King v. Adams
| Decision Date | 14 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case no. 4:17cv01233 PLC |
| Parties | JOHN KING, Petitioner, v. RICHARD ADAMS, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
Petitioner John King seeks federal habeas corpus relief from a Missouri state court judgment entered after a jury trial. 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Respondent Richard Adams filed a response to the petition, along with copies of the materials from the underlying state court proceedings. For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies the petition.2
The State charged Petitioner with committing in the City of St. Louis, Missouri, between February 14, 2009 and September 4, 2011, two counts of the Class C felony of deviate sexualassault in violation of Missouri Revised Statutes Section 566.070.3 In Count I, the State charged that Petitioner had "deviate sexual intercourse with M.J., near the time of M.J.'s graduation, knowing that he did so without the consent of M.J." In Count II, the State charged that Petitioner had "deviate sexual intercourse with M.J. knowing that he did so without the consent of M.J." The State also charged Petitioner as a prior and persistent offender under Section 558.016 because Petitioner, in 1973, 1975, and 1995, pleaded guilty to or was convicted of more than one felony offense.4
Prior to trial, Petitioner filed notices of his intent to introduce at trial business records from the St. Louis Community Release Center ("SLCRC") and St. Louis University Hospital ("SLU Hospital"). Petitioner also filed a motion to exclude from trial M.J.'s videotaped statements and testimony regarding those statements as not satisfying the reliability requirement of Section 491.075 and as lacking a sufficient showing that M.J. fell within the statute's "vulnerable person" definition.
The State filed a pretrial motion to treat M.J., who was then twenty-one years old, as a "vulnerable person" pursuant to the version of Section 491.075 that became effective August 28, 2012, or approximately four months before the start of trial. In its motion, the State specifically asked the trial court: (1) to treat M.J. as a vulnerable person, (2) to "admit [M.J.'s] oral andvideotaped statements . . . as substantive evidence," and (3) to "conduct a hearing under § 491.075 to determine whether [M.J.]'s statements are admissible as substantive evidence." Noting there was "no caselaw to assist in understanding the statutory definition" of "vulnerable person," the State argued M.J. fell within that definition. The State quoted the statutory definition of a "vulnerable person:" "a person who, as a result of an inadequately developed or impaired intelligence or a psychiatric disorder that materially affects ability to function, lacks the mental capacity to consent, or whose developmental level does not exceed that of an ordinary child of fourteen years of age." Mo. Rev. Stat. § 491.075.5.
After swearing in the jury, the trial court conducted, out of the presence of the jury, a hearing under Section 491.075 during which four persons testified. Lynette Swift Elliott, the special education supervisor and custodian of the records of students in the special education program at Roosevelt High School, testified about (1) M.J.'s diagnosis and his low IQ score which falls within the range Ms. Elliott referred to as "[i]ntellectual disability" from 1999 and (2) his Individualized Education Plan ("IEP") for 2009, his senior year, that revealed he was eighteen years old and "was functioning at a fourth grade level in all his academic areas." Ms. Elliott alsoestimated the typical fourth grader is ten years old; and, after seeing M.J.'s high school transcript, stated M.J. had graduated from high school.
Beverly Tucker, a forensic interviewer at the Children's Advocacy Center of Greater St. Louis ("CAC"), testified that she had conducted approximately 2,000 forensic interviews of children who are allegedly victims of physical abuse, victims of sexual abuse or witnesses to violent crimes. Based on her training and experience, she stated it is not uncommon for alleged victims of sexual abuse to recant their disclosure of the alleged abuse. Ms. Tucker interviewed M.J., who was then twenty years old, on September 13, 2011, and videotaped that interview.
Hassan King, one of M.J.'s brothers, who is approximately ten years older than M.J., testified about conversations he had with M.J. on and after September 4, 2011. He explained that he brought M.J. to his home for a barbecue that Labor Day weekend. After the barbecue, M.J. said he did not want to go home because "crazy things w[ere] going on at the house" and Petitioner "had been doing things to him." M.J. would not explain further, remained quiet when Hassan King asked what he meant. M.J. spent the night at Hassan King's home and the next day Hassan King asked M.J. what he meant about the "crazy things" going on where M.J. lived. M.J. responded that Petitioner "had been putting his penis in him."
Since those conversations, Hassan King testified, M.J. told him, a "couple days" "after [they] . . . talk[ed] to the detective and the . . . prosecutor" about the incidents, that the incidents did not happen. Otherwise, Hassan King stated, M.J. told him that the incidents had occurred.
Detective Andre Smith, who was assigned to the sex crimes section of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, testified about conducting a "cursory interview" of M.J. on September 7, 2011 before referring him to the CAC.
After reviewing M.J.'s high school records, including the transcript and IEP, as well as Ms. Tucker's videotaped interview of M.J., (all of which had been admitted during the hearing), and considering the testimony presented during the hearing, the trial judge decided M.J. was a "vulnerable person" under the part of the statutory definition that describes "a person . . . whose developmental level does not exceed that of any ordinary child of fourteen years of age." The trial judge also concluded there was sufficient indicia of reliability to allow introduction during trial of M.J.'s statements except with respect to the statements M.J. made to Detective Smith.
During trial, the State played the videotaped recording of M.J.'s interview at the CAC and presented the testimony of Hassan King, M.J., and Ms. Tucker. As part of his testimony, M.J. stated he graduated from high school in May 2009; that several times after his graduation, Petitioner put his penis in M.J.'s "butt"; and M.J. told Petitioner he did not like it, he did not want to do it, and to stop.
Petitioner introduced, without objection, his medical records beginning on April 16, 2009, and did not testify at trial. Petitioner did, however, present the testimony of four witnesses: Assistant Circuit Attorney Colleen Lang, who worked on Petitioner's case until approximately August of 2012; Petitioner's brothers: Johnnie J. King and Rickey King; and Arnold Bullock, M.D., a board-certified urologist at the Washington University School of Medicine.
Ms. Lang testified about a meeting she had in late November 2011 with M.J., Hassan King, their mother (Ernestine King), and Petitioner's attorney. At the November 2011 meeting, Ms. Lang testified, M.J. stated Petitioner did not abuse him. During cross-examination, Ms. Lang testified that on other occasions M.J. had told her that Petitioner abused him. Specifically, Ms. Lang stated M.J. reported to her that Petitioner had abused him: (1) during a meeting of HassanKing and M.J. in her office around September 9, 2011; (2) just before and during his appearance in front of the grand jury;6 and (3) when Ms. Lang and an investigator visited M.J. at Hassan King's home at the beginning of June 2012. Ms. Lang asked M.J. during the June 2012 conversation why he had told her (in November 2011) that the abuse by Petitioner had not happened and she said M.J. responded that "he wanted to forget about it."
Johnnie J. King and Rickey King each testified that they participated in a telephone conversation at an unspecified time months before trial with their sister (Denise King), their mother (Ernestine King), Hassan King, and M.J. Johnnie J. King and Rickey King each stated that, during that telephone conversation, M.J. said that Petitioner did not abuse him.
Dr. Bullock testified from review of Petitioner's records, that Petitioner had a left inguinal hernia repair on April 16, 2009, followed the next day by a catheterization for urinary tract symptoms with a history of an enlarged prostate. Dr. Bullock surmised, based on information in the records, that Petitioner was discharged from the hospital on April 17, 2009, without a catheter. Furthermore, Dr. Bullock testified that nothing in the records showed that Petitioner had a catheter from April 17, 2009 to April 2, 2010. Between May 14, 2010 and June 28, 2010, Dr. Bullock stated, Petitioner had three transurethral re-section of the prostate procedures (or TURPs, for short). Without specifying dates, Dr. Bullock noted Petitioner also "had bouts where he had blood in his urine and had to [go] to the emergency room . . . to get his catheters irrigated." Dr. Bullock testified "[t]here is no mention in the record about erectile function" so he could not comment on Petitioner's "ability to generate an erection." Dr. Bullock also opined that "to have intercourse [with] any type of a catheter in . . . would be challenging," and, more specifically stated that while it may be "doable . . . [it] would be very unusual and it would hurt."
The trial court found Petitioner was a prior and persistent offender, and denied Petitioner's motions for judgment of acquittal at the close of the State's evidence and at the close of all the evidence. The jury found Petitioner guilty of the deviate sexual assault charged in Count I and not guilty of the deviate sexual assault charged in Count II.
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