People v. Nicholson
| Decision Date | 18 February 2016 |
| Citation | 48 N.E.3d 944,28 N.Y.S.3d 663,26 N.Y.3d 813 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Christopher A. NICHOLSON, also known as John Doe, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Davison Law Office PLLC, Canandaigua (Mary P. Davison of counsel), for appellant.
Sandra Doorley, District Attorney, Rochester (Geoffrey A. Kaeuper of counsel), for respondent.
RIVERA
, J.
In this appeal we clarify that the Appellate Division does not exceed its statutory authority or run afoul of our decisions in People v. LaFontaine, 92 N.Y.2d 470, 682 N.Y.S.2d 671, 705 N.E.2d 663 (1998)
and People v. Concepcion, 17 N.Y.3d 192, 929 N.Y.S.2d 541, 953 N.E.2d 779 (2011) when it relies on the record to discern the unarticulated predicate for the trial court's evidentiary ruling. On the merits, we reject defendant's claim that the trial court committed reversible error by admitting rebuttal testimony intended to provide evidence of defendant's sole witness's bias or motive to fabricate. We further reject his challenges to several other trial court evidentiary rulings, as well as his assertion that his trial counsel was ineffective. Therefore, the Appellate Division order should be affirmed.
Defendant, Christopher Nicholson, challenges his conviction, after a jury trial, on one count of course of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree (Penal Law § 130.75[1]
), arising from his sexual abuse of his daughter, D.N. The evidence at trial demonstrated that defendant and his first wife have two children, D.N. and a son, who is 18 months' D.N.'s senior. After defendant and his wife separated in 1995, D.N.'s mother had physical custody of the children and defendant had regular visitation at his home. D.N., who was 16 years old at the time of trial, testified that commencing in 1998 when she was six years old, and until she turned eight, her father repeatedly raped her.
Over defense counsel's objection the court permitted D.N. to testify about defendant's violent nonsexual conduct towards her and her brother, ostensibly for purposes of explaining why D.N. delayed reporting the sexual abuse. The court also permitted D.N.'s mother to testify about certain aspects of these incidents. According to this testimony, in 1998, D.N. was in kindergarten and defendant would often pick up the children from a school they attended near his residence. One day in April, defendant arrived at the children's school enraged over some confusion regarding who would pick them up that day. Defendant entered the principal's office where the children were waiting, grabbed the children by the neck and pulled them out of the school. During the drive back to his home defendant smacked D.N. across the face and punched her brother. D.N. testified that she felt afraid because she thought that defendant's rage "would become so bad that maybe one day he would kill us."
Mother testified that after learning about this incident, she called the police and got a temporary no-contact order against defendant from Family Court. However, she eventually permitted the children to resume visitation with defendant.
D.N. and her mother both testified to another violent incident involving defendant's son on October 1, 1998. D.N. stated that on that day defendant threw her brother and his clothes out of defendant's home, and left him waiting in the rain for mother to pick him up. Describing what precipitated the ejection from defendant's residence, D.N. testified that defendant beat and hit her brother before throwing him out because he stood up for his mother against defendant's verbal negative statements about her. Following this incident, D.N.'s brother never again visited defendant's home.
However, D.N. continued to visit defendant and, at his request, on occasion stayed overnight. While she did not generally remember details of the several sexual assaults, she testified to two in particular, including the first, which occurred on Halloween of 1998 when she was in the first grade. On that day defendant forbade D.N. to go trick-or-treating with the family, and told her to stay home and help with a party he was planning. D.N. acquiesced because she was afraid of defendant. After D.N. finished helping with the party setup she went to her room upstairs and read until she fell asleep. After the party ended, D.N. woke up to defendant yelling for her. She went downstairs and found herself alone with defendant. He then started hitting her in the face and pulling her by her arms. D.N. testified that defendant was incoherent and very angry, and she felt "very fearful" after he hit her because she "didn't know what was going to happen next."
Defendant slammed D.N. onto the living room floor and proceeded to rape her. Afterwards, D.N. was in extreme pain and when defendant stopped she ran back to her room and hid under the bed, where she fell asleep until the following day when she went back to her mother's home. D.N. testified that at the time she did not tell her mother about the first rape because she was afraid defendant would hurt or sexually abuse her, or fulfill threats he made to kill her mother.
D.N. described another rape which she remembered because it occurred on New Year's Eve 1999. On that night, defendant left D.N. alone while he went to a bar with friends. When he returned he called for her, and she came downstairs. She was frightened by the look in his eyes, and believed he was going to hurt her so she tried to run away, but he caught up with her, grabbed her and tackled her as she entered the living room. Defendant then proceeded to rape her, and afterwards left her on the floor and went upstairs. D.N. did not call her mother because she "was told not to." She further testified that she did not tell anyone about the rape the next day "because I figured it would keep continuing and there was nothing that I could do about it" and because she wanted to make sure her mother would not get hurt. In response to the prosecutor's question as to why D.N. did not tell her mother about what was going on in general, D.N. answered that she stayed silent because she believed defendant when he "continuously threatened me and said that he would kill my mother and make me watch." She further testified that she "felt like [she] could never overcome" the fear he had instilled in her.
Defendant continued to rape D.N. throughout her first, second and third grade years, and up until a few weeks before her eighth birthday. At trial she testified that she told her mother at that time "that I didn't want anything to do with my father anymore because I was tired of him hitting me and being mean to me and I just wanted to be home with mommy and my brother." Although D.N. wanted no contact with defendant, he called constantly wanting to know why she no longer visited him.
In 2008, when D.N. was in the 11th grade, she disclosed the sexual abuse to her school counselor. She testified that she waited to reveal the abuse even after she lived with her mother, and no longer saw defendant, because she was afraid he would come after her and her other family. D.N. explained that she eventually decided to come forward because she wanted to protect her younger sister from defendant doing the same to her, because she "wanted people to know the truth ... so that he can't go and do it to someone else," and because she wanted someone to help her keep from killing herself.
Prior to this disclosure, D.N. was extremely depressed and suicidal. Unable to deal with the pain inside and the lies she told about how no one ever hurt her, she began to medicate and self mutilate by cutting herself with razors and knives. After she told the counselor, D.N. received psychiatric inpatient services.
The People also presented expert testimony from a social worker on Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome (CSAAS). The expert testified that it is very common for child victims of sexual abuse to delay disclosure because they believe that they are to blame for the abuse, or that their silence protects other individuals from the consequences of the disclosure. He also testified that children who have been abused can have difficulty remembering specific details due to disassociation, where the child attempts to "not remember" the traumatic event.
After the People rested, defendant called as his sole witness his former girlfriend, Jill Marincic. She testified that they were romantically involved from 1995 until around 2003 or 2004, and that they lived together in a house her father helped them purchase in 1998. This was the house where D.N. stayed when she visited defendant. Marincic further testified that from 1998 to 2000 she never witnessed or heard any violence against D.N. during her stays at the house.
On cross-examination, Marincic claimed that since her breakup with defendant she had not been romantically involved with him. She admitted that she visited him in jail up to four times a month, that he called her from jail at least once a week, and that he discussed the trial with her. She further admitted that she has a friend relationship with defendant, cares about him, and did not want him to go to jail. In addition, she acknowledged that although she knew about the charges, she did not go to the police and tell them she was present in the house at the times the sexual abuse allegedly occurred. She also stated that she and defendant broke up because she cheated on him and that after their breakup he began a relationship with his future second wife, who at the time of trial he had recently divorced.
The prosecutor then elicited the following testimony:
Afterwards, ...
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