State v. Rolls
| Decision Date | 17 July 1978 |
| Citation | 389 A.2d 824 |
| Parties | STATE of Maine v. Raymond C. ROLLS. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Henry N. Berry, III, Dist. Atty., Peter G. Ballou, Deputy Dist. Atty., Stephen Moriarty, Law Student (orally), Portland, for plaintiff.
Ray R. Pallas, Westbrook (orally), for defendant.
Before POMEROY, ARCHIBALD, DELAHANTY, GODFREY and NICHOLS, JJ.
The Defendant, Raymond C. Rolls, waived prosecution by indictment and was charged in a four-count information with burglary with a firearm, gross sexual misconduct, rape, and possession of a firearm by a felon. He was tried by jury in Superior Court in Cumberland County, and was found guilty on each charge. He brings this appeal from the judgment of conviction entered on the verdicts.
We deny the appeal.
The three issues which merit discussion are whether the court erred in admitting a prior consistent statement of the victim; whether the court erred in allowing expert testimony about the percentage of the population possessing a certain combination of blood grouping characteristics; and whether the evidence was sufficient to permit the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that it was the Defendant who committed the crimes. These issues arise in the following factual context:
On the night of June 11-12, 1976, a thirteen-year-old girl was awakened by an intruder in her bedroom in her parent's home in Portland's West End. After removing her underwear, the intruder bent over the bed and picked her up. An object, described at trial as an Iver-Johnson .32 caliber five-shot revolver, fell on the bed and was later recovered. 1
The victim was carried by the intruder downstairs to a back hall, where the act forming the basis for the charge of gross sexual misconduct was committed under threat of harm to her family. Subsequently, the intruder took the girl outside to an area behind the house. There she was sexually assaulted. Although she did not then know it, she received a laceration in her vaginal area which bled a noticeable amount.
Altogether she was with the intruder for approximately fifty minutes. After he departed, the victim ran upstairs and awoke her parents. They immediately called the police, who arrived within minutes.
The lighting was poor, and she was without her glasses. Her impression of the assailant was, in her word, "blurry." Because of allergies, she was unable to detect any particular odor, such as alcohol, about the person of her assailant. Nevertheless, she was able to describe him as being approximately in his twenties, with long hair, thin, about 5'9 or 5'10 in height, wearing a denim jacket and dark-colored pants which may have been green. This description was immediately broadcast over the police radio. The time was approximately 2:20 a.m.
Approximately one-half hour after the assailant left his victim a Portland police officer in a cruiser observed the Defendant traveling on foot along a street some four to five blocks (approximately 1/2 mile) from the site of the assault. The Defendant was the only person the officer observed on the street. Since the Defendant appeared to fit the general description broadcast over the radio, the officer asked him to stop and talk, which he did. He was wearing a denim jacket, blue jeans, and western-style boots. It was later shown that his height was about 5'1 01/2 or 5'11 , and that he was in his mid-thirties. 2
The officer noticed that the knees of the Defendant's pants and the tips of his boots were wet, and there was a noticeable odor of alcohol about his person. At the officer's request, the Defendant agreed to accompany the officer to the crime scene. There, he stood under a street light where the victim viewed him from inside the house. She was unable to say any more than that he could have been her assailant.
Although told he was not under arrest, the Defendant was taken to the police station to verify his identity. At the station, the officer first noticed some red stains on the upper right leg of the Defendant's jeans near the zipper. While this particular officer did not touch the pants to determine whether the stains were wet, the police evidence technician testified that the stains were still wet some time later.
It was after the red stains were noticed that the Defendant was formally arrested. He was subjected to a strip search, which revealed he was wearing no underwear. The police were unable to detect anything resembling blood on his person despite a close examination. Nevertheless, the jeans were seized for evidentiary purposes.
The jeans were later sent for analysis of the stains to the F.B.I. laboratory in Washington, where they were examined by Special Agent Robert Spalding. At trial, after establishing his qualifications as a forensic serologist, 3 Agent Spalding testified about his examination of the Defendant's jeans.
After first receiving the pants in June, 1976, Agent Spalding tested them for purposes of determining the presence of blood or semen. These tests were inconclusive on the presence of semen, but did disclose the presence of human blood, which was determined to be of type A 1 in the well-known ABO blood-type classification system.
About two months later, a second series of tests was performed on these pants by Agent Spalding. The ABO classification test was repeated to verify the results of the earlier tests, and as a check for any indication of deterioration. A test attempting to classify the stain under the RH system was unsuccessful because of the passage of time. However, Agent Spalding testified that he was able to type the stain according to both the EAP and PGM classification systems.
The erythrocyte acid phosphatase (EAP) and phosphoglucomutage (PGM) blood classifications are based on the presence of enzymes in the blood. These systems are genetically controlled, as in the ABO classification system, and all three are independently inherited, such that the blood type in one system does not depend upon the type in either of the others.
The theory of the PGM system is that there are slight differences between enzyme molecules in the blood. Under certain conditions, these different molecules separate and migrate and can be visually classified by the formation of "banding patterns" in reaction to charging by an electric field (electrophoresis) in a starch gel solution.
The theory of the EAP system is similar except that it involves the use of ultraviolet light rather than an electrical charge. The end result which is subject to typing is again a banding pattern.
In the PGM system, there are three classifications which are normally used: 1-1, 2-1, and 2-2. In the EAP system, there are six classifications: A, B, AB, C, AC, and CB. Agent Spalding testified that type "C" is very rare, and that the letter classifications used in the EAP system are unrelated to those of the ABO system.
From testing the stain on the pants, Agent Spalding determined that the blood was of type 2-1 in the PGM system and BA in the EAP system, in addition to the type A 1 in the ABO system noted earlier.
Agent Spalding also performed similar tests on blood samples taken directly from the victim and from the Defendant. The results of the tests performed upon the stains on the pants and the blood from the victim and the Defendant may be summarized as follows:
ABO EAP PGM
------- ---- ----
Pants A sub1 BA 2-1
Victim A sub1 BA 2-1
Defendant A sub1 A 1-1
Thus, on the basis of these tests, it is evident that the stains on the pants could have been the victim's blood and could not have been the Defendant's.
Agent Spalding was also permitted to testify, without objection, that approximately 35% Of the Caucasian population of the United States possess type A 1 blood in the ABO classification, that studies done by Scotland Yard reported that approximately 37% Of those studied possessed type 2-1 in the PGM group and that research done at the F.B.I. laboratory showed that approximately 39% Of the population possess the EAP characteristic BA. He was then asked about how he would, from these three independently obtained figures, determine the percentage of the population that possessed all three of them in their blood. He responded that he would multiply the three figures together to obtain a compound probability.
He was then asked to state the calculation he had performed with the three figures given above. Over objection, and after extensive Voir dire, the witness was permitted to testify that approximately 5% Of the population, or one person in twenty, would possess all three blood characteristics which the victim possessed and which were present in the bloodstain on the Defendant's pants.
When the State had rested, the Defendant testified on his own behalf. He denied any involvement in the crimes. He related that he had been present at a party in his apartment in Portland that evening, where he had consumed large quantities of alcoholic beverages. At about 11:30 p.m., he said he had escorted one of the guests home and then had escorted her baby-sitter to her home. The two other witnesses presented by the Defendant corroborated his activities up until that time. He related that, at that point, he did not feel like returning home, so he hitch-hiked to Saco where he attempted to work on a car he owned, which was located in Saco. After discovering that he was unable to perform the intended work, he said he hitch-hiked back to Portland and was going home when stopped by the police.
Regarding the blood on his pants, he stated that some of it may have been from cuts he received while working on his car, but that the majority of it was from an occasion sometime in April or May when his girlfriend's daughter cut herself in his presence.
The Defendant admitted he knew blood analysis would be an issue in the trial, but he stated that it had not occurred to him to have the girl's blood analyzed.
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