State v. Chaney
| Citation | 989 P.2d 1091,1999 UT App 309 |
| Decision Date | 28 October 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 981063-CA.,981063-CA. |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. John Perry CHANEY, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Utah |
Randall K. Spencer, Abbott, Spencer & Smith LLC, and Margaret P. Lindsay, Aldrich, Nelson, Weight & Esplin, Provo, for Appellant.
Jan Graham, Atty. Gen., Laura B. Dupaix, and Craig L. Barlow, Asst. Attys. Gen., Salt Lake City, for Appellee.
Before BENCH, BILLINGS, and DAVIS, JJ.
¶ 1 John Perry Chaney (Defendant) appeals his conviction of rape of a child as an accomplice, a first degree felony, in violation of Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-402.1 (1995). We affirm.
¶ 2 We recite the facts in a light most favorable to the jury's verdict. See State v. Gordon, 913 P.2d 350, 351 (Utah 1996)
.
¶ 3 Defendant and Defendant's daughter, A.C., first met Donald Beaver (Beaver) during the summer of 1993 in an American Fork, Utah store. Beaver invited Defendant and his family, including A.C., to live with him in American Fork. A.C. was not quite thirteen-and-a-half years old when Defendant told her she was to marry the forty-eight-year-old Beaver in one week. When A.C.'s stepmother protested that A.C. was too young, Defendant responded that a girl was considered to be a woman at age twelve. Defendant said that God had told him that A.C. was to marry Beaver as punishment for her "rebellious" behavior.
¶ 4 Defendant promised Beaver that he would pray about whether Beaver and A.C. should marry. According to Defendant, God told him that marriage would be "a learning and growing experience for both [A.C. and Beaver]." Defendant then told Beaver that it was "not a matter of if . . . but a matter of when." Beaver wanted to get married that day, but Defendant demurred because he had never "taught [his] daughter about marriage." Defendant said he needed "a week at least to try and bring her up to speed about what marriage is all about."
¶ 5 In the ensuing week, Defendant instructed A.C. on her "wifely duties," including darning socks, cleaning house, and not "chastising" or "nagging" Beaver. Although Defendant doubted A.C.'s emotional readiness, he also instructed her regarding her duties in the "marriage bed." Defendant told A.C. that "she couldn't be a little girl anymore." Defendant "figured that [A.C.] would grow to maturity under Beaver's tutelage." Defendant never suggested to A.C. during his instructions that she and Beaver should wait to engage in sexual relations.
¶ 6 A week later, on September 28, 1993, Defendant gave A.C. to Beaver in a ceremony in which Defendant had the couple sign a "Patriarchal Marriage Covenant/Contract" that he had prepared. After the ceremony, Beaver and A.C. slept alone in the same room. The following day, Defendant and the rest of his family left A.C. alone with Beaver in American Fork.
¶ 7 About a month after the ceremony, Beaver had intercourse with thirteen-year-old A.C. for the first time in his American Fork home. A.C. submitted because she believed that the ceremony performed by Defendant had made her Beaver's wife. A.C. also believed that Defendant had performed the ceremony because "he was the only one allowed to give [her] to another man." A.C. would not have had intercourse with Beaver if Defendant had not performed the ceremony. Over the next few months, Beaver repeatedly had sexual intercourse with A.C. while A.C. was still only thirteen years old.
¶ 8 In February of 1994, A.C. separated from Beaver because instead of ejaculating inside her during intercourse, Beaver would pull out and ejaculate on the bed. A.C. felt this was wrong because of what Defendant had told her during her week of marital instruction." A.C. was also upset because Beaver would introduce her to others as a friend's daughter whom he was babysitting rather than as his wife.
¶ 9 A.C. turned fourteen in April 1994, over two months after she separated from Beaver. Later that summer, A.C. talked to law enforcement officials about the ceremony performed by Defendant and Beaver's sexual relationship with her. In August 1994, A.C. called Defendant (then living in Idaho), and told him that she had talked to an investigator. The following day, A.C. went to visit Defendant in Idaho.
¶ 10 Defendant told A.C. that she needed to reconcile with Beaver and that it was inappropriate for her not to be with him. For the first time, Defendant told A.C. that Beaver had agreed not to have intercourse with her until she was sixteen. Defendant never suggested that Beaver's failure to wait until A.C. was sixteen was grounds for annulment. Indeed, Defendant viewed Beaver's and A.C.'s intercourse as a validation or legalization of their marriage.
¶ 11 A few days later, A.C. asked Beaver on the phone why he had not told her that Defendant had wanted them to wait to have intercourse until she was sixteen. Beaver denied that Defendant had ever said anything about waiting. A.C. also told Defendant that she "didn't have much fun" when she and Beaver were "together sexually." Thinking that A.C. "obviously need[ed] to have a greater understanding than she possessed about her own bodily needs and how to satisfy them," Defendant decided to instruct A.C. "more thoroughly in everything associated with marriage." Defendant gave A.C. copies of The Kama sutra and The Sensuous Woman. He also bought her a vibrator and told her "to practice and try to learn how to enjoy the feeling more—the feelings of [sexual] stimulation."
¶ 12 Beaver traveled to Idaho to reconcile with A.C. Beaver expressed his wish to take A.C. to Mexico to legally validate their marriage because he was worried that he might be charged with statutory rape. Defendant objected, stating that A.C. was Beaver's wife under God's laws and there was no need to legalize the marriage under statute. Defendant believed that marrying with a license and under statute would permit the government to wrongfully regulate the couple's children. A.C. left with Beaver, but soon returned alone to Defendant in Idaho. Defendant prepared a document purporting to annul the marriage contract.
¶ 13 After this, Defendant, A.C., and others met with Wayne and Angela Brasda at Lakeview Lodge, Louisiana. Wayne Brasda was Defendant's friend and a missionary for Defendant's religious beliefs. As punishment for stealing food, Defendant gave A.C. to be Brasda's concubine. Defendant told A.C. that as a concubine she could not speak to Brasda unless spoken to and then she must call Brasda "my lord." Defendant told A.C. that she was "to do everything that [Brasda] told [her] to do, and that no matter what he said [she] was supposed to do it." Defendant instructed both Brasda and A.C. that they had "to have intercourse for [A.C.] to fully become [Brasda's] concubine." After learning that she was to become Brasda's concubine, A.C. wrote her father a letter stating that she had received a "spiritual" confirmation that this was her punishment. Brasda had intercourse with A.C. one time while Brasda's wife watched.
¶ 14 Soon after this, A.C. ran away from her father in Louisiana. A Louisiana pediatrician who examined A.C. concluded that she had been sexually active in the past. A.C. eventually went to live with her maternal grandparents in Oklahoma.
¶ 15 A hearing to extradite Defendant to Utah was held in Michigan on January 11, 1996. At that hearing, Defendant, speaking for himself, attempted to defend giving A.C. to Beaver. He stated that at the time of the "marriage contract," A.C. had "attained to lawful marrying age before almighty God." Defendant called A.C. his "chattels and goods" and explained that, at the time of the marriage contract, A.C. was "solely under [his] authority." As her "patriarch," Defendant gave A.C. his consent to enter into the marriage contract.
¶ 16 Defendant also asserted that sex among thirteen-year-olds was rampant in Utah and elsewhere, and Defendant boasted that he had merely "provided a means whereby [his] daughter wouldn't join the ranks of those who wanted sex but are denied the opportunity and [sic] make any lasting commitments." Defendant then stated that Brasda, who was present at the marriage contract ceremony, could confirm "how eager the two of them [A.C. and Beaver] were to get at each other."
¶ 17 Defendant claimed that he had extracted a promise from both Beaver and A.C. before the marriage that they would not have intercourse before A.C. turned sixteen. Defendant's mother testified that in October 1993, Defendant told her about the marriage and about this agreement. A.C.'s mother also testified that both A.C. and Beaver mentioned to her that they had promised Defendant that they would not have intercourse until A.C. was sixteen.
¶ 18 After trial, the jury convicted Defendant on three counts of rape of a child as an accomplice. This appeal followed.
¶ 19 Defendant raises multiple claims of error on appeal. We address each separately.
¶ 20 Defendant was convicted of rape of a child as an accomplice or party to the crime. Defendant argues that Beaver did not rape A.C.—and therefore Defendant cannot be an accomplice thereto—because A.C. and Beaver were married at the time they had sexual intercourse. See Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-407(1) (1995) (). The State contends that A.C. and Beaver's marriage was void ab initio and that their marriage was therefore a legal nullity.
¶ 21 Utah's marriage statute provides in relevant part:
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