State v. Amerson
| Decision Date | 10 September 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 21221,21221 |
| Citation | 129 Idaho 395,925 P.2d 399 |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Robert Andrew AMERSON, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Idaho Court of Appeals |
Robert Andrew Amerson, Boise, pro se appellant.
Alan G. Lance, Attorney General; Thomas P. Watkins, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent.
Robert Amerson was found guilty by a jury of three crimes: rape, I.C. § 18-6101(3); forcible sexual penetration with a foreign object, I.C. § 18-6608; and robbery, I.C. § 18-6501(1). The district court imposed determinate sentences of twenty-five years each for the rape and forcible penetration offenses and imposed a ten-year determinate sentence for the robbery. The court ordered that the sentences be served consecutively.
On appeal, Amerson raises several issues. First, he contends that the charges against We affirm the judgments of conviction. However, we modify the sentences imposed, allowing the sentences for rape and for forcible penetration to be served concurrently and permitting an opportunity for parole on the ten-year sentence for the robbery.
him should have been dismissed at the preliminary hearing because the statute of limitation applicable to the prosecution of felonies had expired. Second, he asserts that the charges should have been dismissed due to delay by the state in prosecuting the case. Third, Amerson argues that the district court erred by denying his motion for an acquittal on the ground that the state had failed during the jury trial to prove "venue." Fourth, he submits that the district court erred by denying his motion in limine with regard to DNA evidence. Fifth, he claims error with regard to the district court's instructions to the jury, asserting that: (a) the jury was not properly instructed about the statute of limitation issue; (b) the district court erred in refusing to give Amerson's requested instructions on lesser included offenses; and (c) the district court erred by not instructing the jury concerning the scientific evidence presented at trial. Sixth, Amerson asserts that the state withheld exculpatory evidence. Finally, he argues that the district court abused its sentencing discretion
In the early morning hours of December 18, 1986, the victim, a 62-year-old woman who lived in Richfield, Idaho, was on her way to work at the Tupperware plant in Jerome. As she drove her 1976 Pontiac automobile from Main Street in Richfield onto the highway, heading south toward Shoshone where she intended to meet a co-worker, Linda, to travel with to Jerome, she noticed another car start up and proceed to leave Richfield ahead of her. She followed this other car for a way and then passed it at the Dietrich cutoff because it was traveling about 40 miles per hour and she needed to meet Linda in Shoshone at a certain time.
The other car then drew up close behind her two or three times and its headlights shifted to bright and back to dim. As the two vehicles proceeded down the highway, the following vehicle then passed the victim and she noticed that it was a maroon "sports car." Its license plate was covered with mud or grease and was illegible. The maroon car then pulled across the highway and stopped, blocking the victim's path.
The driver of the maroon car, later identified as Amerson, got out of his vehicle and approached the victim's Pontiac. She partially unrolled her window and he asked her the way to Twin Falls. Their conversation was interrupted when another car, heading back toward Richfield, stopped near the two vehicles. Amerson talked to the other driver, evidently informing the other driver that there was no problem, and the other car left.
Amerson then returned to the victim's Pontiac. He put his hands on the window, forced the window down and unlocked the door. As he opened the door, the Pontiac's dome light came on and the victim got a good look at her assailant. He then opened her door and removed the victim's seat belt. He put his hand over her nose and mouth and pushed her onto the seat. He took the shoe off her left foot, threw the shoe onto the backseat and pulled her left leg out of her pants. He opened the glove compartment and removed a plastic bag used by the victim to protect the upholstery in her car. He wrapped the plastic bag around a flashlight found on the seat of the car and inserted it into the victim's vagina. He then removed the flashlight and raped the victim.
After the rape, he asked the victim her name, but she refused to reveal it to him. He found the name on her automobile registration and told her he would remember it. He also warned her that if she told anyone about the incident he would kill her. He found her wallet in a bag on the floor of the car and took some bills out of it, between $5 and $10. He then got into his own car and drove off toward Richfield.
When the victim saw the direction her assailant took, she decided not to go back to Richfield, but went on to Shoshone. When she arrived in Shoshone, her co-worker, Linda, was not there, so she continued on to the Tupperware plant. There she met Linda The victim was taken to a local hospital where she was examined by medical personnel. The attending doctor and nurse prepared a sex crime kit including swabs of the victim's oral, vaginal and anal areas for analysis by the state crime laboratory. The victim was then interviewed by two sheriff's deputies from Lincoln County and fingerprints were obtained from the inside and the outside of the window of the victim's Pontiac. The Lincoln County sheriff turned these fingerprints over to the state Department of Law Enforcement for comparison with fingerprints in the Department's records. The sex crime kit, the flashlight and two articles of the victim's clothing--her panties and slacks--were submitted to the state crime laboratory for analysis.
and told her what had happened. The victim was not acquainted with Amerson and did not know the identity of the person who attacked, raped and robbed her.
Later, state officers went to Lincoln County to recover more evidence and to determine if additional fingerprints could be developed. As a result, a fingerprint was also obtained from the plastic bag in which the flashlight had been placed. The state laboratory analysis subsequently determined the existence of seminal fluid on swabs taken from the victim's orifices and upon the items of clothing submitted for analysis. The laboratory was not able to determine the blood type of the depositor of the semen.
In 1989, the state implemented an automated fingerprint identification system and, in 1990, notified the sheriff of Lincoln County that a number of similar points of identification had been found when the fingerprints submitted by the sheriff in this case were compared with fingerprints of Robert Amerson located in the state records. As a result, Amerson was taken into custody in May, 1990, and another set of his fingerprints were obtained in the booking process. These fingerprints were then sent to the state for comparison with the fingerprints obtained from the victim's Pontiac. Also, a sample of Amerson's blood was obtained and sent to the FBI, together with the clothing and sex crime kit prepared with respect to the victim, for a DNA analysis.
On February 2, 1993, a criminal complaint was filed in the district court for Lincoln County charging Amerson with rape, forcible penetration with a foreign object and robbery. 1 Following a preliminary hearing in the magistrate division, Amerson was bound over to the district court to answer to the charges. He entered pleas of not guilty, and the district court scheduled the case for a jury trial.
The trial commenced on September 13, 1993. Due to the passage of time since the attack on the victim, the prosecutor presented evidence showing Amerson's absence from the state of Idaho, and the question of whether the charges were barred from prosecution by the statute of limitation was submitted to the jury to determine. To otherwise establish Amerson's culpability, the victim identified Amerson in court as the person who had attacked her on December 18, 1986. The supervisor of the latent fingerprint section of the bureau of criminal identification for the state Department of Law Enforcement testified concerning the fingerprint analysis. He testified that a fingerprint obtained from the outside of the window of the victim's Pontiac matched the fingerprint of Amerson's left ring finger; that a fingerprint obtained from the inside of the window of the same vehicle matched the fingerprint of the middle finger of Amerson's right hand; and that the fingerprint obtained from the plastic bag in the victim's car matched the fingerprint of Amerson's left index finger. A DNA specialist testified and provided demonstrative evidence showing how Amerson's DNA pattern matched the DNA pattern of the depositor of the seminal fluid on the articles submitted to the FBI for analysis.
The jury found Amerson guilty of all charges. The district court sentenced Amerson to the custody of the state Board of Correction pursuant to the sentencing statute, I.C. § 19-2513, as it existed in 1986 when the crimes were committed. The court imposed a determinate sentence of twenty-five years for the rape, a determinate sentence of twenty-five years for the forcible penetration offense, and a determinate sentence of ten years for the robbery. The court further ordered that the sentences be served consecutively. This appeal ensued.
As his first issue on appeal, Amerson assigns error to the refusal of the presiding judge to grant Amerson's motion for dismissal during the preliminary hearing held to determine if Amerson should be bound over to the district court to answer to the charges. The dismissal motion was predicated upon the defense that prosecution of the charges...
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Cook v. State
...Idaho Supreme Court and this Court have altered sentences from consecutive service to concurrent service. In State v. Amerson, 129 Idaho 395, 407, 925 P.2d 399, 411 (Ct.App.1996), the trial court ran the sentences for three separate counts consecutively, resulting in Amerson having to spend......
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...for assignment of error." State v. Huntsman, 146 Idaho 580, 585, 199 P.3d 155, 160 (Ct. App. 2008) (citing State v. Amerson, 129 Idaho 395, 401, 925 P.2d 399, 405 (Ct. App. 1996)). Collom has shown no error related to the first event. The second event occurred during trial, prior to the pre......
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