Terry v. Vannoy
| Decision Date | 02 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 18-cv-812 SEC P |
| Parties | TERRY L TERRY #584134 v. DARREL VANNOY |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana |
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Terry Lynn Terry (“Petitioner”) was convicted of three counts of molestation of a juvenile. Caddo Parish District Judge John Mosely sentenced Petitioner to concurrent terms of 15 years on counts one and two, and a concurrent 50-year term on count three. The convictions and sentences were affirmed on direct appeal. State v. Terry, 108 So.3d 126 (La.App. 2d Cir. 2012), writ denied, 118 So.3d 1096 (La. 2013). Petitioner also pursued a post-conviction application in state court. He now seeks federal habeas corpus relief on several grounds. For the reasons that follow, it is recommended that his petition be denied.
Petitioner was convicted of molesting three persons. A.L. and T.C. are sisters and the biological daughters of Petitioner and his first wife. They were adults at the time of trial. The adult daughters were estranged from Petitioner after enduring childhood molestation, for which Petitioner was not charged at the time. They became concerned and contacted a state agency after they learned that Petitioner had remarried and had two young children living in his home. One of those children was S.B., the daughter of Petitioner's nephew. Petitioner was eventually charged with molesting A.L., T.C and S.B. Petitioner challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction of molesting T.C. and S.B.
A.L., the oldest daughter, testified that she was born in 1980 and was 30 years old at the time of the trial in 2010. When she was a child, she lived with her parents, sister T.C., and brother S.T. She said her father began to touch her inappropriately when she was in middle school, sometimes when her mother was away at work. The family then lived on Riding Club Lane in Shreveport, and A.L. shared a bed with her sister.
A.L. testified that Petitioner would touch and fondle her beneath her pajamas while she pretended to be asleep. She also described how Petitioner would have her use soap to rub his penis while he was taking a shower. She said that there were more than five of each such incidents. She also described a time that Petitioner was helping her with her homework and had his hand up her shirt. A.L. said she also engaged in oral sex with Petitioner, and he often “practically begged” to have intercourse, but that never happened. A.L. described a number of other acts of oral and manual stimulation orchestrated by Petitioner, and she said that these events happened before she entered foster care the summer before her freshman year of high school.
T.C. testified that she was born in 1985 and was 25 at the time of trial. She remembered being interviewed as a child and asked about any abuse by her father. At the time, she lied because she did not want him to get in trouble. In about 2004, after T.C. had a child of her own, she called her mother and her sister to express guilt about covering up for her father.
T.C. described for the jury an incident that happened in the family's trailer on Riding Club Lane when she was about four or five. T.C. said she was naked, and Petitioner was sitting on the toilet getting ready to run her bath water. She had one foot in the tub when Petitioner kissed her. T.C. testified that she remembered thinking:
[H]e should not be kissing me like this, because it wasn't a peck, it wasn't, there wasn't tongue involved, but it was, I remember thinking distinctly even at that age that he should not be kissing me like this, it felt wrong, and then after that, I felt extremely uncomfortable. And I didn't want to look. I didn't understand. You know, I don't really know if he was touching me or not, but I know I went from thinking that he shouldn't be kissing me like this to extremely uncomfortable and what ended up happening to stop it was, I kind of lifted my foot a little bit and the water went under my foot and I slipped. And I remember, you know, whoa, like a little girl and I remember after that I just got in [the] tub.
T.C. was asked to describe the kiss. She answered, “Sensual.” She added that it was, “How you might kiss your husband without tongue, you know, slow, soft, and longer than, for what our relationship was, the kiss should not have happened that way, no, sir.” She said that she froze and was “extremely uncomfortable, ” knowing that it was not right. She added that part of her remembers maybe some touching, but she could not tell for sure because she was so uncomfortable.
T.C. recalled an interview with Detective Brooks, in 2008, a couple of years before trial. After reviewing the interview to refresh her memory, T.C. said that she remembered saying that she had “sensations in my vaginal area” but she could not tell for sure if she was touched because she never looked. “I do remember sensations in my vaginal area that made me think that he was touching me, but I never looked.” She described the sensation to Detective Brooks as pressure.
Linda Isaac is employed by the Department of Children and Family Services. She was a child protection investigator in 1993. She interviewed A.L., then 13, and learned what had been happening to her at home. She also interviewed T.C., who knew that her parents were mad at each other and that it had something to do with what Petitioner had done to her sister, but she did not disclose that she had been abused. Ms. Isaac also talked to Petitioner, who said he had been molested as a child four or five times by someone other than his parents. He admitted molesting A.L. over the course of five years, and he described specific sex acts that were consistent with A.L.'s report.
Witnesses testified that Petitioner's nephew had three children, including S.B. In 2006, when S.B. was three years old, the children went to live with Petitioner because their mother was having a nervous breakdown. Petitioner was living on Pelican Lodge Road (in Caddo Parish) when the children first moved in. S.B. and one younger brother lived with Petitioner and his wife for 10 months to a year in a trailer in Shreveport. Petitioner and his then wife had sole care of S.B. for a significant period of time. Petitioner then moved to Mississippi, and S.B. moved as well. Petitioner was arrested after he and the children had lived in Mississippi for a couple of months.
Crystal Clark (Tr. Vol. 4, p. 645) testified that she is a family advocate/forensic interviewer at the Gingerbread House. The main purpose of the center is to conduct forensic interviews of children who are suspected of being physically or sexually abused. She interviewed S.B. in June 2008, and a video of the interview was played for the jury. A transcript is in the record under seal at Doc. 23-5.
S.B. said in the recorded interview that she was four years old and lived with her mother, daddy, and J.B. (her two-year-old brother). Ms. Clark asked S.B. the names of her family members, and S.B. responded “Terry Terry Terry” each time. She said she had another brother named N., age 5, but then she said he was her sister and his name was Terry Terry Terry. S.B. was able to recite the alphabet, with some help, and she was able to identify body parts, including “vagina” and “butt” without prompting.
Ms. Clark asked S.B. if anyone had ever touched her on her vagina, and she said no. Clark asked if anyone ever touched her on her butt, and S.B. nodded yes and said, “My daddy.” She said that her daddy's name was Terry Terry Terry and that he touched her there with his hand, under her clothes, while she was in bed. She said he pinched and squeezed her there, and he said, “I love you.” S.B. said this happened more than one time.
Ms. Clark then asked S.B. about another part of her body, and S.B. said that he “squeezed me and pinches me right there, ” indicating an area that she said was called her vagina. She said it happened more than once and was done under her clothes while she was “asleep.” Ms. Clark asked S.B. if anybody else pinched or squeezed her on her vagina or butt besides her dad, and S.B. answered, “My dad.” She said that he used his hand to make the contact. S.B. said that her mother, who she again called Terry Terry Terry, was at home and asleep when these things happened.
Ms. Clark interviewed S.B. again the next day (Doc. 23-6) to determine whether the touching she described happened in Louisiana or Mississippi. S.B. was asked where she said Mr. Terry Terry touched her, and she repeated her claims that he squeezed and pinched her butt and vagina. S.B. said that they had a trailer in Mississippi and “here” in Caddo Parish. She was asked if Terry Terry touched her “in Mississippi and here, ” and she nodded yes.
S.B was six when she testified at trial. Tr. Vol. 4 p. 584. She identified her parents as Jonathan and Michelle and said she had two brothers, N. and J. The recordings of the Gingerbread House interviews were played, and S.B. said that everything she said in the videos was the truth. She admitted on cross-examination that she was not correct when she told Ms. Clark that Terry Terry Terry was the name of her mother and father. She also said that she was living in a trailer in Mississippi when these things happened. Defense counsel asked if when she said on the video that Terry Terry Terry were her mother and father, she meant Michelle and Jonathan. S.B. agreed. Defense counsel then asked, “So when you said Terry Terry Terry...
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