Jackson v. State

• Decision Date: 13 July 1989
• Docket Number: No. 27S00-8707-CR-692,27S00-8707-CR-692
• Citation: 540 N.E.2d 1232
• Parties: Charles L. JACKSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 1232

540 N.E.2d 1232

Charles L. JACKSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

No. 27S00-8707-CR-692.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

July 13, 1989.

Bruce D. Metzger, James A. McKown, Jr., Marion, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Cheryl Lynn Greiner, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

DeBRULER, Justice.

Appellant Jackson was charged and convicted in a trial by jury of the offense of rape, a Class B felony. I.C. 35-42-4-1. He received a sentence of imprisonment of twenty years. I.C. 35-50-2-5. In this direct appeal of that conviction it is claimed: (1) the verdict is inconsistent, hence illegal, (2) the evidence is insufficient, (3) error occurred when the testimony of a defense witness was excluded, (4) a prejudical irregularity in the trial occurred when appellant was transported in shackles in an elevator along with one of the jurors, and (5) the sentence is manifestly unreasonable.

The evidence presented at trial which tends to support the verdict shows the following. In September of 1985 a woman, E.S., went to a bar in Marion late at night and stayed until closing at about 3:00 a.m. Upon leaving she offered appellant a ride home in her car and he accepted. Appellant had joined her at her table during the evening, bought her a couple of beers and had danced with her. When they neared appellant's residence in the car, he directed her down an alley to the rear of the house. On stopping she said, "Check you later." He responded, "Take off your clothes." He then held a syringe and needle in his hand and said he would stick her with it and said he was going to kill her. Holding it to her neck, he forced her out of the car and into a garage and into a car parked there, where, while still holding the syringe in this menacing manner, forced her to disrobe and submit to sexual intercourse. Thereafter he ordered her back into her car, and to drive them to a park, where he again threatened to kill her and she again submitted to sexual intercourse. After he released her, she went to the house of a friend who had a telephone and called the police. Her clothing was then torn and disheveled with dirt ground into it.

(1)

Appellant was charged with two counts of rape. They were worded identically, one was intended to cover the garage incident and the other the park incident. Trial concluded with verdicts of guilty of the first rape and not guilty of the second. Appellant claims that the verdicts are logically inconsistent and that the guilty verdict is contrary to law and should be set aside.

Verdicts may be so extremely contradictory and irreconcilable as to require corrective action. Marsh v. State (1979), 271 Ind. 454, 393 N.E.2d 757. Ordinarily where the trial of one defendant results in acquittal upon some charges and convictions on others, the results will survive a claim of inconsistency where the evidence is sufficient to support the convictions. Totten v. State (1985), Ind., 486 N.E.2d 519. In resolving such a claim, the Court will not engage in speculation about the jury's thought processes or motivation. Marsh, 271 Ind. 454, 393 N.E.2d 757. However, the legal avenue remains open for the claim that there is an inconsistency which renders the result of the trial irrational.

Here appellant claims that the acquittal by the jury of the rape in the vicinity of the park amounted to a rejection of the victim's testimony, thus rendering the jury verdict of guilty of the rape in the garage inconsistent. Here there can be no necessary inconsistency, as the two counts referred to separate acts which occurred in different places and at different times; and the jury would be well within its prerogative in fully and sufficiently crediting only that part of the victim's testimony that related to the first attack. Totten, Ind., 486 N.E.2d 519.

(2)

Appellant next contends the evidence is insufficient to convict. In considering this issue we do not weigh the evidence or judge questions of credibility, but look solely to the evidence tending to support the verdict, and upon so doing, reverse only if the evidence lacks that probative value upon which a reasonable trier of fact could infer guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Glover v. State (1970), 253 Ind. 536, 255 N.E.2d 657; Turner v. State (1972), 259 Ind. 344, 287 N.E.2d 339. The State's case rested primarily upon the testimony of the alleged victim. Thereupon the argument made is that rejection by the jury of the victim's testimony that she was subjected to threat of deadly force and that the second attack even took place, when coupled with the differences between the victim's statement in her deposition and her trial testimony, shows a lack of sufficient evidence. This claim calls for no more than a weighing of the evidence and a judging of the credibility of a witness. That call was answered by the jury and the evidence was clearly sufficient to support that answer.

(3)

The State sought and was granted a motion in limine pursuant to the Rape Shield Law, I.C. 35-37-4-4, preventing the testimony of a man that he had had sexual intercourse with the victim at her home the day before the charged rape. Appellant claims that this ruling was error, as it prevented him from impeaching her, and that the door for impeachment on this point was opened when the victim testified that she had spent the day preceding the rape cleaning her home.

In Thomas v. State (1984), Ind., 471 N.E.2d 677, a fifteen-year-old left her boyfriend's house after having had sexual intercourse with him. Her credibility was crucial at trial. Evidence of that prior intercourse was relevant as it tended to show an innocent source of semen and scratches, and would have had a slight impeaching force. This Court upheld the exclusion of evidence of that prior act of intercourse. In Hall v. State (1978), 176 Ind.App. 59, 374 N.E.2d 62, the Court of Appeals was of the opinion that, where an alleged rape victim...