State v. Medeiros
| Decision Date | 08 June 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 2009-207-C.A.,2009-207-C.A. |
| Citation | 996 A.2d 115 |
| Parties | STATEv.Joseph MEDEIROS. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
Virginia M. McGinn, Department of Attorney General, for Plaintiff.
Janice M. Weisfeld, Office of the Public Defender, for Defendant.
Present: SUTTELL, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, ROBINSON, and INDEGLIA, JJ.
Joseph Medeiros (Medeiros or defendant) appeals from a judgment of conviction on two counts of second-degree child molestation, one count of first-degree sexual assault, and one count of second-degree sexual assault. On appeal, he argues that the trial justice erred when she permitted the state to present the witness statement of a prior molestation victim of the defendant under Rule 404(b) of the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence. Additionally, the defendant argues that the trial justice abused her discretion when she adjudicated him guilty and when she denied his motion for a new trial. For the reasons set forth herein, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.
Until July 2004, Medeiros lived in Tiverton with his girlfriend and their two young sons. His girlfriend's daughter from a previous relationship, Jennifer Richards,1 also lived in the couple's home until she moved to Westport, Massachusetts, in 2002 at the age of thirteen to live with her father. Medeiros's relationship with Jennifer's mother had begun when Jennifer was three or four years old. When the couple moved to Tiverton in 1998, Jennifer was nine years old. According to Jennifer, at that time she and Medeiros had a “normal relationship” similar to that usually found between a stepfather and stepdaughter.
However, Jennifer recalled that their relationship soon changed. She said that Medeiros began making inappropriate comments to her about her appearance. According to Jennifer, he later began to touch her inappropriately. She said that when she was still nine years old, Medeiros stood behind her to help her open the door to their home's garage and he touched her vagina, buttocks, and chest over her clothes. She did not tell anyone about this incident after it happened because she “didn't really understand what was going on at that point” and “was just really confused and not sure what to do about it.”
According to Jennifer, Medeiros inappropriately touched her again a couple of months after the first incident. This time, she and her youngest brother, then a toddler, were in the garage preparing to ride a dirt bike together. As she put her helmet on and assisted her brother with his, Medeiros sat on the dirt bike behind her and touched her between her legs over her clothing with both hands. Jennifer managed to get her brother on the bike, and she rode away. Jennifer said that as she did so Medeiros pushed her head forward, told her “to shut up,” and called her a “bitch.”
Jennifer said that another incident involving her and Medeiros occurred when she was fourteen, after she had moved out of the Tiverton home to live with her father. She was visiting her family in Tiverton during her summer vacation and spent the evening in her bedroom alone before socializing with friends. Her mother was not home, and her younger brothers were elsewhere in the house playing. As she sat on her bed, Medeiros angrily came into her room. Jennifer said that she thought that he was aggravated because she had not completed some chore. According to Jennifer, he “pulled [her] to the edge of the bed and pulled [her] pants off.” She said that he then “took [her] round [hair] brush and proceeded to shove it inside of [her].” He did this “a couple of times” while she attempted “to push him off” and “tell[ ] him to stop.” Jennifer said that Medeiros then called her a “bitch” and told her “to shut up.” She recalled that she didn't tell anyone about the incident because she “was scared.” According to Jennifer, Medeiros told her that her brothers would be taken away and her mother wouldn't love her anymore if she told anyone what had happened.
Jennifer said that the next incident occurred when she was fifteen years old. She awoke in her bed to find that her pajama bottoms had been removed and that Medeiros was attempting to have sexual intercourse with her.2 Jennifer said that she pushed him off her, and he told her “to shut up” again. She said that this was the last such incident that occurred between her and Medeiros.
Approximately a month and a half later, Jennifer learned that Medeiros also had been accused of sexually assaulting her best friend, Tanya.3 He was arrested in early July 2004. Thereafter, the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) questioned Jennifer as part of an investigation that was precipitated by Medeiros's arrest. However, she acknowledged that she maintained to investigators that Medeiros had never touched her inappropriately. Jennifer said that she didn't tell DCYF about the incidents because she “was scared” and feared that her brothers would be taken away if she came forward. Ultimately, Medeiros entered a plea of nolo contendere on two counts of third-degree sexual assault against Tanya. Jennifer wrote a favorable letter about Medeiros entitled “Why We Need Joe” for his sentencing hearing in that case. She said that she wrote the letter because she “was still scared” and because her mother and brothers “were going through so much that [she] didn't want to make it worse.” 4
Eventually, Jennifer told her friends that she had been “sexually abused” and that she “didn't know what to do about it.” She reported her allegations to the Tiverton Police Department on August 27, 2004.5 On November 17, 2006, a grand jury returned an indictment charging Medeiros with one count of first-degree sexual assault, two counts of second-degree child molestation, and one count of assault with intent to commit first-degree sexual assault.
Before trial, the state moved for the admission of the 1990 witness statement of another victim of defendant. That statement had served as the basis for a charge of second-degree child molestation against Medeiros in 1991, to which he had pleaded nolo contendere.6 In her statement, dated June 14, 1990, the victim, who was the then eight-year-old female cousin of defendant, said that three days earlier she had been watching television on the couch in her mother's living room with defendant when he “started to touch [her] on [her] private parts” over her clothes. She also said in the statement that Medeiros had touched her inappropriately in the past and “told [her] not to tell [her] mother or father.” The statement also contained a description of an incident that had occurred two weeks earlier when defendant exposed himself to her by pulling down his pants while she was watching television. The victim also indicated in the statement that defendant then pulled his pants up and sat next to her on the couch while he touched her vaginal area over her clothes. At the time of this incident, Medeiros lived in another apartment in the same building in which the victim resided and he would babysit the victim occasionally.
The state offered the witness statement “to show that Mr. Medeiros's sexual behavior towards [Jennifer Richards] was part of a common scheme or plan of sexual misconduct that Mr. Medeiros carried out against children of a similar age, and at a time when they * * * were under Mr. Medeiros's control to a certain extent.” The record indicates that there was “extensive discussion regarding the evidentiary relevance of this statement in chambers” as well as defendant's objection to the admission of the statement. Nonetheless, the trial justice ruled that the statement was admissible.
The defendant waived his right to a jury trial, and a trial was held before a justice of the Superior Court on December 9, 10, 11, 12, and 16, 2008. Jennifer, the Tiverton police officers who received Jennifer's complaint in 2004, Tanya, Tanya's mother, and defendant's mother testified at trial. Medeiros was convicted on all counts. On March 4, 2009, the trial justice heard and denied defendant's motion for a new trial. On that day he was sentenced to a term of fifty years, with thirty years to serve and twenty years suspended, with twenty years of probation for first-degree sexual assault, two concurrent terms of fifteen years, with ten years to serve and five years suspended, with a period of five years probation for two counts of second-degree child molestation, and a concurrent term of twenty-five years, with fifteen years to serve and ten years suspended, with ten years of probation for second-degree sexual assault. Medeiros timely appealed to this Court.
Medeiros raises two arguments on appeal. First, he argues that the trial justice abused her discretion when she admitted into evidence the witness statement of a prior molestation victim of defendant under Rule 404(b). 7 Second, defendant contends that the trial justice abused her discretion when she found him guilty of the charges and when she denied his motion for a new trial and also because she “overlooked and misconceived the material evidence and was otherwise clearly wrong.”
As an initial matter, we are troubled by the absence from the record of the trial justice's reasoning underlying her ruling on the admissibility of the witness statement. The discussions between the trial justice and the parties about the admissibility of this evidence occurred in chambers without the presence of a stenographer and, therefore, were not on the record. The defendant faults the trial justice for failure “to place on the record the reasons behind her ruling on admissibility.” However, it is the responsibility of the party claiming the error to provide a complete record so that this Court may weigh the merits. See Shorrock v. Scott, 944 A.2d 861, 864 (R.I.2008) (...
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