Hobson v. State
| Decision Date | 31 December 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 64S00-9403-CR-225,64S00-9403-CR-225 |
| Citation | 675 N.E.2d 1090 |
| Parties | Brett HOBSON, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellees (Plaintiffs Below). |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
John E. Martin, Law Offices of James V. Tsoutsouris, Valparaiso, for appellant.
Pamela Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Suzann Weber Lupton, Deputy Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Indianapolis, for appellees.
Brett Hobson ("Appellant") brings this direct appeal from his convictions for Murder; Rape, a Class A felony; Criminal Confinement, a Class B felony; and Criminal Deviate Conduct, a Class B felony. He received the following sentences: sixty years for Murder, fifty years for Rape, twenty years for Criminal Confinement, and fifty years for Criminal Deviate Conduct. The trial court ordered these sentences to be served consecutively, for a total of 180 years. Appellant raises the issues of (1) whether the trial court properly applied the rape shield statute to exclude evidence that the victim was using oral contraceptives; (2) whether the trial court committed error by accepting a general verdict form and sentencing Appellant for both murder and the felonies when the jury was instructed on both knowing or intentional murder and felony murder; (3) whether the prosecutor knowingly presented false evidence, thereby entitling Appellant to a mistrial; and (4) whether prosecutorial misconduct amounted to fundamental error. We reverse the murder conviction; we otherwise affirm the judgment of the trial court.
On October 10, 1992, sixteen-year-old Melissa Draus went to her cousin's trailer to attend a party. Her cousin, Trina Orlando, had invited a number of friends to the trailer for an evening of drinking. Among those attending were the seventeen-year-old Appellant and his sixteen-year-old cousin, Ryan Hobson. A number of the party-goers, including Appellant, had taken LSD earlier that evening. Some time around midnight, the group decided to leave the trailer and visit a local bar. Trina convinced Melissa to stay behind and babysit Trina's children. Appellant and Ryan stayed behind also.
Around 1:30 a.m., Officer Timothy Emmons and a fellow officer responded to a call from a resident of the trailer park. The caller had reported hearing male voices outside The two were taken into detention because of their intoxication and violation of curfew. Appellant, concerned about the reason that he was being taken in, repeatedly confirmed that he was only to be charged with public intoxication. During his conversation with police at the station, Appellant showed officers the bite mark on his back and commented that "that bitch bit me." (R. at 1746.) Later that morning, a friend of the two boys, posing as the Appellant's sister, came to the detention center and posted bail.
her window, one of which had said, "Kill the bitch." (R. at 1694.) The officers found no one in the trailer park, but shortly thereafter stopped Appellant and his cousin as they were walking down a nearby highway. Police noticed that both appeared to have blood stains on their clothing. Appellant first indicated that the stains were red paint, and then later claimed to have been in a fight. While talking to one of the officers, Appellant pulled up his shirt to reveal a bite mark on his back and said that he had told "the bitch to put out or get out." (R. at 1799.)
On that same morning, one of Trina's guests found Melissa. Her nude body was lying in the yard outside the trailer. She had been beaten and repeatedly stabbed. One stab wound entered the back of her shoulder and exited the front, another crossed the front of her neck severing her jugular vein and trachea. Forensic testing found semen stains on the victim's clothing. Serological and DNA testing proved that the semen was consistent with that of Appellant's. Blood stains on Appellant's clothes were consistent with the victim's blood.
Appellant and Ryan were arrested a few hours later. Prior to their arrest, Appellant made numerous inculpatory statements and admissions to several friends about how he had raped and stabbed the victim because she had bitten him. After his arrest, Appellant's story changed. Appellant told police that the victim seduced him and that they had consensual sex. He claimed that after he left the room, she became angry that he had not pleased her and followed him down the hall and bit him. He said that he responded by striking her repeatedly. Appellant claimed that he then went outside to cool down, but the victim came out of the trailer, still nude, and threw a knife at him. He next claims to have picked up the knife and lunged at her to scare her away. Appellant admitted that he stabbed the victim with the knife.
While in jail, a third version of Appellant's story emerged. Appellant detailed to cellmate James Patton how he killed the victim by stabbing her from behind. Later, when Appellant learned that Patton intended to share this story with police, Appellant wrote a letter to a friend referring to Patton as a problem that he wished to have "taken care of." (R. at 1919.)
At trial, Appellant told yet another version of events. Appellant claimed that he engaged in consensual sex with the victim. He left to fix a drink, and returned to find her in the hallway engaging in fellatio with Ryan. Moments later he claims to have heard his cousin hitting the victim, and when he attempted to intervene, the victim bit him. Appellant testified that Ryan kicked the victim out of the trailer and stabbed her to death. Appellant told the jury that he initially agreed to take responsibility for the crime because he believed that he could use the bite mark to support a claim of self-defense.
Before and during trial, the trial court applied Indiana's Rape Shield Statute, I.C. § 35-37-4-4, to deny Appellant's request to introduce evidence that the deceased victim was using oral contraceptives. Appellant argues that the trial court improperly applied the Rape Shield Statute and thus erroneously excluded the contraception evidence. Appellant first claims that because the victim was dead prior to trial, the public policy underlying the statute was not served by excluding evidence of her contraception prescription. Appellant argues that the purpose of the Rape Shield Statute is to attempt to prevent the victim's embarrassment at trial and to encourage sexual assault victims to report assaults to the police, and because As to Appellant's first claim, a victim's death does not abrogate the public policy advanced by the Rape Shield Statute, inter alia, encouraging victims to report rape. Jenkins v. State, 627 N.E.2d 789, 795 (Ind.1993), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 812, 115 S.Ct. 64, 130 L.Ed.2d 21 (1994). As to his other claims, they constitute a none-too-thinly veiled attempt to create an inference of promiscuity. Evidence of contraceptive use cannot reasonably be expected to create an inference of an intent to engage in sexual activity only in the future. The trial court properly applied the Rape Shield Statute in this case to exclude evidence of Melissa Draus' contraception prescription.
Melissa Draus was dead by the time of trial, her possible humiliation was no longer an issue. Appellant further claims that the Rape Shield Statute is designed to prevent only evidence of prior sexual activity from admission at trial. Thus, he argues, the Rape Shield Statute should not apply here because oral contraceptives facilitate future sexual activity. Finally, Appellant claims that this contraception evidence was material in that it rebuts the assumption that, because of the victim's age, Melissa Draus was not sexually active.
Appellant next challenges the trial court's giving of a general Murder verdict form to the jury when the court instructed the jury on both intentional or knowing murder and felony murder. The information charging murder read:
David Reynolds, swears under the penalties of perjury as specified by I.C. 35-44-2-1 that the following representation is true: That Brett R. Hobson did, on or about the 11th day of October, 1992, in the County of Porter, State of Indiana, knowingly or intentionally kill another human being, to wit: stabbed to death Melissa Draus, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided against the peace and dignity of the State of Indiana.
(R. at 18.)
Appellant's jury, however, received an instruction on murder which was broader than the knowingly-or-intentionally murder theory contained in the information:
Instruction No. 3.01--Murder.
The crime of murder is defined by statute as follows: A person who knowingly or intentionally kills another human being while committing or attempting to commit arson, burglary, child molesting, criminal deviate conduct, kidnapping, rape, or robbery commits murder, a felony.
To convict a defendant, the State must prove each of the following elements:
The defendant (1) knowingly or intentionally (2) killed (3) Melissa Draus
or
The defendant (1) killed (2) Melissa Draus (3) while committing or attempting to commit criminal deviate conduct or rape.
(R. at 468.)
Finally, the court gave the jury a verdict form which read: "We, the Jury, find the Defendant, Brett Hobson, guilty of Murder, Count I." (R. at 433.)
Although Appellant was not charged with felony murder, the trial court instructed the jury that it could return a verdict of guilty on the charge of murder under either a murder or a felony-murder theory. The court then gave to the jury a general murder verdict form. Appellant argues that, because the crime of knowing or intentional murder has elements different than the crime of felony murder, and because it is unclear of which crime the jury found him guilty, his conviction is defective.
We initially note that Appellant did not object to this instruction at trial, thus he cannot now claim error. 1 Smith v. State, 459 N.E.2d 355,...
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