value in determining an accused's motivation or bent of mind in a subsequent trial for child molestation." Oller, supra at 821(2), 371 S.E.2d 455. That is, it requires a unique bent of mind for an accused to desire to satisfy the sexual desires of a young child or his own sexual desires through the medium of using a young child's body in some form. The virulent inclination is the use of a child as a sexual object; therefore, any form of prior sexual abuse committed against any young child whatever the variety of means or salacity of detail, and regardless of that child's sex, is highly relevant and material in determining the bent of mind, motive and intent of an accused. It is a matter of common knowledge that many sex offenders of adults would never commit such an act against a child of tender years and would glean no sexual satisfaction from the perpetration of such an act. Because of this uniqueness of sexual bent of mind and the nature of the specific intent of sexual gratification involved, evidence of sex crimes of any kind against children is sui generis in nature; it has a particularly significant...