State v. Woodson, 86-262-C

• Decision Date: 23 December 1988
• Docket Number: No. 86-262-C,86-262-C
• Parties: STATE v. Donald F. WOODSON. A.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 1187

551 A.2d 1187

STATE v. Donald F. WOODSON.

No. 86-262-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Dec. 23, 1988.

James E. O'Neil, Atty. Gen., Annie Goldberg, Asst. Atty. Gen., for plaintiff.

Barbara Hurst, Paula Rosin, Asst. Public Defenders, for defendant.

OPINION

SHEA, Justice.

This matter is before the Supreme Court on appeal by the defendant, Donald F. Woodson, from his conviction in the Providence County Superior Court. Woodson was found guilty of the abominable and detestable crime against nature, fellatio, G.L.1956 (1981 Reenactment) § 11-10-1, and of second degree sexual assault, G.L.1956 (1981 Reenactment) § 11-37-4, as amended by P.L.1984, ch. 59, § 1. He was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment on each count: eight years to be served, seven suspended, with seven years probation to follow. We affirm.

At trial the evidence presented showed a relationship between defendant and the victim which involved drug use, forced sexual relations, and intimidation. The victim, a twenty-two year-old woman whom we shall call Crystal, ¹ met Donald Woodson, a Massachusetts State Policeman, at a Christmas party in December, 1982. Crystal was an exotic dancer at a lounge in Providence and had been invited to the party by one of defendant's brothers. The guests at the party--Woodson, Crystal, Woodson's two brothers and a friend of theirs--allegedly drank mixed drinks, snorted lines of cocaine, and smoked marijuana.

The party lasted all night. In the morning, Woodson changed into his police uniform and took Crystal home to her parents' house in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. She liked Woodson. He had acted like a gentleman, and she had never met a state trooper who would "do drugs" and who wouldn't turn her in for "doing drugs."

Early in 1983 Woodson called her and asked her to go out with him; she accepted. According to testimony, he drove to a secluded parking spot where she thought they were going to share a marijuana cigarette. Instead, he threatened to drive off and leave her there, in the rain and oncoming darkness, if she refused to perform fellatio on him. Frightened and not knowing where she was, she did as she was told.

Woodson contacted Crystal again in the summer of 1983. He apologized for the events earlier that year and asked if she and a girl friend would like to accompany him and some friends to the beach. She accepted both the apology and the invitation, but tried to decline later when her girl friend backed out. She told Woodson that "four guys and one girl * * * didn't feel right;" however, he persuaded her to go, saying, "I'm a police officer. You have nothing to worry about."

At the beach, later identified as Horseneck Beach in Massachusetts, the group carried their belongings to a secluded area of dunes rather than to the main beach. The men explained that they could not bring their beer onto the beach. After the group was settled, Woodson asked Crystal to accompany him into a wooded area away from the others. She refused at first, but acquiesced when he said he just wanted to talk. Once away from the others Woodson told her that he had a fantasy about having anal intercourse. When she refused to submit, Woodson grabbed her by her hair, forced her to her knees with her face in the sand, pulled her bathing suit to her ankles, and raped her anally. When he finally stopped, she ran back to the group's blankets in the dunes only to be held down and raped by the other three members of the group while Woodson stood by and watched. In the car on the way home the four men taunted Crystal, saying that there was nothing she could do about the attacks as no one would ever believe a dancer over a cop. At home she received a similar reaction from her father, who told her that if she pressed charges against a Massachusetts state trooper, it would jeopardize the entire family. Shortly thereafter she moved to Rhode Island. ²

After her move Woodson followed Crystal to Rhode Island. He contacted her first at her work at a Providence lounge and then at her apartment in Glocester, Rhode Island. On Woodson's first visit to her apartment the two of them simply smoked marijuana and talked. However, on his second visit to her Rhode Island apartment, early in June 1984, the evidence shows that Woodson again forced her to perform fellatio on him after showing her that he was carrying a gun.

Woodson's final visit to the apartment in Glocester came later that month on June 25, 1984. He arrived around noon and asked the victim if she had any drugs. Woodson then told her that he was going to run her life his way by turning her out of dancing and into prostitution. When she stated that he was not going to run her life, Woodson cornered her against a wall in her bathroom and, while forcing his hand down her dress and grabbing her breast, told her that she did not have a choice in the matter, that if she did not do what he said, he would do to her again what he did at the beach. Crystal freed herself from Woodson's grasp in time to answer a phone call from a neighbor, whom she immediately summoned to her aid. She then escaped outside to the front of the apartment. Before he left, Woodson threatened that she might someday be found dead on her couch from an overdose or that she might find out just how deep the lake was behind her house. This later statement was overheard and corroborated by Crystal's neighbor who testified at trial.

Later that same day, Crystal went to the nearby Chepachet State Police Barracks and reported the two attacks that had occurred in Rhode Island. Woodson was arrested and charged with the two crimes that had occurred in Glocester, Rhode Island: the abominable and detestable crime against nature, fellatio, for the incident in early June of 1984 and second-degree sexual assault for the attack on June 25, 1984.

Shortly after filing her complaint against Woodson, Crystal received a message that Woodson wanted to talk to her. The unidentified caller said that she "didn't have the balls" to call Woodson because she had "screwed on the case" and that she "should call him * * * and make peace with him." Crystal testified that she called Woodson several times early in 1985. During several of these calls she offered to accept money from Woodson in return for her dropping the charges in an attempt to trick him into admitting the crimes. Finally she simply told him to leave her alone as she was still being harassed and had received messages that people were going to hurt her mother.

On appeal Woodson first argues that his indictment should have been dismissed due to prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury. During those proceedings it was revealed that Crystal had been given a polygraph test as part of the investigation of her complaint by the police. The police officer testified before the grand jury that not only was the polygraph standard departmental procedure but there was special concern in this case because the victim was an admitted narcotics user. The officer further testified that although no one can say how accurate a polygraph is, it is a useful tool, and the polygraph results, when combined with her three consistent statements and the statement of a witness, were sufficient information for the police authorities to issue an arrest warrant.

Woodson contends that the presentation of this evidence to the grand jury improperly influenced the grand jury's decision to indict. State v. Mainelli, 543 A.2d 1311, 1314 (R.I.1988) (citing The Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U.S. 250, ----, 108 S.Ct. 2369, 2374, 101 L.Ed.2d 228, 238 (1988)). He argues that his indictment should be dismissed. We disagree.

"This court has consistently stated that the dismissal of an indictment on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct is an extraordinary sanction reserved for very limited and extreme circumstances." Mainelli, 543 A.2d at 1313 (citing State v. Chakouian, 537 A.2d 409, 413 (R.I.1988); State v. Wilshire, 509 A.2d 444, 448 (R.I.1986); State v. Romano, 456 A.2d 746, 750 (R.I.1983)); see also State v. Fernandes, 526 A.2d 495, 501 (R.I.1987); and State v. Manocchio, 497 A.2d 1, 12 (R.I.1985). We have also held that "notwithstanding a defendant's allegations of irregularity, an indictment returned by a legally constituted grand jury calls for a trial on the merits." Mainelli, 543 A.2d at 1313 (citing Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359, 363, 76 S.Ct. 406, 408, 100 L.Ed. 397, 402-03 (1956); Wilshire, 509 A.2d at 448).

Mainelli and its predecessors control here, but in our opinion do not support defendant. Given the circumstances surrounding the events complained of, the references made to the grand jury regarding the victim's polygraph examination are not so inflammatory or prejudicial that they call for the extreme sanction of dismissing Woodson's indictment after a trial on the merits has been held. Considered with testimony about both the questionable reliability of polygraph tests in general and the questionable credibility of the complaining witness, the officer's testimony that the victim passed the polygraph examination should not, in our opinion, unduly influence the grand jury's decision to indict. Mainelli, 543 A.2d at 1314 (citing Bank of Nova Scotia, 487 U.S. at ----, 108 S.Ct. at 2374, 101 L.Ed.2d at 238).

Both this court and the United States Supreme Court have held that a conviction by a petit jury after a full trial on the merits renders harmless any defect occurring during the grand jury proceedings. United States v. Mechanik, 475 U.S. 66, 70, 106 S.Ct. 938, 942, 89 L.Ed.2d 50, 56 (1986) (as cited by Mainelli, 543 A.2d at 1313; Wilshire, 509 A.2d at 448).

"[T]he petit jury's subsequent guilty verdict means not only that there was probable cause to believe that the defendants were guilty as charged, but also that they are in fact guilty as charged beyond a reasonable doubt. Measured by the petit jury's verdict, then, any error in the grand jury proceeding...