State v. Hopfer
Decision Date | 12 July 1996 |
Docket Number | No. 15345,15345 |
Citation | 679 N.E.2d 321,112 Ohio App.3d 521 |
Parties | The STATE OF OHIO, Appellee, v. HOPFER, Appellant. * |
Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Carley J. Ingram, Montgomery County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
Matthew Ryan Arntz and Michael L. Monta, Dayton, for appellant.
Defendant-appellant Rebecca L. Hopfer appeals from her convictions for murder and gross abuse of a corpse. Hopfer asserts sixteen assignments of error. Because we find none of her assignments of error to have merit, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
In November 1993, defendant-appellant Rebecca L. Hopfer was a junior at Centerville High School. Shortly after her seventeenth birthday, Hopfer engaged in sexual intercourse with a boy from school. After missing her next menstrual cycle, Hopfer confided to her friend, Mary Hanaghan, that she might be pregnant. In January 1994, Hopfer and Hanaghan bought a home pregnancy test at a local pharmacy, and Hopfer performed the test on herself at Hanaghan's home. The test indicated a positive result.
Over the following months, Hopfer did not disclose her pregnancy to her parents or other relatives. Hopfer continued to conduct her regular activities and attended several social functions, including a family reunion and a marching band summer camp, without drawing attention to her pregnant condition. On August 14, 1994, Hopfer awoke with labor pains that continued throughout the morning. She spent the morning and early afternoon working at an ice cream social with her parents. Around 2:30 p.m., she left the ice cream social complaining of "bathroom" problems and went home. Throughout the day, her contractions became more frequent and intense. Around 7:00 p.m., after her father had left for work, Hopfer went to her bathroom to deliver the baby. After breaking her water with her fingernail, Hopfer gave birth to a baby girl. She cut the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors, and flushed the afterbirth down the toilet.
Hopfer claims that upon delivery her newborn daughter had the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around her neck and that Hopfer could not remove the cord. Hopfer further claims that her daughter was not moving or breathing after the delivery and had an ashen or grey complexion.
Soon after the delivery, Hopfer wrapped her daughter in two towels and then took a shower. Hopfer's mother arrived home from the ice cream social around 7:15 p.m. and took a shower in a separate bathroom. While her mother showered, Hopfer placed her daughter, still wrapped in the towels, in two plastic garbage bags, which she then knotted, carried the bags into the garage, and put them in a trash can. The garbage bags containing her baby remained in the trash can for four days until the trash was picked up by the local hauling service.
Hopfer spent the remainder of August 14, 1994, watching television with her mother without mentioning the delivery of her baby. The next morning, Hopfer attended band practice and continued with her regular daily routine for the rest of the week.
On August 16, 1994, Hopfer called Hanaghan and told her about the delivery of her daughter. Hanaghan testified that Hopfer told her during this telephone call that the baby had been crying after the delivery and had continued to cry, even after Hopfer had placed the baby, wrapped in towels and two plastic garbage bags, in the trash can. Hanaghan further testified that Hopfer said during the telephone call that she had killed her baby and was now a "murderer."
After speaking with Hopfer, Hanaghan told her boyfriend about the conversation. On August 18, 1994, Hanaghan's boyfriend contacted the Centerville Police Department and reported the incident. After determining that Hopfer did not live within its jurisdiction, the Centerville police contacted the Washington Township Sheriff's Department, which then conducted an investigation. After taking Hanaghan's and her boyfriend's statements, sheriff's deputies went to Hopfer's residence to speak with her.
While at Hopfer's residence, the sheriff's deputies asked Hopfer about her pregnancy and the delivery of her baby. After initially denying the incident, Hopfer ultimately admitted to having delivered a baby girl and having disposed of it in the trash. Hopfer wrote and signed a statement in which she described the details of the delivery and the disposal of her daughter. In the last sentence of her statement, Hopfer admitted that her baby cried and moved after being placed in the two plastic garbage bags. Hopfer's mother provided the sheriff's deputies with the name of her waste disposal service, and efforts were made to retrieve the baby's body. On August 19, 1994, sheriff's deputies recovered the body of a newborn baby girl, wrapped in two towels and double-bagged, from the same garbage truck that collected Hopfer's trash.
On August 22, 1994, Hopfer appeared at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, where she was arrested and taken to the juvenile detention center. On August 24, 1994, Hopfer was charged with murder in violation of R.C. 2903.02 by complaint filed in the Juvenile Division of the Common Pleas Court of Montgomery County, Ohio. The state asked the juvenile court to relinquish jurisdiction pursuant to Juv.R. 30(A). The juvenile court held separate probable cause and amenability hearings and, on November 17, 1994, ordered the case transferred to the Criminal Division of the Common Pleas Court of Montgomery County, Ohio, pursuant to Juv.R. 30 and R.C. 2151.26. On December 14, 1994, Hopfer was indicted for murder and gross abuse of a corpse. Following a jury trial, Hopfer was convicted of both counts and was sentenced to imprisonment for fifteen years
to life for murder, concurrent with an eighteen-month term for gross abuse of a corpse.
From her conviction and sentence, Hopfer appeals.
Hopfer's First Assignment of Error is as follows:
"The juvenile court abused its discretion in transferring jurisdiction to the common pleas court."
Hopfer contends that she was amenable to treatment and rehabilitation within the juvenile court system and that the juvenile court abused its discretion when it permitted the state to prosecute her as an adult. In considering this argument, we must emphasize that the test is not whether we would have reached the same result based upon the evidence in the record, but whether the juvenile court abused the substantial discretion confided in it by the Ohio General Assembly.
Hopfer asserts that her above-average intelligence, excellent academic record, prior untarnished juvenile record, stable family life, and generally nonviolent character weighed heavily in favor of keeping her within the juvenile court system. Moreover, Hopfer maintains that she felt a great deal of self-reproach regarding the death of her daughter and wished to participate in psychological treatment--factors that suggested her amenability to care and rehabilitation. Finally, Hopfer contends that she was not a threat to society and that incarceration beyond her twenty-first birthday was not required to protect the community.
At the juvenile court's amenability hearing, Hopfer introduced the expert testimony of a psychiatrist, Dr. Douglas Mossman, who conducted several interviews with Hopfer while she was in the juvenile detention center. Based upon these interviews and discussions with Hopfer's parents, Mossman concluded that Hopfer was suffering from a psychiatric disorder at the time she committed the alleged crimes and that the disorder was treatable. Further, Mossman testified that Hopfer posed no significant threat to the community and was amenable to rehabilitation.
In contrast, the court-appointed experts, two psychologists, Dr. Laura Fujimura and Dr. Thomas O. Martin, concluded that Hopfer was not remorseful over the death of her baby and posed a threat to the community because she was willing to transgress social boundaries to accomplish her goals. Fujimura, who conducted interviews and psychological and personality tests with Hopfer, testified that Hopfer had no internal sense of right or wrong, but made her decisions to conform with the perceived expectations of others. Fujimura also testified that Hopfer often blamed others, like her friend Hanaghan, for her predicament instead of taking responsibility for her own actions. In sum, Fujimura and
Martin concluded that Hopfer posed a threat to the community and was not amenable to treatment and rehabilitation.
In deciding whether to relinquish its jurisdiction, the juvenile court enjoys a wide latitude of discretion. State v. Carmichael (1973), 35 Ohio St.2d 1, 64 O.O.2d 1, 298 N.E.2d 568, paragraph one of the syllabus. In reviewing the juvenile court's decision to permit the state to prosecute Hopfer as an adult, the test is not whether we would have reached the same result upon the evidence before the juvenile court; the test is whether the juvenile court abused the discretion confided in it. As the Supreme Court of Ohio has held, "[t]he term 'abuse of discretion' connotes more than an error of law or of judgment; it implies that the court's attitude is unreasonable, arbitrary or unconscionable." State v. Adams (1980), 62 Ohio St.2d 151, 157, 16 O.O.3d 169, 173, 404 N.E.2d 144, 148. Accordingly, we must review the juvenile court's decision to determine whether it was unreasonable (that is, without any reasonable basis), arbitrary, or unconscionable.
Juv.R. 30 permits the juvenile court to transfer jurisdiction where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the child is not amenable to care or rehabilitation in the juvenile penal system and where the safety of the community may require the child to remain incarcerated beyond the child's twenty-first birthday. Juv.R. 30(D); see R.C. 2151.26. The juvenile court must consider the following circumstances in determining the child's...
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