Skeens v. Warden

• Decision Date: 04 May 2022
• Docket Number: 3:21-CV-692-DRL-MGG
• Parties: ERIC BENSON SKEENS, Petitioner, v. WARDEN, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

ERIC BENSON SKEENS, Petitioner, v. WARDEN, Respondent.

No. 3:21-CV-692-DRL-MGG

United States District Court, N.D. Indiana, South Bend Division

May 4, 2022

OPINION AND ORDER

Damon R. Leichty, Judge, United States District Court.

Eric Benson Skeens, a prisoner without a lawyer, filed a habeas corpus petition challenging his 2009 child molestation conviction in Huntington County. For the following reasons the court denies the petition.

BACKGROUND

In deciding the petition, the court must presume the facts set forth by the state courts are correct, unless Mr. Skeens rebuts this presumption with clear and convincing evidence. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). On direct appeal, the Indiana Court of Appeals set forth the facts underlying Mr Skeens's conviction as follows:

K.W. was born to R.W. (“Mother”) in April 2000. Skeens, who was born on June 22, 1980, met Mother in 2003 and married Mother in December 2004. Skeens and Mother were divorced in June 2006, but they, along with K.W., continued to live together. K.W. thought of Skeens as her “dad.” In September 2007, Skeens, Mother, and K .W. moved into a home on Williams Street in Huntington Indiana. Skeens's son also lived at the home “on and off.” Skeens would care for K.W. while Mother was at work. In June 2008, Mother moved with K.W. to another home on Wabash Circle in Huntington. However, even after moving to Wabash Circle, Mother continued to allow Skeens to visit with and care for K.W. because K.W. “thought of him as her dad.” K.W. would spend, on average, three nights per week at Skeens's house. In September 2008, Skeens moved to Warsaw, Indiana, but Mother would still make arrangements for Skeens to have K.W. on some weekends.

During the period of time between September 2007, when Skeens, Mother, and K.W. moved to Williams Street, and November 2008, Skeens subjected K.W. to a variety of sexual encounters. Mother would be “either at the grocery store, some type of store or [ ] she was at work.” Skeens removed both his and K.W.'s clothing and placed her on top of a bathroom sink, and he had sexual intercourse with K.W. which “hurt” K.W. Skeens placed a towel underneath K.W. “to wipe up white stuff that came out” of her vagina. Afterwards, Skeens would ask K.W to go to the bathroom, and her vagina “kind of burned.”

Also, Skeens would remove his and K.W.'s clothing in either the living room, Mother's bedroom, or the bathroom and “put his tongue” on K.W.'s vagina. When in either the living room or bedroom, Skeens would remove both his and K.W.'s clothing, and K.W. would be “laying down” on her back and Skeens was “[l]ike under [her] ....like under [her] legs sort of ” which were “separated.” Skeens would use his tongue to “lick [ ]” K.W.'s vagina which felt “[w]et” and “[w]eird” to K.W. When Skeens would put his tongue on K.W.'s vagina in the bathroom, K.W. would be “in the same position” on top of the sink as when Skeens had sexual intercourse with her. Skeens would be “kind of squatting.”

Further, Skeens would touch K.W.'s vagina with his fingers in the living room, the bathroom, and the bedroom. Skeens would remove his and K.W.'s clothes and “rub” her vagina “in circles” using one finger on each hand. Skeens would also rub “the part of [K.W.'s vagina] where [she goes] potty” using one finger “on both hands and then sometimes two fingers.” Skeens would also make K.W. put his penis in her mouth in the living room and the bedroom. Skeens would remove his and K.W.'s clothes, and K.W. would lay on the floor on her back and Skeens would be “laying on top of [her] with his hands like sort of pushing up.” Skeens would then put his “private” in K.W.'s mouth and “[h]e would sort of push.” His “private” was “[s]ort of like a long type of mushroom shape, ” with “a triangle at the top with the top corner kind of curved” and a “hole.” His penis felt “[w]eird” and “[k]ind of smooth.”

Skeens would also touch K.W.'s “boobs” with his finger and his tongue. Skeens would remove K.W.s and his own clothing and lick “sometimes one, sometimes both” of K.W.'s breasts. He would similarly “rub” either one or both of K.W.'s breasts with his finger. During some of the incidents in the living room when Skeens would touch K.W.'s “privates” with “[h]is tongue, his finger and ... his private, ” Skeens would show K.W. movies “that had people touching each other.” He would show K .W. the movies, including one called “real sex, ” on a “flat screen” television by “download[ing] [them] from his computer....” The movie would depict “three or four people and they were touching each other[‘]s privates.”

There was one incident when Skeens tried to touch K.W., and K.W. told Skeens “no, ” and she attempted to “go downstairs and [she] was like on the first step and then [Skeens] said if you don't come back here and do this with me, I'll call the police on you and they'll tell your mom.” K.W. “went back [because she] was scared.” Skeens then “touch[ed] [K.W.'s] privates.”

If Skeens's son was home during these encounters, Skeens would “get him to go out of the room.” Once, Skeens told his son to “go play with your cars, I just bought those for you.” Skeens's son told Skeens that “no I want to go play with [K.W.], ” and Skeens went with his son to play with the cars for “a few minutes and then [Skeens] would say, oh, I‘ll be right back and then he would go and touch [K.W.'s] privates.” Skeens would also lock the bedroom door to keep his son out of the room. Skeens's son “would knock on the door . . . [and] would say dad, let [me] in there.” Skeens would say “yeah, ” but then he would not go to the door. Skeens told K.W. to not tell anyone about the touching, and that if she did K.W. would “get in big trouble.” K.W. once tried to tell Mother about Skeens but K.W. “got scared” because she “thought that [Mother] wouldn't believe [her] and then like [K.W. would] get in big trouble.”

On December 5, 2008, the school counselor at K.W.'s elementary school showed a video to the class titled “Breaking the Silence, Children Against Child Abuse” and the video included “two segments . . . one on physical abuse and one on sexual abuse.” After the sexual abuse segment of the video, the counselor directed the class to write in their “reflection journals, ” and to “write the word help on their paper” if they needed help. While the counselor was “walking around the different table clusters, ” K.W. “raised her hand and whispered [‘]this happened to me.[‘]“ The counselor told K.W. that she would speak to her about it later, but when the children were leaving for lunch K.W. “asked again, [‘]can I talk to you about this, this happened to me, [‘] “ and the counselor “told [K.W.] [she] would come get her after lunch.” Again, however, K.W. “found [the counselor] first, ” when K.W. “was walking from lunch towards recess and stopped by [the counselor's] room and said [‘]can I please talk to you right now?[‘]“ After their conversation, the counselor called the Department of Child Services and repeated what K.W. had reported to her.

Later that day, Nicole Allen, a family case manager at the Department of Child Services, met with Mother to “discuss . . . the nature of the report that [she] had received.” Mother was “shocked, in disbelief [ ], immediately just started crying and just wasn't sure what to think about the whole situation.

. . . ” Mother agreed to take K.W. out of school and bring her to a child advocacy center in Huntington for an interview. At the interview, conducted by Allen, K.W. used age appropriate language and descriptions of the events that took place between K.W. and Skeens, and K.W. “gave a lot of information, very detailed information about the abuse.” Mother also reported that it had been two weeks since Skeens had seen K.W.

On December 8, 2008, Mother, Allen, and Detective Mel Hunnicutt transported K.W. to the Fort Wayne Sexual Assault Treatment Center for a physical examination. K.W. was seen by Sharon Robison, a sexual assault nurse examiner. Robison conducted a genital examination and concluded that her genitals were “normal, ” meaning that “her hymen was perfect . . . [T]here was no [ ] injury to her hymen and her anus was perfect also.”

On December 16, 2008, K.W. began seeing Lynn Baker, a counselor at the Bowen center in Huntington. K.W. continued to see Baker once a week to help her deal with “behavioral issues, ” including K.W.'s nightmares and bed-wetting. Most of the sessions were in the play therapy room, which “is used to allow a child to use any of the therapeutic toys available . . . in a way that they need in order to work through why they're there.”

On December 10, 2008, the State charged Skeens with Count I, child molesting as a class A felony which alleged that Skeens performed or submitted to sexual intercourse with K.W.; Count II, child molesting as a class A felony which alleged that Skeens performed oral sex on K.W.; Count III, child molesting as a class A felony which alleged that Skeens submitted to oral sex from K.W.; Count IV, child molesting as a class A felony which alleged that Skeens penetrated K.W.'s female sex organ with an object; and Count V, child molesting as a class C felony which alleged that Skeens touched or fondled K.W. with the intent to arouse or satisfy his own or K.W.'s sexual desires.

On July 21, 2009, the trial court held a jury trial. At trial, Sharon Robison testified that, for victims of sexual abuse ages zero to thirteen, there is a seventy-two hour window after vaginal penetration and a twenty-four hour window after an “oral . . . or anal assault” to collect DNA samples. Robison also testified that K.W. told her that Skeens “would put his fingers inside [her] private and would suck [her] boobs.” Robison testified that it is not common to find evidence of

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