Supreme Court Upholds Rape Of A Child Conviction

  • Friday, July 31, 2015

The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a Memphis man for rape of a child, ruling that a prosecution error in the trial did not deprive the defendant of his constitutional right to a unanimous jury verdict. 

Courtney Knowles was found guilty of raping the daughter of his half-sister/girlfriend. The victim was less than 13 years old and Knowles lived in the house at the time the abuse occurred.

When prosecuting a case in which multiple sex crimes occur over a period of time, the State can provide evidence of all the incidents, but must select a specific incident for consideration by the jury or judge for conviction. This is referred to as an election of offense. In this case, the trial judge required that the prosecutor select a particular incident from among many acts testified to, as well as a particular type of sexual act for the jury to consider. The prosecutor then elected a specific type of sexual penetration that was not in evidence for the day in question. The jury found him guilty of rape of a child and Knowles was sentenced to 25 years in prison. 

Knowles appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals, claiming the evidence was not sufficient for a conviction. The conviction was upheld, but the court, unprompted by the defense, raised an additional issue regarding whether the State properly elected the specific offense for conviction.
The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the error by the prosecution was harmless and allowed the jury verdict to stand. Knowles requested permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. 

The Supreme Court acknowledged that the Court of Criminal Appeals was within its purview to review the error without prompting by the defendant, but the Supreme Court noted that it had applied the incorrect legal standard in examining the error. The Court conducted its own analysis using the plain error doctrine, which allows an appeals court to review an obvious and prejudicial error even when a party fails to object to the error at trial. Under that examination, the Court determined that Mr. Knowles was not entitled to a new trial. 

Specifically, the Supreme Court determined that the trial court erred by requiring the prosecution to elect specific facts about the type of sexual penetration it was relying upon, and not just the date, place and identifying information. The Court pointed out that the election of facts was unnecessary because jurors are not required to agree upon the type of sexual penetration. 

“We are not persuaded that the error in the State’s election was so significant that it probably changed the outcome of the trial. The error here did not create a substantial risk of a non-unanimous verdict of the offense of rape of a child,” wrote Justice Cornelia A. Clark in her majority opinion. 

Justice Gary R. Wade filed a dissenting opinion in which he stressed that the constitutional right to a unanimous jury verdict is essential to our criminal justice system, even in cases involving egregious crimes. Justice Wade concluded that a new trial should be granted because the prosecution failed to properly specify which act of sexual misconduct it was relying upon to support the charged offense. 

To read the State of Tennessee v. Courtney Knowles opinion, authored by Justice Clark, and the dissenting opinion by Justice Wade, go to the opinions section of TNCourts.gov.

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