State v. Robbins

• Decision Date: 17 April 2009
• Docket Number: No. 20060885.,20060885.
• Citation: 2009 UT 23,210 P.3d 288
• Parties: STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Ryan Brett ROBBINS, Defendant and Petitioner.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

210 P.3d 288

2009 UT 23

STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Ryan Brett ROBBINS, Defendant and Petitioner.

No. 20060885.

Supreme Court of Utah.

April 17, 2009.

Rehearing Denied May 26, 2009.

Mark L. Shurtleff, Att'y Gen., Jeffrey S. Gray, Asst. Att'y Gen., William K. Kendall, Patricia Parkinson, Salt Lake City, for respondent.

John Pace, Salt Lake City, for petitioner.

On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals.

PARRISH, Justice:

INTRODUCTION

¶ 1 In December 2003, when she was ten years old, Taylor M. first accused her stepfather, Ryan Brett Robbins, of "touch[ing] her in an area where nobody has tried to touch her." The only evidence of the alleged incident was Taylor's testimony, and many factors suggested that the allegations of abuse were motivated by animus between Taylor's father and Robbins. See Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-404.1 (2003). Robbins was charged with one count of aggravated sexual abuse of Taylor. He was also charged with three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of Taylor's older sister, Whitney, who came forward with her own allegations against Robbins after hearing Taylor's. The jury convicted Robbins of abusing Taylor but acquitted him of three counts of abusing Whitney. The trial judge later expressed that he was "rather surprised with the verdict" and that there was "more to [the allegations] than just he said/she said." He queried "what do I do in a situation where ... all kinds of collateral issues ... suggest that [Taylor's] testimony may not be credible?" Nonetheless, he denied Robbins' Motion to Arrest Judgment.

¶ 2 Robbins appealed his conviction to the court of appeals, which affirmed. It held that Taylor's testimony provided sufficient evidence for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Robbins intended to gratify his sexual desires and that the trial court could not disregard her testimony as inherently improbable. State v. Robbins, 2006 UT App 324, ¶¶ 11, 19, 142 P.3d 589. We granted certiorari to review whether the court of appeals misconstrued the scope of the inherent improbability doctrine. We hold that it did and accordingly reverse.

BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 3 Taylor's mother ("Mother") and father ("Father") divorced in 1996, in part because of a brief affair between Mother and Robbins in 1992. At the time of the divorce, the court awarded Mother primary custody of Taylor and her older sister Whitney, with Father receiving standard every-other-weekend and mid-week visitation. Two years later, when Taylor was five years old, Mother married Robbins. At some point the following year, Whitney moved in with Father, who then moved for primary custody of both girls. That petition was still pending at the time of Robbins' trial in 2004.

¶ 4 In 2001, Father made a complaint to DCFS, alleging that Robbins was verbally and physically abusing Taylor. Before contacting Robbins or Mother, a DCFS investigator interviewed Taylor at her school where Taylor told the investigator that she had never been spanked or hit by Robbins, was never told she was not loved, and was never told anything that made her feel uncomfortable or sad. Indeed, Taylor reported that she felt comfortable and safe at home. DCFS closed the investigation, concluding that the allegations lacked merit.

¶ 5 Just four weeks later, Father sought an ex parte protective order from the juvenile court prohibiting any contact between Robbins and Taylor. Father alleged that Robbins physically abused Taylor daily while berating her. The petition did not mention the recent DCFS investigation, nor did it allege that any bruising had occurred as a result of the physical abuse. Though the juvenile court granted the order, which required Robbins to leave his home and immediately transferred custody of Taylor from Mother to Father, Mother's legal counsel obtained judicial dissolution of the order the next day.

¶ 6 As a result of the petition for protective order, DCFS again investigated Father's allegations of abuse, this time in more detail. As evidence of the alleged abuse, Father provided the investigator with a log that he had kept of incidents of abuse, a tape recording made by his older daughter Whitney recounting what she believed was abuse of Taylor, and a recording of a telephone call Taylor made to him. A different investigator from DCFS interviewed Taylor, who again said she felt safe at home. Taylor told the investigator that Robbins had spanked her once lightly with a book. She also told the investigator that the only person she was afraid of was her step brother, Father's stepson, who would come up behind her and hit her unexpectedly. The investigator found that Father's abuse log contained third-hand allegations not proven by the evidence and that Whitney's tape-recorded allegations had no supporting evidence. Taylor's distress in the recorded phone call appeared to be caused by the earlier DCFS investigation. The investigator noted that "[i]t appears that there has been some coaching take place" with regards to the abuse allegations. Although the investigator found that the abuse allegations were without merit, he recommended that Taylor begin counseling due to the discord between her parents.

¶ 7 Taylor began attending regular counseling sessions in 2001, at first weekly and then monthly. In September 2003, Robbins and Mother separated as a result of Robbins' alcoholism. Prior to their separation, Taylor witnessed a loud argument between them, which "really freaked her out." Taylor told her counselor about the alleged incident of sexual abuse on December 11, 2003, over three years after the incident allegedly occurred. Shortly thereafter, Whitney came forward alleging that she too had been abused in a remarkably similar manner. Robbins was charged with four counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child under Utah Code section 76-5-404.1(3)(h) (2003).

¶ 8 Taylor's recollection of the alleged sexual abuse incident suffered from multiple inconsistencies. Taylor changed the age at which the abuse occurred from nine to seven. At the preliminary hearing, when attorneys asked why Taylor said the abuse first occurred when she was nine and then changed her story to seven, she replied that she had a hearing problem like her grandfather, a fact objectively not true. Taylor also changed the description of what she was wearing at the time of the alleged incident from fleece pants and a long sweater, to a nightgown, and then to a long nightgown that came to her ankles. The initial vague allegation Taylor reported to her counselor became much more specific after she discussed it with Whitney, who then came forward with her own similar abuse allegations. Taylor also gave more specific details of the alleged incident, elaborating that the touching lasted twenty seconds, that Robbins held his hand still for the duration, that he touched her over the top of her pajamas, and that when she slapped his hand, he left.

¶ 9 At trial, when asked if Robbins ever spoke to her about the incident, she replied, "Not that I remember. I think that maybe once he might have said that if I ever told anyone he would do it again or he would hit me more." (Emphasis added). But later in her testimony, Taylor reported that she did not tell anyone about the abuse when it happened "[b]ecause I had always been told that if I told anyone about him abusing me he would abuse me more, or he would threaten to kill my dog, or something like that." When asked why she did not report this abuse to either of the DCFS investigators, she claimed that she was afraid "because somebody told me there was going to be someone hiding in the closet and listening to everything that I said." Taylor did not identify who told her that someone would be hiding in the closet. Further, the first DCFS interview took place in a room without a closet and was conducted before Robbins and Mother were informed of the allegations, so neither would have had the opportunity to tell her that someone would record her conversation.

¶ 10 In addition to the inconsistencies in Taylor's testimony surrounding the alleged incident of sexual abuse, other inconsistencies arose with regard to her allegations of routine physical abuse. In 2001, Taylor told the first investigator that Robbins never hit her. She told the second investigator that he once tapped her lightly with a book. But by January 2003, she told the detective that Robbins had hit her "a couple of times," and several days later she told the DCFS investigator that once a week or so, when Robbins was drunk, he would hit her on the back with his hand or a book, leaving marks at least once. At trial, Taylor changed her story yet again, alleging that about once a week for four years Robbins would, without talking to her and without apparent provocation, come into Taylor's room, pull a book from the shelf and hit her with it for a few minutes. She testified that she did not think Robbins was ever drunk when he hit her because "when he was drinking he didn't act like that. He would just fall asleep." Though these allegations of physical abuse do not bear directly on the alleged incident of sexual abuse, they reflect the pattern of inconsistency pervading Taylor's testimony.

¶ 11 At the three-day trial, defense attorneys highlighted the inconsistencies in Taylor's testimony and established their theory that the accusations were a result of the discord between Father and Robbins. The jury convicted Robbins of one count of aggravated sexual abuse of Taylor, but acquitted on the three counts relating to Whitney. The court denied Robbins' Motion to Arrest Judgment, stating that "it could not say that [Taylor's] testimony was inconclusive or inherently improbable to the extent that reasonable minds [the jurors] must have had to entertain a reasonable doubt. ... The fact that the Court might have reached another result is not relevant to the inquiry on defendant's Motions." Robbins was sentenced to five years to life...