State of Maine v. Ralph C. Miller , 2018 ME 112 ( 2018 )

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2018 ME 112 Docket: Yor-17-529
Argued: July 18, 2018
Decided: August 9, 2018
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ.
STATE OF MAINE
v.
RALPH C. MILLER
SAUFLEY, C.J.
[¶1] Ralph C. Miller appeals from a judgment of conviction for
twenty-eight counts of gross sexual assault1 (Class B), 17-A M.R.S. § 253(2)(H)
(2017), entered by the court (York County, Douglas, J.) following a jury trial.
Miller challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him of each count of
gross sexual assault. We affirm the judgment.
I. BACKGROUND
[¶2] Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the
jury rationally could have found the following facts beyond a reasonable doubt.
See State v. Hall, 2017 ME 210, ¶ 29, 172 A.3d 467.
1 Miller was also convicted of one count of incest (Class D), 17-A M.R.S. § 556(1)(A) (2017), but
he does not appeal from that conviction.
2
[¶3] Miller, who is the victim’s biological father, first met the victim in
August of 2008. The victim had experienced an unstable childhood, and she
moved in with Miller and his family in late 2008. She was fifteen years old at
the time.
[¶4] Shortly after she moved in, Miller put his hand over the victim’s
mouth, pulled down her pants, and forced his penis into her vagina.2 Following
this initial assault, Miller sexually assaulted the victim in the same way “more
than 50 times,” “almost on a weekly basis,” and “for month after month between
[her] 15th birthday and [her] 18th.” The victim testified that “on every
occasion,” Miller “insert[ed] his penis into my vagina.”
[¶5] The victim moved out of Miller’s house shortly after her eighteenth
birthday. For approximately three years between 2013 and 2016, after she had
moved out of Miller’s home, the victim and Miller maintained a relationship that
involved no assaultive behavior. However, on February 17, 2016, Miller had
sexual intercourse with the victim. Following this incident, the victim, who “felt
dirty and gross,” went to a hospital to obtain a sexual assault examination. At
the hospital, a certified sexual assault nurse examiner collected semen from the
2 The victim testified in detail to the specific events surrounding the first sexual assault.
3
victim’s vagina and cervix, and DNA from the semen was later shown to match
Miller’s.
[¶6] A detective from the Biddeford Police Department interviewed the
victim, and she described incidents of sexual assault beginning when she was
fifteen years old. She gave the detective a number of details regarding the
consequences of Miller’s sexual assault on her.
[¶7] One month later, with the victim’s approval, the detective arranged
a pretextual phone call to Miller. Pursuant to the detective’s plan, the victim
called Miller on a recorded line. Among other things, she reminded him of his
sexual assaults. Miller then stated:
I’m sorry for everything. I should have just left you alone. . . . And
I just want you to know that no matter what happens . . . , I’m going
to love you. I’m still going to talk to you. You don’t have to do that
with me if you don’t want to. Don’t feel like you do. All right?
[¶8] On March 16, 2016, Miller was charged by complaint with incest and
twenty-nine counts of gross sexual assault. On June 7, 2016, an indictment was
issued alleging twenty-nine counts of gross sexual assault taking place “on or
about between June 1, 2009 and May 29, 2011, in York County, Maine” and a
single count of incest. A superseding indictment was issued on January 5, 2017,
specifically identifying the month in which each of the twenty-nine alleged
4
assaults occurred—with one gross sexual assault alleged in each month
between June 2009 and May 2011.
[¶9] Miller pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. A three-day jury trial
was held on June 26-28, 2017.3 Following the State’s case-in-chief, Miller
moved for a judgment of acquittal, and the court denied the motion. Miller then
testified and acknowledged that he had had sex with the victim on February 17,
2016, but he asserted that the victim had initiated the encounter and that he
had “just let that happen.” He denied having sex with the victim “when she was
a kid.”
[¶10] The jury found Miller guilty on all counts, and the court entered a
judgment of conviction.4 Miller timely appealed from the conviction. See M.R.
App. P. 2B(b)(1).
3 Immediately before trial, the State dismissed the twenty-ninth count of gross sexual assault,
which alleged an incident “on or about between May 1, 2011 and May 31, 2011,” out of concerns
regarding the date of the offense and the victim’s birthdate.
4 Following a hearing, the court sentenced Miller to eight years of imprisonment for each of the
twenty-eight counts of gross sexual assault. The court selected the fifth and twenty-eighth counts as
“primary” counts for purposes of the sentencing analysis. See State v. Downs, 2009 ME 3, ¶ 14, 962
A.2d 950; 17-A M.R.S. § 1252-C (2017). Twenty-six of the terms were to be served concurrently with
the unsuspended eight-year sentence for the fifth count. For the twenty-eighth count, the court
sentenced Miller to eight years, all but four years suspended, to be served consecutively to the
sentence for the fifth count. The court imposed a three-year period of probation. The Sentence
Review Panel of this Court denied Miller’s application for leave to appeal from his sentence. See
15 M.R.S. § 2151 (2017).
5
II. LEGAL ANALYSIS
[¶11] Miller contends that the State did not produce sufficient evidence
from which the jury could have found that Miller committed each of the
twenty-eight counts of gross sexual assault for which he was convicted. On a
challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we examine the record in the light
most favorable to the jury’s verdict to determine whether the jury could have
rationally found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant committed
each element of the offenses for which he was convicted. See Hall, 2017 ME
210, ¶ 29, 172 A.3d 467. “A victim’s testimony, by itself, is sufficient to support
a guilty verdict for a sex crime . . . if the testimony addresses each element of
the crime and is not inherently incredible.” State v. Moores, 2006 ME 139, ¶ 9,
910 A.2d 373.
[¶12] A person commits gross sexual assault if he “engages in a sexual
act with another person and . . . [t]he other person has not in fact attained the
age of 18 years and the actor is a parent . . . of that other person.” 17-A M.R.S.
§ 253(1)(H). A “sexual act” includes an act between two people involving
“direct physical contact between the genitals of one and the genitals of the
other.” 17-A M.R.S. § 251(C)(1) (2017).
6
[¶13] Miller does not dispute that he is the victim’s biological parent, and
the evidence showed that the victim was under age eighteen during the entire
period in which Miller was alleged to have committed gross sexual assault. The
testimony5 at trial established that Miller “put his penis into [the victim’s]
vagina,” and that this specific conduct—including genital-to-genital contact—
occurred “almost on a weekly basis” and “for month after month.” See id. The
jury could have been convinced, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Miller
subjected the victim to at least twenty-eight separate incidents of gross sexual
assault. See State v. Shulikov, 1998 ME 111, ¶¶ 12-13, 712 A.2d 504.
[¶14] The focus of Miller’s sufficiency argument is not, however, on the
State’s failure to prove any one element of gross sexual assault. Rather, Miller
contends that because the indictment specified the time and place of the
assaults, the State was required to produce evidence regarding the time and
place of each individual incident of assault.6 Contrary to Miller’s contention, we
5 Although the victim’s testimony was, on its own, sufficient to support the jury’s verdict, see State
v. Logan, 2014 ME 92, ¶ 17, 97 A.3d 121, we note that the testimony in this instance was corroborated
by Miller’s implied concession in the recorded phone call that he had pressured her to have sex with
him, evidence that there were consequences of the sexual assaults, and testimony regarding her
disclosures of sexual assaults while she was in high school.
6 Although Miller does not raise the argument, cases involving allegations of a continuing course
of sexual assaults including multiple counts of sexual abuse will sometimes generate issues involving
the defendant’s right to a unanimous verdict on each specific finding of guilt—what we have termed
“specific unanimity.” See Me. Const. art. I, § 7; State v. Hanscom, 2016 ME 184, ¶¶ 14-16, 152 A.3d
632 (holding that the denial of a request for a jury instruction on specific unanimity, where the
evidence could lead to juror confusion regarding the basis of each finding of guilt, was prejudicial
7
have consistently held that time is not an element of gross sexual assault except
to determine the age of the alleged victim and to apply the statute of limitations.
E.g., State v. Standring, 2008 ME 188, ¶ 13, 960 A.2d 1210. Here, the evidence
established that the victim was under age eighteen during all of the sexual
assaults and that the applicable eight-year statute of limitations had not run
when the prosecution was commenced in March 2016. See 17-A M.R.S. § 8(2-A)
(2017).7 We have also held that place is not an essential element of a crime and
serves only to fix the venue of the prosecution and provide evidence upon
which jurors may evaluate credibility. See State v. Brown, 2000 ME 25, ¶ 10,
757 A.2d 768.
[¶15] The record contains ample evidence to support the jury’s finding,
beyond a reasonable doubt, that the State proved each and every element of all
twenty-eight counts of gross sexual assault.
error). In this case, Miller affirmatively approved of the jury instructions, thereby waiving any such
challenge. See State v. Ford, 2013 ME 96, ¶ 15, 82 A.3d 75. On the facts of this case, even if Miller had
preserved any challenge to the specific unanimity issue, the evidence is explicit and straightforward.
Either the jurors believed that Miller had sexually assaulted his own daughter at least once during
each month alleged in the indictment, or they did not.
7 When the Legislature amended the statute of limitations for gross sexual assault in 2013, it
adopted the amended eight-year limitations period for all offenses for which the then-applicable
six-year limitations period had not run. See P.L. 2013 ch. 392, § 3 (effective Oct. 9, 2013); 17-A M.R.S.
§ 8(2-A) (2017). Here, the first assault occurred no earlier than January 2009, within the six-year
limitations period applicable when the Legislature amended the statute. Therefore, the current,
eight-year limitations period is applicable, and all of the assaults are within the statutory period.
8
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
William H. Ashe, Esq. (orally), The Law Offices of William H. Ashe, Ellsworth,
for appellant Ralph C. Miller
Kathryn Loftus Slattery, District Attorney, and Anne Marie Pazar, Asst. Dist.
Atty. (orally), Prosecutorial District 1, Alfred, for appellee State of Maine
York County Unified Criminal Docket docket number CR-2016-222
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY