State v. Allewalt

• Decision Date: 25 November 1986
• Docket Number: No. 63,63
• Citation: 308 Md. 89,517 A.2d 741
• Parties: , 55 USLW 2319 STATE of Maryland v. William Alfred ALLEWALT. Sept. Term 1985.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 89

308 Md. 89

517 A.2d 741, 55 USLW 2319

STATE of Maryland v. William Alfred ALLEWALT.

No. 63 Sept. Term 1985.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Nov. 25, 1986.

Ann E. Singleton, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., on brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Julia Doyle Bernhardt, Asst. Public Defender (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender and Julia Doyle Bernhardt, Asst. Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Before MURPHY, C.J., and SMITH, ^* ELDRIDGE, COLE, RODOWSKY, COUCH and McAULIFFE, JJ.

RODOWSKY, Judge.

In this rape prosecution the defense was consent. A psychiatrist, called by the State in its rebuttal case, testified that the victim suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and that in his opinion, based on the history furnished to him, the cause of the disorder was the rape complained of by the victim. The Court of Special Appeals reversed, concluding that the probative value of the evidence was outweighed by unfair prejudice. Allewalt v. State, 61 Md.App. 503, 487 A.2d 664 (1985). This Court granted cross-petitions for certiorari. For reasons hereinafter stated, we shall reinstate the judgment of conviction.

The incident in question occurred in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 25, 1983, in the victim's home. The defendant, William Alfred Allewalt (Allewalt), a six-foot, 160-pound, twenty-year-old, was employed as a tire changer. The prosecutrix, Mrs. Mary Lemon (Lemon), age thirty-six, five-feet-eight-inches, 138-pounds, worked as a beautician. Allewalt was the live-in boyfriend of Mrs. Lemon's eighteen-year-old daughter, Charlene. When Charlene was fifteen she had become pregnant by Allewalt and had had an abortion. Unknown to Allewalt at the time of the incident, Charlene was again pregnant by him. The household occupied a two-story townhouse. Mrs. Lemon, who was separated from her husband, used the master bedroom on the second floor; Charlene and Allewalt occupied a bedroom in the basement; another daughter, Evonne, age fourteen, had a small bedroom on the second floor; two toy poodles owned by Mrs. Lemon slept in her bedroom; and a Doberman pinscher puppy, a gift from Allewalt to Charlene, lived in the basement. Habitually, the older of those poodles would attempt to bite Allewalt in the legs.

Around midday of Friday, June 24, Charlene and Allewalt had quarreled at the Lemon home. Charlene and Evonne spent the balance of Friday visiting at their aunt's house, where they stayed overnight. Allewalt and a male friend spent Friday evening drinking in various bars and Allewalt estimated that he consumed fifteen to twenty bottles of beer that night. Mrs. Lemon spent the evening at home, watching television in her bedroom, and retired about 11:00 p.m.

Allewalt, intoxicated, returned to the Lemon residence at about 3:00 a.m. When he noticed that the puppy had been left unattended, he went to Mrs. Lemon's bedroom door, knocked, and awakened her. They conversed briefly in the doorway about the puppy and about when Charlene would return. What happened next was the subject of conflicting evidence.

Mrs. Lemon testified that Allewalt then forced his way into her bedroom. She told him not to do what he was thinking. There was a struggle and Mrs. Lemon's back struck the jam of the bedroom door. Allewalt, reaching around Mrs. Lemon from the rear, seized her by the arms, picked her up, and carried her from her bedroom, where her poodles were left confined, down the hall to Evonne's bedroom. In the course of a struggle in the hall, a framed picture was knocked from the wall and the glass shattered on the floor. Allewalt threw Mrs. Lemon on Evonne's bed and raped her. After Allewalt left the room and Mrs. Lemon no longer heard him moving in the house, she went next door to her neighbors, James and Patricia Bailey.

Allewalt testified that the conversation ended in the hall, after Mrs. Lemon had closed her bedroom door from the outside because her poodles were barking. He said that she turned off the hall light by a switch next to her bedroom door and in the darkness put her arm around his waist. He put his arm around her waist and the two, side by side, went down the hall to Evonne's bedroom. His staggering caused them to brush against the picture which was knocked from the wall. They fell across the bed. Without any conversation, but with Allewalt reading Mrs. Lemon's "body language," they engaged in sexual intercourse. After penetration and ejaculation Mrs. Lemon pushed against Allewalt's chest and told him to stop. He returned to the basement where he slept briefly. When he was awakened by the poodles barking, he briefly looked for Mrs. Lemon and then spent the balance of the night at the home of his drinking companion. Allewalt returned to the unoccupied Lemon home shortly after daylight Saturday morning, showered, dressed, and went to work. He had a discussion with his employer who telephoned the police and learned that Allewalt was accused of rape. Allewalt waited for an officer to come to make the arrest.

The neighbor, James Bailey, testified that early in the morning of Saturday, June 25, he heard through the common wall Allewalt saying, "Come on. Come on," and that he heard Mrs. Lemon yell, "Help me. Help me. Stop." Mr. and Mrs. Bailey each described Mrs. Lemon, when she came to their house, as hysterical, with red marks on her wrists and the seam of her robe torn at the shoulder. The first police officers to arrive described Mrs. Lemon as very upset, almost incoherent, nearly hysterical, crying, with raw, reddish marks on her arms. A physician who examined Mrs. Lemon at a hospital at approximately 6:00 a.m. described her as quietly sobbing. That doctor found faint bruises on Mrs. Lemon's back and purple bruises on both elbows.

Prior to the State's rebuttal case the circuit court conducted a hearing out of the presence of the jury in order to decide whether to admit into evidence certain opinion testimony from Dr. Michael Spodak, a forensic psychiatrist, concerning PTSD. At the conclusion of the questioning defense counsel objected on the ground that the jury did not need help from an expert in deciding so basic an issue as consent and on the further ground that under the Frye-Reed test PTSD induced by rape "has not been recognized in the State of Maryland as being generally accepted within the scientific community...." ¹ The court ruled that PTSD "has been around for a long time," is "nothing new," and is "recognized." The court thought Dr. Spodak "will be able to assist that jury in making a determination as to [Mrs. Lemon's] state of mind at the time of the event on the basis of post event findings."

The State then recalled Mrs. Lemon. She testified that following June 25, 1983, her nerves got worse, she cried all the time and could not eat. When she closed her eyes or tried to sleep, she could see Allewalt standing in the doorway of her bedroom dressed as he was on the night of the occurrence. Following that night she has been wondering if neighbors, friends, and acquaintances thought she was "cheap," or if she was "dressing cheap," or if they were looking at her out of their windows when she came out of her home. She was uncomfortable around young males and particularly when she was alone with a young man with whom Charlene had begun keeping company. ² Generally Mrs. Lemon would not leave the house other than to go to work. Cross-examination developed that in March of 1983 Mrs. Lemon had begun receiving treatment for depression once a week at a mental health clinic and had been taking an anti-depressant, amitriptyline, as well as valium. Prior to June 25 her nerves were "bad" and she occasionally had crying spells.

Dr. Spodak explained to the jury that PTSD "is a condition recognized in psychiatry as the emotional reaction to a traumatic event." The characteristics of PTSD include: insomnia, exaggerated startle response, feelings of guilt, loss of appetite and of weight, avoidance of reminders of the traumatic event, and a sense of fearfulness. A person with PTSD can also experience nightmares and flashbacks, usually relating to the traumatic event. Dr. Spodak explained that the condition has been identified as long ago as the turn of the century but that the terminology has varied. In World War I it was called "shell shock," later "gross stress reaction," and in the most recent psychiatric manual, DSM III, the condition is labeled post-traumatic stress disorder. ³ PTSD can be caused by physical trauma such as an automobile accident or rape or by emotional trauma without specific physical injury.

Dr. Spodak had examined Mrs. Lemon on October 13, 1983, at the request of the State in order to testify at the rape trial. He conducted a standard psychiatric examination which included taking a psychiatric history, making observations in a mental status examination, obtaining some psychological tests, and reviewing the police report and a medical examination report. In Dr. Spodak's opinion Mrs. Lemon suffered the mental disorder of PTSD after June 25, 1983. That opinion was based "for the most part" on the history which she reported to him. Dr. Spodak was asked by the State, "[B]ased on what she told you, what would be the trauma that forms the basis for your opinion?" He replied that "[t]he only trauma that she claims that she went through at that time was being raped." The witness explained that while Mrs. Lemon had undergone some depression and lost some weight as a result of her marital difficulties she was "adjusting to that whole experience when the second trauma occurred in June. After that, she definitely took an emotional nosedive...." When asked if the break up of Mrs. Lemon's marriage of sixteen years would "be considered a traumatic event such that it would give rise to" the diagnosis, Dr. Spodak replied:

No. First of all, it is not the type of trauma that gives rise to this diagnosis at all. It is more of a stressful situation that...