State v. Williams
| Decision Date | 08 September 2022 |
| Docket Number | A169948 |
| Parties | STATE of Oregon, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Roy Jay WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Oregon Court of Appeals |
321 Or.App. 594
517 P.3d 308
STATE of Oregon, Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
Roy Jay WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant.
A169948
Court of Appeals of Oregon.
Argued and Submitted January 29, 2021.
September 8, 2022
Mary M. Reese, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. Also on the briefs was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public Defense Services.
Michael A. Casper, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
Before Tookey, Presiding Judge, and Aoyagi, Judge, and Armstrong, Senior Judge.
AOYAGI, J.
Defendant was convicted of 16 sex crimes against two children, specifically 11 counts of first-degree sexual abuse, ORS 163.427 ; two counts of first-degree unlawful sexual penetration, ORS 163.411 ; two counts of first-degree sodomy, ORS 163.405 ; and one count of second-degree unlawful sexual penetration, ORS 163.408. Three of the jury's guilty verdicts were nonunanimous, while the remainder were unanimous. On appeal, defendant raises two issues. First, he claims that the trial court erred by admitting certain expert testimony regarding "grooming" of children for sexual abuse. Second, he claims that the trial court erred by instructing the jury that it could return nonunanimous guilty verdicts and then by accepting the jury's verdicts.
We summarily address the second issue. As the state concedes, given post-trial changes in the law, it was error for the trial court to instruct the jury that it could find defendant guilty by nonunanimous verdict. See Ramos v. Louisiana , 590 US ––––, 140 S Ct 1390, 1394, 1397, 206 L Ed 2d 583 (2020) (holding that, under the Sixth Amendment, a criminal defendant may be convicted of a serious offense only by unanimous verdict). Defendant is therefore entitled to a new trial on Counts 12, 13, and 19—the counts on which the jury returned nonunanimous verdicts—and
we reverse and remand his convictions on those counts.1 The instructional error was harmless, however, as to the counts on which the verdicts were unanimous. State v. Kincheloe , 367 Or. 335, 339, 478 P.3d 507 (2020), cert. den. , ––– U.S. ––––, 141 S.Ct. 2837, 210 L.Ed.2d 951 (2021). We therefore reject defendant's Sixth Amendment argument as to the unanimous-verdict counts.
That leaves the first issue—the admission of "grooming" testimony—which is the subject of the remainder of this opinion. We begin with a brief summary of the historical facts. We then provide a somewhat detailed description of the procedural facts, because, as we explain later,
defendant's claim of evidentiary error presents questions for which the answers are highly context specific. Finally, we analyze the legal issue presented, ultimately concluding that the court did not err in admitting the testimony.
Accordingly, we reverse and remand on Counts 12, 13, and 19, and we otherwise affirm.
I. HISTORICAL FACTS
Defendant, his wife, and his wife's three children lived across the street from S and her family. The two families were friendly. In 2012, when S was 10 years old, defendant broke his pelvis in an ATV accident. S spent a lot of time with defendant while he recuperated. S sometimes brought her cousin J with her.
In early 2014, a neighbor contacted DHS after she saw S lying on top of defendant on his couch. During the DHS investigation, both defendant and S admitted that they were close, and S acknowledged that she texted defendant, that defendant confided in her about his poor relationship with his wife, and that defendant's wife had told S not to spend so much time with defendant. It is unclear whether DHS asked defendant or S directly about sexual abuse, but, in any event, there is no indication that either revealed any sexual abuse. DHS told S's parents to keep their children away from defendant. Defendant's wife and stepchildren moved away almost immediately, and defendant moved away about a month later.
A few years later, toward the end of 2016, J told her parents that defendant had sexually abused her and that S had been present. That led to a police investigation, during which J was interviewed by a forensic interviewer, Nichole Satterwhite. S initially refused to be interviewed but was eventually interviewed by Satterwhite as well. During that interview, S described various incidents of sexual abuse by defendant.
II. PROCEDURAL FACTS
In late 2017, defendant was indicted for alleged crimes against S and J.
A. Pretrial Motions in limine
Before trial, defendant filed a motion in limine to prevent the state from making any reference to "grooming" behavior without satisfying the foundational requirements for scientific evidence, citing the Supreme Court's then-recent decision in State v. Henley , 363 Or. 284, 422 P.3d 217 (2018), in which the court held that a forensic interviewer's testimony about grooming required a scientific foundation. The state acknowledged in its response that it intended to call Satterwhite to testify "regarding delayed disclosure and related factors" and that her testimony "may cover ‘grooming’ behavior." Defendant then filed a second motion in limine , asking specifically that the court exclude "scientific evidence, expert testimony, and other opinion testimony of Nichole Satterwhite, a child forensic interviewer, or other witnesses as to which the State fails to lay an adequate foundation." Defendant argued that expert testimony on grooming "cannot withstand the special scrutiny that Oregon law applies to scientific evidence." He further argued that Satterwhite was unqualified to testify on grooming, as she was "not credentialed nor regarded within any relevant scientific community as an expert on behavioral science" and was "not qualified to explain the (nonexistent)
scientific technique and methodology for detecting and measuring grooming in sex abuse cases." (Emphases in defendant's motion.) Finally, defendant argued that any probative value was outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.
The court held a pretrial hearing on defendant's motions, during which the substance of Satterwhite's anticipated testimony became clearer. Describing "grooming" as "too generic of a term," the state explained that it viewed grooming as "one piece of this greater body of research and relevant testimony, which is child disclosures and recantations and delayed disclosures." The state then explained that it intended to have Satterwhite testify regarding the dynamics of disclosure of abuse and manipulation by the abuser, which the state viewed as relevant to rebut defendant's anticipated attack on the girls’ credibility, to explain the complicated process of disclosure of abuse, and to contextualize the girls’ testimony regarding defendant's actions.
Satterwhite testified at length at the pretrial hearing, including describing her understanding of controlled studies on forensic interviewing of children and the process of disclosure. The state also offered multiple academic papers into evidence, to lay a scientific foundation for Satterwhite's testimony. On cross-examination, defendant questioned Satterwhite regarding her lack of training as a scientist.
Defendant's own expert—Dr. Reisberg, a psychology professor—also testified at the pretrial hearing. Among other things, Reisberg testified that, with respect to "something that we might want to call grooming," "in the vast majority of cases we can only identify those behaviors in hindsight," making it difficult to "define grooming in most cases without confirming the intent," such that "scientific inquiry is stymied right at the start." The state made an objection during Reisberg's testimony that prompted the court to ask defense counsel to clarify the precise nature of defendant's challenge to Satterwhite's testimony. The following colloquy occurred:
"THE COURT: *** I'm just trying to figure out if—so you're challenging—you're saying two things. One is this idea of grooming or manipulation of child sex abuse victims is not scientifically based in any way.
"[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: No. I'm not saying that.
"THE COURT: Okay.
"[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I think—I think our witness would disagree with that proposition.
"THE COURT: All right. So what are you saying? Where are you going?
"[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I'm saying that there's not enough science here to reach a conclusion that would allow predictability or any sort of reliance on the fact that it—that because this behavior happened, it has any sort of relevance to whether or not the person did the thing .
"THE COURT: All right. And that's why I was originally talking about it depends on the purpose that this information is being used for. If it's not being used for the purpose of showing here's the behavior, ergo, abuser, and it's
being used for some other purpose, is that a different analysis in your mind ?
"[DEFENSE COUSNEL: I can't imagine another purpose that we would—that would be relevant and have any probative value, certainly—
"THE COURT: Okay.
"[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: —to the fact finder."
(Emphases added.)
Later, defense counsel asked Reisberg, "[I]f you, as a scientist, were asked to rely on or make predictions based upon the studies that have been made available to you, would you feel confident in doing that?" Reisberg responded that it "[d]epends on what conclusion you're asking me to draw." He then clarified that the "main issue" with relying on evidence about grooming in court is the circularity problem that he had identified earlier. That is, "you say, look, there was grooming that led up to it. But then you reverse direction and say, how do you know there was grooming? Answer, because there was abuse. As a matter—as a logical matter,
that's worthless. As a scientific matter, that's worthless."
Toward the end of the hearing, the court again sought to focus the parties on the specific purposes for...
To continue reading
Request your trial