People v. Lokerson
| Decision Date | 23 March 2021 |
| Docket Number | A157116 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JASON LOKERSON, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
(San Mateo County Super. Ct. No.16NF011712)
Jason Lokerson is serving a sentence of 75 years to life in state prison for continuously molesting his two preteen and teenage stepdaughters and molesting two of their friends. The molestations led to his conviction by jury of eight sexual offenses and one count of dissuading a witness. He raises seven evidentiary, instructional, and sentencing issues on appeal, challenging particularly the admission of uncharged sex offense evidence under Evidence Code section 1108 for use as propensity evidence, the admission of expert testimony concerning child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome (CSAAS), and the accuracy of certain jury instructions. He also alleges his sentence was improperly calculated. We reject all his claims, some of which he acknowledges have been rejected before by the California Supreme Court, but which he is raising to preserve for review. We conclude the evidence was properly admitted, the jury was accurately instructed, and the sentence was authorized by law. We affirm his convictions and sentence.
Autumn L. is the mother of Ashlie and Jessica Doe.1 Ashlie was born in February 2001, and Jessica was born in October 2002. In 2008, Autumn, who then lived with her children in a trailer park in South Carolina, met Lokerson online in a chat room. Lokerson lived in upstate New York. He was working on his Ph.D. in computational neuroanatomy, and Autumn worked as a cake decorator. She moved to New York to be with him, and they married in 2011.
From approximately early in 2010, when Ashlie and Jessica were nine and seven, they lived with Autumn and Lokerson in New York and later briefly in Texas before the family moved to Palo Alto in 2012 for Lokerson to take on a higher paying job. Ashlie and Jessica were roughly 11 and 9 years old when they moved to Palo Alto. In May 2015 the family moved to Daly City. The girls were then 14 and 12 years old.
When Jessica was in the seventh grade and lived in Daly City, she made friends with Natalie Doe (unrelated to Jessica and Ashlie). Natalie, who was born in January 2003, often visited Jessica at her house, including for sleepovers.
On June 26, 2016, when Natalie and Jessica were both 13, Natalie spent a Sunday night at Jessica's house. On this occasion, Natalie andJessica planned to sleep in the garage, which was located downstairs from the main house. According to Natalie, before going to bed, she and Jessica were watching a movie in the garage and wanted to try drinking some alcohol. Jessica brought some "brownish" alcohol down from the house for them to drink. At some point, Jessica wanted to stop drinking but Natalie wanted to continue, so they obtained more alcohol from Lokerson.3 Jessica did not "appear to be drunk," but Natalie became intoxicated to the point that she "passed out and . . . was in and out of conscious[ness]," without any memory of what happened for some time afterward.
When Natalie woke up, she found Lokerson taking off her pants and underwear. Lokerson then took out his penis and put it on Natalie's buttocks and on her vagina. He also used his fingers to penetrate her vagina. He attempted to penetrate her vagina with his penis, but he said it was too tight.
Jessica was in the garage while this was happening, and Natalie testified that Jessica became very upset. Jessica screamed at Lokerson to stop and eventually ran upstairs into the house. Jessica later returned to the garage after Lokerson had finished molesting Natalie, and Jessica told him to go upstairs to the house.
Jessica testified that, during the time in which Natalie lost her memory, Natalie asked Jessica in a text message if Lokerson could "come down" to the garage to do "something sexual" with her. Jessica told Natalie it was not a good idea, but "at some point," Lokerson came downstairs and asked Natalie, "What do you want to happen?" Jessica tried to dissuade bothLokerson and Natalie from any sexual interaction, but Natalie responded, "No, no, it's fine," and Lokerson "also said it was fine because [Natalie] was agreeing to it."
Not "want[ing] to believe that it was actually happening," Jessica went upstairs. Just before she did, she saw both Lokerson and Natalie undressed below the waist, with Lokerson "leaning Natalie over the couch and attempting to . . . [¶] . . . [¶] . . . put his penis inside her vagina."
Jessica went to her room and paced for about five minutes, then went back downstairs and again saw Lokerson penetrating Jessica from behind as she was leaning over the armrest of the couch. Jessica again screamed at Lokerson to get off Natalie, but Natalie yelled back at her. When Jessica tried to physically pull Lokerson off Natalie, he pushed her away and told her to go upstairs. Jessica went upstairs a second time and sat on a sofa, waiting for Lokerson to finish.
When Jessica went back downstairs again, Lokerson was putting his pants back on, and Natalie was also getting dressed. Lokerson then left the garage. Natalie and Jessica then started to get ready for bed. As Natalie began to regain her sobriety, she texted Jessica while they were both lying on the sofa, "Did this really happen?" and, "Why did you let this happen?" They then went to bed. When the two girls woke up on Monday morning, Natalie told Jessica she did not want to be anywhere near Lokerson, and Jessica told her he had already gone to work.
After Natalie went back to her house on Monday, she told a friend about what had happened at Jessica's. The friend told Natalie to tell her grandmother, with whom she lived, or else he would tell. But before she told her grandmother, Natalie texted Jessica with the message:
Jessica was "terrified" when she received this message because she "felt like if somebody found out about it, then [her] whole family [would] be torn apart, like [she] wouldn't see [her] mom and [her] sister." She felt this way because she, too, had been molested by Lokerson, who had told her that "if anybody found out about this, that [Autumn] would go [to] jail, everybody would go to jail, and [the sisters] would become foster kids."
Jessica and Natalie exchanged many text messages concerning what Lokerson had done. They argued about who was at fault: . . . [¶] . . . [¶] Jessica tried to convince Natalie not to report the abuse. She even threatened Natalie, "I will fucking hurt you if you do, Natalie," but Natalie ultimately felt "that it was the best thing[] to tell . . . [¶] [b]ecause [Jessica] was in danger and what was happening was not okay."
Later that evening, Natalie did tell her grandmother what happened. Her grandmother took her that same day to the Daly City Police Department, where a detective interviewed Natalie.
Lokerson messaged Natalie on Google Hangouts on the night after the sleepover, saying, "Good having you over as always." Natalie did not respond until June 30, when police officers directed her what to say. In her initial reply, Natalie said, "Yeah, I like coming over, but I just don't like how much alcohol you gave me." She also texted, Lokerson replied, Natalie texted back, "I don't remember what yousaid, but I still had the rum and still felt sick." Natalie told Lokerson, "Everything felt weird about that night," and Lokerson responded,
Later on June 30, Natalie again texted Lokerson, with police detectives directing what she should say: Lokerson responded, Natalie answered, "But didn't we have sex?" to which Lokerson replied, In a later message, Natalie said, "Yes, you had your di[ck] on my pussy." Lokerson responded,
Natalie then texted Lokerson, ...
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