This content was written for Cale Law Office
Are you looking for a Tulsa criminal defense attorney dedicated to fighting for his clients? Call the Cale law office at 918-277-4800 to schedule your free initial consultation. With your consultation, you also get a free defense strategy plan made just for your case.
The defendant was convicted of first-degree rape by a narcotic or anesthetic agent. The jury sentenced him to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. The defendant agreed during pretrial proceedings that testimony from certain victims was admissible. At trial, the defendant limited his objection to this witness’s testimony on grounds that was inadmissible under another statute. The defendant has therefore waived all but plain error to review concerning the misspelled of the child’s testimony. Where a defendant makes a good specific objection a trial no different objections will be considered on appeal. The witnesses describe a similar pattern in which all for women were in their early 20s, were lured in turn in my time to the defendant’s apartment under the guise of meeting their Facebook friend, waited for a friend, drink shots of vodka, black cow and awoke the next morning of the defendant’s apartment. Evidence also showed that they were sexually assaulted wall in conscious.
The sexual propensity evidence was relevant to proof of identity in absence of mistake or accident related to the charge. Disputed issue the trial was the identity of the person who raped one of the girls. The state had no direct evidence of the perpetrator’s identity as the victim did not see the defendant have sex with her and cannot be certain someone else was in the apartment. Also, there was no physical evidence showing the defendant had sex with her. The many similarities between the crimes described in the propensity witnesses the charge defense were highly relevant to show had did in the girls rapist. All the similarities demonstrate a highly peculiar method of operation which is so unusual distinctiveness of be like a signature. The next alert is pretrade in the testimony from the other victims presented clear and convincing evidence of the appellant’s identity as the perpetrator of the offense charged.
Propensity evidence is also relevant to show absence of mistake or accident, said Tulsa criminal defense attorney Stephen Cale. At the trial, the defense suggested that when the victims were rendered unconscious of the defendant’s apartment from the interaction of the contract drinks she had and the prescription medication she was using. Testimony from the propensity witnesses concerning a pattern which the defendant learned them into his apartment and how they passed out after drinking vodka shots at the time the defendant sexually assaulted intended to bolster the states very that the victim blacked out not by prescription medications but by the substance.
Sufficiency of the evidence claims are being will I must be able to the prosecution to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential was the crime be unoriginal doubt. This analysis requires examination of the entire record. The court will accept all reasonable inferences and credibility choices the tennis for the verdict. Taking the light most favorable to the state, any rational trier of fact could find be unoriginal doubt for the record that the defendant had sexual intercourse with a girl after driving her with a substance as a means enforcement victims to consent. Circumstantial evidence alone may be sufficient to establish the identity of the accused is the person who committed the crime.
The defendant timely objected to another person’s testimony that the girl told her that she had been raped. Therefore he preserved issue for appellate review. The trial court’s ruling admitting evidence will be reviewed for an abuse of discretion. The record confirms that the girl made a statement to the note about being raped roughly 12 hours after the rape. Evidence code provides that a statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition is not excluded by the hearsay rule.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals found that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting this testimony, said Tulsa criminal defense attorney Stephen Cale. Is no persuasive showing that the crawl was still under the excitement of the startling event or that the statements nearness to a stimulating event excluded the possibility of premeditation and fabrication. The passage of 12 hours provide the girl an extended opportunity for reflection. It appears that this up to the for reflection as well as a gross previous failure to disclose a rape to several people, cause the girl reviewed anguish.
Even though the girl statements were spontaneously was no evidence that she told the with the three prior to telling the other woman, the record shows that the channel statement was not made owners the stress of the startling event. A substantial lack of contemporaneous connection undermine the reliability of statements and defeats the rationale for the hearsay exception. However, the error arising from the admission of this testimony was harmless. The witness was subject to cross-examination in great detail.
Stay the defendant had wide latitude and closing argument argue the evidence and reasonable inferences from it. The appellate court will not grant relief for proper argument in last, viewed in the context of the whole trial, statements render the trial fundamentally unfair so that the jury verdicts are unreliable. The trial court sustained objections to to the prosecutor’s arguments Dow Jones on appeal. The trial court’s actions cured any error arising from these comments.
The prosecutor made a sincere recommendation based on the fact the case of the harm to the victim. It’s improper for the prosecution as jurors to have sympathy for the victims. However improper comments to not always mean that a conviction will be reversed, said Tulsa criminal defense attorney Stephen Cale.
The Oklahoma court of criminal pills will not modify since within the statutory range less, considering all the facts and circumstances, it shocks the conscience. The sentence imposed in this case was well within the statutory range of punishment for the crime. The evidence shows that the appellate lured a girl to his apartment of the guys a meeting and fictitious on one friend he created. He secretly tried the girl with GHB as a means to force her to submit to sexual intercourse and proceeded to have sex with her while she was blacked out. Evidence shows that this is part of a common scheme and plan by the defendant. He use the scheme could several women were zone gratification. Therefore the court found no error in the sentencing.