JAP v. State
Decision Date | 31 August 2001 |
Citation | 853 So.2d 264 |
Parties | J.A.P. v. STATE of Alabama. |
Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
Joe W. Morgan III, Birmingham, for appellant.
William H. Pryor, Jr., atty. gen.; and Kristi L. Deason and Andy Scott Poole, asst. attys. gen., for appellee.
A delinquency petition was filed in the Juvenile Court of Jefferson County, charging the appellant, J.A.P., a 14-year-old male, with the attempted first-degree rape of his 9-year-old half sister, L.P. The charge was based on allegations that the appellant, in violation of § 13A-4-2, Ala.Code 1975, had attempted to commit the offense of first-degree rape, as that offense is defined in § 13A-6-61(a)(1), Ala.Code 1975. After conducting an evidentiary hearing, the juvenile court found the charge in the petition to be true, and adjudicated the appellant delinquent. We affirm.
The sole issue presented on appeal is whether the evidence was sufficient to support the juvenile court's judgment. Specifically, the primary question is whether the evidence was sufficient to allow the juvenile court to infer the element of "forcible compulsion." In his brief to this Court, the appellant states:
""
R.B.H. v. State, 762 So.2d 382, 383 (Ala.Crim.App.1999), quoting A.A.G. v. State, 668 So.2d 122, 124 (Ala.Crim.App.1995). The sufficiency-of-the-evidence issue was properly preserved upon the juvenile court's denial of the appellant's motion for a judgment of acquittal at the close of the State's case and of the appellant's motion for a new trial. Section 13A-4-2 provides, in pertinent part:
At the time of the incident made the basis of the delinquency petition, § 13A-6-61 provided, in pertinent part, as follows:
The record indicates the following: The incident in question occurred when the appellant and the victim were alone at home. The appellant, who was approximately four and a half years older than the victim, made the victim watch a pornographic video, attempted to engage in sexual intercourse with her, and told the victim not to tell anyone. This was not the first incident of the sexual abuse of the victim. From the time that she was four or five years old, the victim had been the object of continued sexual abuse by older males, including C.P. (the appellant's brother, who was five years older than the appellant), a friend of C.P.'s, an uncle, and the appellant. (R. 60-61, 72-73.) The appellant had shown the victim a pornographic video on at least one previous occasion; he had touched the victim in her genital area with his penis on at least one occasion before this incident; and he had touched the victim's genital area with his fingers on numerous occasions. (R. 60, 62, 72, 79-81.) The evidence also indicated that the appellant and the victim were raised in a dysfunctional household, in the presence of a parent and a stepparent who abused alcohol and/or took illegal drugs, and that they were quite often left to fend for themselves, without parental supervision, and with ready access to pornographic videos. (R. 119-61.)
With respect to the incident in question, the victim testified that the appellant "made" her watch the pornographic video by telling her to "come on" and that she always knew when she was told to watch one of the pornographic videos with her older half brothers that sexual contact would follow. The victim also testified that she was "afraid" of the appellant and that she knew that what he was doing was wrong. (R. 51-54, 57-59, 65-69, 79, 83-85, 90.) The evidence revealed a continuing pattern of sexual abuse by the victim's older half brothers. The victim acknowledged a fear of any male who wanted to touch her. (R. 92-93.)
The appellant testified that he had been sexually abused by his brother, C.P., on a number of occasions. (R. 172-75.) He also stated during the hearing that nothing had physically prevented him from engaging in sexual intercourse with the victim. He testified that he had aborted his attempt to penetrate the victim because she began to cry. The evidence also indicated, and the juvenile court noted, that the appellant had previously told a police investigator that he had stopped because he could not physically insert his penis into the victim's vagina. (R. 202-06.) Based on all the evidence presented at the hearing, including the victim's in-court testimony and the victim's recorded statement taken during an interview at the Prescott House,2 the juvenile court found that the appellant had attempted to engage in sexual intercourse with the victim by forcible compulsion. The juvenile court stated as follows at the close of the hearing:
(R. 208-11.)
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, and indulging all reasonable inferences in favor of the juvenile court's credibility findings,5 we affirm the judgment based on this Court's decision in B.E. v. State, 778 So.2d 863 (Ala.Crim.App.2000). Although the evidence in the present case is not identical to that in B.E., we find the two cases are not materially distinguishable. In B.E., this Court stated:
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...that he had stopped because he could not physically insert his penis into the victim's vagina. (R. 202–06.)”J.A.P. v. State, 853 So.2d 264, 266–67 (Ala.Crim.App.2001). The Court of Criminal Appeals relied on B.E. v. State, 778 So.2d 863 (Ala.Crim.App.2000), which held that there was suffici......
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