Snell v. State
Snell v. State
Opinion
The appellant, Buddy Snell, was indicted for enticing a child to enter a house for immoral purposes in violation of §
A thorough rendition of the facts is required for an understanding of the issues involved in this case. The evidence adduced at trial tended to show the following. The victim, M.W., was 15 at the time of trial and 12 at the time of the alleged offenses. Her brother, N.W., is one year younger than M.W. They lived in Union Grove, Marshall County, and Snell was their next door neighbor.
M.W. testified that she and her brother frequently went to the Snells' trailer. She *Page 788 said that Snell would invite them in or have them over for dinner, and that at these times his wife and young son were present. M.W.'s mother worked in Huntsville at this time. M.W. said that while they were at Snell's, he put a movie into the VCR and asked if she and N.W. wanted to watch it. She said that the movie showed a man and woman having sex, and that she and her brother watched it for about 30 minutes. M.W. testified that during this time, Snell's wife was cooking and his son was running back and forth in front of the television. M.W. testified that while the movie was on Snell stood behind a chair, rubbing his hands up and down his crotch.
She said that during the course of about a year, Snell showed this type of movie about 15 other times, sometimes when other children from the neighborhood were present. Snell's wife and son were not always home when he showed the movies, M.W. said. Sometimes Snell touched himself while watching the movies, M.W. said. She said that she never told her mother that they watched these movies.
M.W. also testified that Snell asked her to go to the grocery store with him one day. She said that he drove down a dirt road, then stopped the car and got out. M.W. said Snell acted as though he were going to get something out of the back of the car, but he just stood there for a minute. She said he then came around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door.
M.W. said Snell pushed himself onto her and turned her so that her feet were out of the car. He put his hand under her shirt and pulled her pants down to her knees. M.W. said she asked him to stop, but he did not. Snell had oral sex with her, M.W. testified, then got up and walked around the side of the car. M.W. said she pulled her pants up, and Snell asked if she liked it. She said she did not answer him. Snell apologized and said it would not happen again, M.W. said, adding that she believed him. She said she did not tell anyone what happened.
About two weeks later, M.W. said, she went to Snell's trailer before school to use the telephone. Mrs. Snell was not home, but Snell and his son were there. M.W. said she went to use the bathroom. As she was buttoning her pants, she said, Snell pushed open the bathroom door. She said he put his arm around her and put her on the bathroom floor. He pulled her pants down and laid his arm across her arms and again performed oral sex on her. Snell's son knocked on the bathroom door. Snell told M.W. that his condom was in his wallet in the living room, so they could not do anything anyway.
M.W. said she did not tell her mother about the incident because she was scared, but she did tell her brother N.W. and a friend. N.W. told their mother what had happened.
N.W. testified that he and M.W. had watched a "dirty" movie at Snell's house called "Have a Nice Lay." He said the movie, which Snell had put into the VCR, started with four people having sex. N.W. also testified that Snell told him he "would like to have" his sister. N.W. said that Snell told N.W. that his sister was pretty, then rubbed himself. N.W. said M.W. was present when Snell would make those comments. He also said Snell would tell him and M.W. about having sex with his wife. N.W. also testified that M.W. told him about what had happened in Snell's bathroom a week or two before his mother got into a fight with Snell's wife.
Margaret Walker of the Department of Human Resources in Marshall County testified that she received a report that M.W. and N.W. were being shown pornographic movies and that M.W. had been sexually abused. She said that in investigating this case, she interviewed M.W. and N.W., other neighborhood children who had seen the movies, M.W.'s mother, Snell, and his wife.
Walker said Snell denied showing the movies or touching M.W. inappropriately. She said he admitted talking with her about sex, about different styles of sex, and about how he and his wife had sex. He also said he had bought condoms for one of the older boys in the neighborhood. Walker also said Snell told her M.W. had exposed herself to him.
Snell's wife, Cynthia, testified that the children often came to their trailer and that several times they asked about sexual matters. *Page 789 She also testified that M.W.'s dog would come into their yard and rip insulation from under the trailer, chase her cats, and bark until all hours of the night. The dog also wet on her flowers and killed them. She said she complained to the children's mother.
Cynthia Snell said that one day, M.W.'s mother called Snell, "cussed him out," and threatened to kill their cats. Subsequently, Cynthia Snell said, she saw M.W.'s dog urinating on her flowers again, and she chased it with a "Nerf" baseball bat. M.W.'s mother saw her and "started in on" Cynthia Snell, calling her a "total bitch." This escalated into a fight, and Cynthia Snell had M.W.'s mother arrested. The next day, Cynthia Snell said, M.W. and her mother went to the Department of Human Resources and lodged the complaint against Snell.
Snell testified and denied making any sexual advances toward M.W. He also denied showing any "R-rated" movies to the children.
The law in Alabama is that two or more offenses may be joined in an indictment if they are based on the same conduct or are otherwise connected in their commission. Ala.R.Crim.P. 13.3. The trial court may order separate trials for the offenses if it appears the defendant will be prejudiced by the joinder of the offenses. Ala.R.Crim.P. 13.4. "The burden of proof is on the defendant to demonstrate specific and compelling prejudice which the trial court cannot protect against and which causes him to receive an unfair trial." Summerlin v. State,
In Summerlin, the appellant was indicted on charges of arson, sexual abuse, and assault. He argued that the arson charge should have been severed from the sexual abuse and assault charges. In Summerlin, the victim and the appellant had once lived together, but the victim was living with another man at the time of the offenses. The appellant had made remarks about killing the man and shooting the victim between the legs. He also had talked of burning their trailer. When the appellant saw the victim a few days after he made these threats, he asked her who she was living with and told her he was going to kill her. He started cutting her clothes off and then cut her breast and the inside of her leg. The appellant also touched the victim's vaginal area. A few days after that incident, the man with whom the victim lived awoke and discovered his mobile home was on fire. Investigators determined that the fire had been caused by an accelerant. The jury convicted the appellant of sexual abuse and assault but acquitted him of arson. This court held in Summerlin that the offenses "clearly" were connected.
In this case, the enticement charge was even more closely connected with the sodomy charges than the arson charge was connected to the sexual abuse and assault charges inSummerlin. See, e.g., Tedder v. State,
Additionally, "[n]o prejudice results where the jury could easily separate the evidence of the separate crimes."Summerlin v. State, 594 So.2d at 236. Clearly the jury separated the evidence of the separate *Page 790 crimes, as evidenced by the fact that it convicted Snell of the offense of sodomy, but not the offense of enticement. Snell did not demonstrate specific and compelling prejudice as a result of having the enticement charge tried with the sodomy charges. For that reason, we cannot find that the trial court abused his discretion in refusing to sever the enticing charge from the sodomy charges.
"The court has indicated that the court will allow defense counsel to ask this witness about the prosecuting witness's general reputation for truth and veracity, but not as to her general reputation as a whole because of the rape shield."
Snell argues that the rape shield statute, §
A witness's credibility may be impeached by one of two methods — either by showing the witness had a bad general reputation as a whole in the community, or by showing he had a bad reputation for truth and veracity in the community.Smitherman v. State,
Except for calling into question the victim's chastity, it is hard to imagine why the defense would rather question the victim's reputation as a whole rather than her reputation for truth and veracity. Any other reason M.W. might have had a bad general reputation as a whole in the community would be irrelevant to the issues in this cause. Therefore, this court fails to see how limiting Snell's impeachment method to asking about M.W.'s reputation for truth and veracity in any way deprives him of a fair and impartial trial. In fact, Alabama is one of the few jurisdictions that allows inquiry into the witness's general reputation as a whole, C. Gamble,Character Evidence: A Comprehensive Approach, p. 64 (1987); most jurisdictions do not find the right to question a witness's general reputation as a whole necessary for the defendant to receive a fair and impartial trial.
Thus, we hold that trial court did not err in preventing Snell from impeaching M.W.'s general reputation as a whole.
Snell's acquittal on the enticement charge renders this issue moot. "Only the count upon which appellant was found guilty is subject to appellate review." DeFries v. State,
"A motion for mistrial implies a miscarriage of justice and is such a serious matter that it should be granted only where there is a fundamental error in the trial which would vitiate the result." Campbell v. State,
As discussed in Part I of this opinion, the enticement charge was properly tried with the sodomy charges. The jury's acquittal of Snell as to the enticement charge shows that it was able to sift through the evidence to reach a conclusion based on the law and the evidence presented; it does not appear to this court that Snell was convicted merely because he was "just a 'bad guy.' " Because the charges brought in the indictment against Snell were properly tried together, evidence relating to each charge was properly before the jury. Because there was nothing improper about the evidence before the jury, there is no fundamental error. Additionally, because there was no fundamental error, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Snell's motion for a mistrial.
*Page 792 Miles v. State,"The granting or denial of a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence is a matter left largely to the discretion of the trial judge, whose decision will be overturned only for an abuse of that discretion. . . . An appellate court, in reviewing a grant or denial of a new trial motion, is obliged to indulge every presumption in favor of the correctness of the trial court's decision."
We fail to see how being acquitted of one charge in a trial where several charges are consolidated necessarily leads to a new trial on the charge for which the defendant was convicted. The elements necessary to prove the enticement charge obviously differ from the elements needed to prove the sodomy charge. Our review of the record shows that the evidence was sufficient to support Snell's sodomy conviction. Whether Snell was convicted of the enticement charge is irrelevant to whether he was guilty of sodomy. The State proved its case against Snell as to the sodomy charges, and Snell's acquittal on the enticement charge did nothing to change that. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Snell's motion for a new trial.
The record in this case shows that the victim, M.W., was 12 years old at the time of the incident; Snell was older than 16 years of age. M.W. testified that Snell drove her to an isolated dirt road and performed oral sex on her. She further testified that he later performed oral sex on her in the bathroom of his mobile home. This evidence is sufficient to sustain a conviction for sodomy in the second degree.
AFFIRMED.
All the Judges concur.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Buddy Snell v. State.
- Cited By
- 13 cases
- Status
- Published