State v. Farlett
| Decision Date | 04 April 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-133-C,84-133-C |
| Citation | 490 A.2d 52 |
| Parties | STATE v. James M. FARLETT. A. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
A Superior Court jury has found the defendant, James M. Farlett (Farlett), guilty on three counts of first-degree sexual assault. He is now before us on his appeal, in which he raises a multiplicity of issues.
On April 15, 1983, a grand jury for Providence and Bristol Counties returned an indictment charging that Farlett, between the first day of June 1981 and the twentieth day of November 1981, did engage on three occasions in the sexual penetration of his stepdaughter, Lorilee. 1
We see no necessity for detailing the events that were presented to the jury. It is sufficient to point out that Lorilee testified that Farlett had sexually assaulted her from the time she was six or seven years old and that these assaults consisted of both oral and anal intercourse. Lorilee also testified that between June and November of 1981, when the family resided in Johnston, Rhode Island, her stepfather sexually assaulted her approximately fifty times, mostly when her mother was out of the house. Among the defense witnesses was Farlett, who denied that he had engaged in any iniquitous conduct at any time with his stepdaughter.
After the jury was impaneled but before opening statements, the prosecutor who presented the state's evidence advised the trial justice that he intended to elicit testimony from the complaining witness concerning acts by Farlett other than those charged in the indictment. Farlett's counsel, in response to this pronouncement, informed the court that he had no objection to this strategy since the defense was also desirous of presenting evidence concerning extraneous sexual conduct on Lorilee's part. As a consequence of this "pretrial agreement," both the prosecutor and defense counsel, often without objection from opposing counsel, succeeded in adducing testimony concerning, among other things, previous occasions in which Farlett had taken indecent liberties with his stepdaughter as well as testimony relating to Lorilee's alleged sexual activities with her older brother and a former boyfriend.
Farlett now complains that the introduction of massive amounts of extremely prejudicial, irrelevant testimony, including testimony about his striking his children, resulted in a deprivation of his due-process constitutional right to a fair trial. Pressing his appeal further, Farlett argues that the failure of his trial counsel 2 to object to this massive amount of inadmissible and prejudicial testimony deprived him of effective assistance of counsel in violation of his federal and state constitutional rights.
These assignments of error, however, are not yet reviewable by this court. In regard to the effective-assistance-of-counsel claim and any other issues that may reflect assistance of counsel, we need only reiterate our pronouncement of last term when we held that "the appropriate vehicle for review of claims of ineffective assistance of counsel is the request for post-conviction relief." 3 State v. Rondeau, R.I., 480 A.2d 398, 403 (1984); see also State v. Roderick, 121 R.I. 896, 403 A.2d 1090 (1979); State v. Levitt, 118 R.I. 32, 371 A.2d 596 (1977). Our reluctance to entertain such claims is based on the rooted principle that "only specific rulings of a trial justice are reviewable on direct appeal." State v. D'Alo, R.I., 477 A.2d 89, 90 (1984); see also Yackle, Postconviction Remedies § 1 at 2 (1981). Unless a defendant complies with the procedure for postconviction relief, we shall not have the benefit of a full record and a decision of the Superior Court regarding whether or not defense counsel's alleged failings were a deliberate bypass of the required procedure or a genuine manifestation of ineffective assistance of counsel. Consequently, we decline Farlett's invitation, despite "new legal developments" and the "facts of this particular case," to reconsider our position on this issue now.
The principles supporting our refusal to consider claims of ineffective counsel on direct appeal also justify our conclusion that Farlett's due-process argument regarding an alleged denial of his right to a fair trial is not properly before us on direct appeal. Without degrading the seriousness of this issue, we adhere to our prior practice of not reviewing such claims on direct appeal unless they are grounded upon specific trial-court rulings. This policy, of course, has no effect on defendant's right to raise this issue in the more proper form of a postconviction proceeding.
In three instances defense counsel successfully objected to the prosecutor's efforts during cross-examination to elicit from defense witnesses evidence relating to complaints made to various state officials, both in Rhode Island and elsewhere, of Farlett's physical abuse of his children. Although no motion to strike or other cautionary effort was made on any of these three occasions, defendant now claims prejudice because some of the questions themselves communicated information that damaged the defense. Defense counsel's failure to take ameliorative action in these situations is a further circumstance that might reflect on Farlett's ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim and thus can be addressed in a postconviction proceeding.
Farlett also claims that the trial justice erred in admitting, over his counsel's objection, evidence that Farlett and Lorilee were home alone at times, that the mother never observed her husband beating Lorilee, and that Farlett at one time struck his younger son with a knife. At trial, Lorilee was allowed to testify that her stepfather told her that if she told anybody about his improper advances, she would be killed; she further testified that she believed he was capable of killing her. Frank, 4 Lorilee's older brother, testified that he saw Farlett strike the complaining witness. Lorilee's grandmother stated that her granddaughter, after viewing a television program about child abuse, remarked, "So was I," to the grandmother's observation that such children "must have been terribly afraid." Defense counsel in each of these situations offered a timely objection, which was overruled. The defendant now claims that these rulings by the trial justice was error. We disagree.
The defense itself relied heavily on the fact that a substantial period of time elapsed before Lorilee said anything about her stepfather's improper advances. It was upon the basis of this fact that the defense attempted to discredit her testimony and credibility. It follows that the reasons for this delay were issues at trial. The state theorized, and the jury and the trial justice apparently agreed, that fear of defendant hampered any inclination on Lorilee's part to inform her mother or anyone else about these activities. Any testimony that was reasonably probative on the issue of Lorilee's fear of her stepfather was thus relevant and admissible, and on this appeal defendant cannot be heard to complain.
In the evidentiary facet of this appeal, two additional points remain for our consideration. Both involve testimony by defense witnesses, over the unsuccessful objections by defense counsel, that touched upon investigations about child abuse by the Rhode Island Department of Children and Their Families (DCF). We shall assume, without deciding, that the trial justice erred in admitting this particular testimony. Even so, such error cannot be viewed as prejudicial since a similar reference to DCF was elicited by the prosecutor without objection during the state's case when he was examining Lorilee's grandmother. Major v. Grieg, 102 R.I. 379, 391-92, 230 A.2d 846, 853 (1967). Any damage resulting from a reference to DCF, if indeed there is any, was already done by the time Farlett's trial counsel first objected thereto.
The defense in this case also requested a series of jury instructions that would have informed the jurors that in evaluating the credibility of the complainant, they should take into consideration the complaining witness's hesitation in making a complaint against her stepfather. We must bypass the merits of Farlett's argument on this issue because his objections, at trial, failed to comply with the dictates of Rule 30...
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