State v. Ransom

• Decision Date: 22 November 1993
• Docket Number: No. 19370,19370
• Citation: 124 Idaho 703,864 P.2d 149
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Steven Dean RANSOM, Defendant-Appellant. Boise, January 1993 Term
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

Page 149

864 P.2d 149

124 Idaho 703

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Steven Dean RANSOM, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 19370.

Supreme Court of Idaho,

Boise, January 1993 Term.

Nov. 22, 1993.

Alan E. Trimming, Ada County Public Defender, and Steven A. Botimer, Deputy Ada County Public Defender, Boise, for defendant-appellant; Steven A. Botimer, argued.

Hon. Larry EchoHawk, Atty. Gen., and Michael A. Henderson, Deputy Atty. Gen., Boise, for plaintiff-respondent; Michael A. Henderson, argued.

BISTLINE, Judge.

Appellant, Steven Dean Ransom, appeals from convictions for unlawful lewd conduct (I.C. § 18-1508) with a minor under sixteen years of age and for sexual abuse of another child (I.C. § 18-1506). Ransom contends that: 1) the trial court should not have denied his motion for a continuance, 2) a videotaped interview with one of the victims should not have been admitted, 3) certain expert testimony should not have been admitted, and 4) the trial court abused its discretion by imposing an excessive sentence, and assigns error to each of those rulings. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

BACKGROUND AND PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

Alleged victim, C.D., then ten years of age, told her mother that Steven Dean Ransom, an employee of the bus company which transported her and other special education students to school, had fondled her genitals earlier in the day. Two days later, C.D. was interviewed at the CARES (Children at Risk Evaluation Services) unit of St. Luke's Regional Medical Center by pediatric nurse Julie Cantlon. This interview was videotaped ("CARES videotape"). During the course of the police investigation, two other girls, S.M., then eleven or twelve years of age, and H.K. also reported that Ransom had sexually abused them.

Ransom was charged by indictment with three counts of lewd conduct with a minor child: the first count against C.D., the second against S.M., and the third against H.K. Trial was originally scheduled for early December 1990, but Ransom moved for a continuance, which was granted; the trial was rescheduled for February 1991.

Some time before trial, Ransom filed a motion to sever the three counts for trial but later withdrew it. On the morning of trial, the prosecution moved to dismiss Count III because the prosecution doubted H.K.'s ability to testify and had been advised by H.K.'s therapist that it might be harmful for her to testify. The district court granted the State's motion to dismiss the third count and denied Ransom's motion to continue the trial.

S.M. and C.D. both testified at trial. C.D. testified that she had been touched on the outside of her clothing but denied that she had ever stated that Ransom had fondled her under her pants. These statements were contrary to statements she had made in the CARES videotape. The prosecution sought to introduce the CARES videotape over Ransom's objection. Concluding that the videotape complied with the In the course of her testimony, S.M. stated that she "thought it [the sexual abuse] was all just a dream." Defense counsel cross-examined S.M. relative to the "dream" reference. The prosecution examined Sally Morrisroe ("Morrisroe"), S.M.'s counselor; she testified that cognitive dissonance is a common phenomena among children who undergo unwanted sexual experiences.

[124 Idaho 706] requirements of the residual hearsay exception in I.R.E. 803(24), the trial court overruled the objection.

The jury convicted Ransom for lewd conduct with C.D. and for the lesser included offense of sexual abuse of a child in regard to S.M. Before sentencing took place, Ransom requested a new trial on the grounds that S.M. had recanted her testimony and further that the trial court should have: 1) granted the continuance, 2) stricken C.D.'s testimony on the basis that she was incompetent to testify, and 3) excluded C.D.'s CARES videotape. Part of the evidence presented at the hearing relative to the motion for a new trial was testimony that S.M. had recanted her testimony in a family meeting; however, during the hearing on the motion for a new trial, S.M. retracted her recantation.

Ransom was sentenced to concurrent terms of seven to twenty-one years for lewd conduct and seven to fifteen years for sexual abuse. Pursuant to a later I.C.R. 35 motion, the court reduced the sentence for lewd conduct only to a term of seven to seventeen years, but did not reduce the sexual abuse sentence.

On appeal, Ransom raises the following issues:

I. Did the district court err in denying Ransom's motion for a continuance after the State moved to dismiss the charges concerning H.K.?

II. Was the videotaped interview of C.D. properly admitted under the residual hearsay exception, I.R.E. 803(24)?

III. Should Morrisroe's testimony have been admitted?

IV. Did the trial court err in finding C.D. competent to testify?

V. Did S.M.'s recantation of her trial testimony require granting of a new trial?

VI. Was Ransom's sentence excessive?

ANALYSIS

I. The Decision to Deny Ransom's Motion for a Continuance was not an Abuse of the Trial Court's Discretion.

On the morning of trial, the prosecution moved to dismiss Count III. The attorney for the prosecution told the trial court that he had met with H.K. almost daily for eight days prior to the trial, that her condition had "deteriorated" over this period of time, and that on the day immediately prior to trial, she was so groggy that she was falling from her chair. ¹ The prosecution added that H.K.'s counselor/therapist advised against H.K. testifying.

Ransom then moved to continue the trial, arguing that dismissal of Count III significantly changed his defense strategy. In particular, Ransom had planned a "conspiracy" defense, based on the fact that both S.M. and C.D. knew H.K. but did not know each other, and also on various inconsistencies in the statements made by S.M. and H.K.

The trial court granted the prosecution's motion to dismiss Count III and denied Ransom's motion for a continuance.

The decision to grant or deny a motion for a continuance rests within the sound discretion of the trial court. State v. Carman, 114 Idaho 791, 793, 760 P.2d 1207, 1209 (1988). When an exercise of discretion is reviewed on appeal, the inquiry involves (1) whether the lower court rightly perceived the issue as one of discretion; (2) whether the court acted within the outer boundaries of such discretion and consistently with any legal standards applicable to specific choices; and (3) whether the court reached its decision by an exercise of reason. Sun Valley Shopping Center v. Idaho Power Co., 119 Idaho 87, 94, 803 P.2d 993, 1000 (1991) (quoting State v. Hedger, 115 Idaho 598, 600, 768 P.2d 1331, 1333 (1989)).

Ransom concedes that the decision regarding a motion for a continuance lies within the discretion of the trial court, but argues that the trial court here abused this discretion, primarily because the dismissal of Count III on the morning of the trial gave Ransom no time to reformulate his defense strategy. Indeed, since the State's attorneys had interviewed H.K. almost daily for eight days, it is odd that they did not earlier decide that she would be ineffective as a witness.

In our appellate capacity, however, we are limited to evaluating the compliance of the trial court with the criteria that this Court outlined in State v. Hedger, 115 Idaho at 600, 768 P.2d at 1333. First, the trial court recognized that the decision was committed to its sound discretion. Second, the transcript reveals that the court clearly knew, and rightly so, that such discretion is not unfettered, and that its proper role relative to evaluating Ransom's motion for a continuance necessitated weighing the competing interests of the State and the defendant.

In particular, the court was concerned that granting the continuance would result in a significant delay of the trial. One of the State's expert witnesses, Dr. Richard Barnes, was an out-of-state physician who had performed the physical examination of C.D. At the time of Ransom's motion to continue the trial, Dr. Barnes was scheduled to testify three days hence. Rescheduling his testimony would delay the trial another three to six months. Coupled with the prior nine month time lapse between the indictment and the trial, the court was concerned about the effects of a further lengthy delay on both the memories and the emotional stability of the two remaining alleged victims, C.D. and S.M. S.M. had experienced extreme anxiety as a result of the first continuance and had mentioned suicide. The court also noted that both C.D. and S.M. were developmentally disabled and that delaying the trial might well result in not having either or both as witnesses for the prosecution.

The court also recognized and considered problems that denial of the motion for a continuance would occasion for Ransom. The court attempted to alleviate these problems by inviting Ransom to submit a motion in limine for greater flexibility in admitting H.K.'s hearsay statements. Such statements would be no more prejudicial to Ransom than if Count III were to remain in place. Since most of the inconsistencies in the girls' statements concerned their own encounters with Ransom, rather than joint encounters with him, the court arguably could have decided that dismissal of Count III and eliminating H.K. as a witness would not result in significant prejudice to Ransom's defense strategy.

In short, the trial court clearly focused on relevant reasons for either granting or denying the motion for a continuance. The particularly compelling facts and circumstances here presented lead to the conclusion that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Ransom's motion.

II. The CARES Videotape was Properly Admitted.

Two days after the alleged sexual abuse, C.D. was interviewed at the CARES center. Ransom contends that the trial court could not have found the tape to be more probative than any other evidence, particularly C.D.'s...