Jones v. State
| Decision Date | 22 September 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 3, September Term, 2008.,3, September Term, 2008. |
| Citation | 980 A.2d 469,410 Md. 681 |
| Parties | Joseph Michael JONES v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Brian L. Zavin, Asst. Public Defender (Nancy S. Forster, Public Defender, Baltimore), on brief, for petitioner.
Robert Taylor, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen. (Douglas F. Gansler, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Baltimore), on brief, for respondent.
Argued before HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, MURPHY, ADKINS, JOHN C. ELDRIDGE, (Retired, Specially Assigned) and IRMA S. RAKER, (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.
In the Circuit Court for Harford County, a jury convicted Joseph Michael Jones, Petitioner, of sexual child abuse, second degree sexual offense, and third degree sexual offense. Petitioner concedes that the State's evidence was sufficient to establish that he committed those offenses in Aberdeen, Maryland on December 23, 2004. He argues, however, that he is entitled to a new trial on the ground that the Circuit Court erroneously overruled his objections to (1) the testimony of the victim, and (2) the victim's taped statement to a social worker. In an unreported opinion filed on December 21, 2007, the Court of Special Appeals rejected those arguments and affirmed the judgments of the Circuit Court. Petitioner then filed a petition for writ of certiorari, in which he requested that this Court answer two questions:
I. Did the trial court err in permitting the six-year old alleged victim to testify where the child demonstrated a clear inability to understand and appreciate the obligation to tell the truth?
II. Did the trial court err in admitting the alleged victim's taped statement to a social worker?
We granted the petition. Jones v. State, 404 Md. 152, 945 A.2d 1270 (2008). For the reasons that follow, we answer "no" to each question, and shall therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.
According to Petitioner (in the words of his petition for writ of certiorari):
This case arose out of an allegation of unlawful sexual contact by Tanya Way and her son, Justin, against Mr. Jones in December of 2004. At the time of the alleged incident, Mr. Jones lived in a small two-bedroom house with Ms. Way, her three children, and her mother, Barbara Way. Mr. Jones and Ms. Way's mother were in a romantic relationship and shared one of the bedrooms in the house. Justin, then age five, and his younger brother, Sean, slept in the second bedroom. Ms. Way slept in the living room with Morgan, her youngest child.
The jury heard four accounts of the events surrounding the allegation against Mr. Jones. The first was from Ms. Way. According to Ms. Way, on the evening of December 23, 2004, she was at home with her children and Mr. Jones. Sean went to sleep at around 8:00. Ms. Way put Justin to bed at around 9:00. When she went to check on Justin about 10 minutes later, Mr. Jones was standing beside Justin's bed with his pants pulled partially down and Justin's hand on his penis. The door to the bedroom was open and the hallway light was on, as they had been when she put Justin to bed, and Sean was still sleeping. Ms. Way cursed at Mr. Jones and asked him "what the F" he was doing, but he ran back to his room without saying anything. She then called police and took Justin to a neighbor's house, not returning to get Sean, who was still sleeping, until the police arrived. Ms. Way testified that her son's bedroom was located only a few feet from the living room but maintained that she had been unable to hear what was going on in the bedroom because of noise from the television.
* * *
The next two accounts came from Justin. Four days after the alleged incident, Justin was interviewed by Noel Francis, a social worker with the Child Advocacy Center. During the interview, which was recorded and played for the jury, he stated that he was ten years old but then said that he was only five years old. When asked by Ms. Noel whether anyone had ever touched his penis, he replied that "Joe" did so with his mouth "[t]en" times at night when he was trying to sleep. Justin denied touching Mr. Jones' penis with his hand or mouth.
Called as a witness, Justin, then age six, provided a different account. Justin testified that Mr. Jones touched his penis with his hand and mouth. He initially stated that this only took place once and that it occurred in his room when he was trying to sleep and his brother was "eating or playing." However, he later testified that he was in his grandmother's bedroom watching a movie when Mr. Jones touched his penis with his mouth. On cross-examination, Justin agreed that his mother had told him they would play a trick on Mr. Jones but then said that he did not know what a trick was and that "only [his] mom knows those things."
The fourth and final account came from Mr. Jones, who denied having any inappropriate contact with Justin. Mr. Jones testified that on December 23 he had off from his job and was at home watching television. At some point, the police arrived and told him he was under arrest for the sexual assault of Justin. He told the police that it was "a lie."
To establish that Justin was competent to testify, the prosecutor asked him a series of voir dire questions suggested by Professor Thomas D. Lyon of the University of Southern California Law School and Professor Karen J. Saywitz of the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, in an article entitled Qualifying Children to Take the Oath: Materials for Interviewing Professionals.1 The Introduction of this article includes the following statements:
The purpose of these materials is to assist you in determining whether a child witness understands the difference between the truth and lies and appreciates the importance of telling the truth.
* * *
There are two tasks. The first task (truth v. lie) evaluates whether the child understands that the words "truth" and "lie" refer to statements that correspond to reality and statements that fail to correspond to reality, respectively. The second task (morality) determines whether a child understands the consequences of telling a lie, for example, that telling a lie will result in "trouble."
In the "truth v. lie" tasks, the child is shown a series of pictures of two children looking at, respectively, (1) a cat, (2) a pizza, (3) a teddy bear, (4) a truck, (5) a horse, (6) a doll, (7) a box of crayons, (8) a duck, (9) an orange, and asked to identify which child in each picture is telling the truth. The following questions were included in Justin's voir dire as his response to each picture was sought:
The following transpired after the prosecutor and Petitioner's trial counsel advised the Circuit Court that they had no further questions:
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
In re J.J.
...Reece v. State , 220 Md.App. 309, 319, 103 A.3d 1076 (2014), cert. denied , 442 Md. 195, 112 A.3d 374 (2015). Accord Jones v. State , 410 Md. 681, 700, 980 A.2d 469 (2009).1.CompetencyWe address first Mr. J's argument that the court erred in finding that the statement was trustworthy becaus......
-
Commonwealth v. Herndon
...that declarant testify about out-of-court identification before third party may testify about identification); Jones v. State, 410 Md. 681, 700, 980 A.2d 469 (2009) (where tape-recorded interview was offered in evidence substantively pursuant to State criminal statute permitting out-of-cour......
-
In re J.J., 5, Sept. Term, 2017
...‘make a finding on the record as to the specific guarantees of trustworthiness that are in the statement [.]’ " Jones v. State , 410 Md. 681, 699–700, 980 A.2d 469 (2009) (quoting CP § 11–304(f)(1) ). The hearing at which that determination is made is generally referred to as the " § 11–304......
-
Reece v. State
...In reviewing the factual findings required by the statute, we apply the “clearly erroneous” standard of review. Jones v. State, 410 Md. 681, 700, 980 A.2d 469 (2009). As explained below, we are not persuaded that the circuit court's finding that R.M.'s statements to Dr. Shukat had particula......