Articles Posted in Sex Crimes

A recent case before the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One highlights the limit of Fourth Amendment protections when a government actor is not involved in a search or seizure. The June 2024 case revolves around images that several teachers found on their co-teacher’s laptop. Even though the defendant tried to argue that the superior court’s ruling violated his right to privacy, the higher court disagreed, deciding that the defendant’s coworkers were not “state actors” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The court ultimately denied the defendant’s appeal.

The Fourth Amendment: What You Need to Know

The Fourth Amendment protects individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures. Case law defines a “search” as a government action infringing on a person’s reasonable privacy expectation. Police officers searching a personal vehicle, for example, are subject to Fourth Amendment standards and don’t technically have free reign to search a person’s property. The Fourth Amendment also applies to government searches of a person’s clothing, home, belongings, or technology.

A recent criminal case before Division One of the Arizona Court of Appeals brought up important questions about challenging a witness’s credibility during trial. In this case, the defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for sexual conduct with a minor. On appeal, he argued that he was unreasonably restricted during his questioning of one of the prosecution’s witnesses. The court reviewed the rules of evidence at play and ultimately disagreed with the defendant, denying his appeal.

The Witness at Issue

During the defendant’s trial, the prosecution called an employee of the store where both the defendant and the minor child worked. Supposedly, the employee walked into the store to find the defendant and the minor having sexual intercourse, and she reported this incident to the police. She was thus the prosecution’s key eyewitness during trial.

The defendant’s attorney tried to challenge the witness’s credibility on cross examination by asking her about why she was ultimately fired from her job at the store. Apparently, the reason for the witness’s termination had something to do with the owner accusing her of stealing approximately $700 from the store. If the jury members knew that the witness had a history of lying, argued the defendant, they might have been able to see that she was not a credible witness. This would have led the jury to distrust her testimony and be more likely to believe the defendant, who maintained his innocence, instead of the witness.

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In a recent case before a court in Arizona, the defendant appealed convictions for burglary, kidnapping, and intimidating. He was originally charged after an incident in which he trapped his ex-girlfriend in his home and attempted to keep her there against her will. A jury found the defendant guilty, and despite his subsequent appeal, the higher court affirmed the original verdict.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant and his girlfriend broke up in the spring of 2019. Two months after their breakup, the defendant broke into his ex-girlfriend’s home one evening when she was sleeping, turning on her bedroom light and standing over her in an intimidating way. He told his ex-girlfriend that he had a knife, and that if she did not come with him, he would arrange for her family to be killed.

The pair drove to the defendant’s home, where he grabbed his ex-girlfriend and threw her on his bed. She was eventually able to escape and call for help. She also got the police involved, and they arrested the defendant and charged him with the following offenses: attempt to commit sexual assault, burglary in the second degree, kidnapping, and threatening or intimidating. A jury eventually found the defendant guilty of all charges except for attempt to commit sexual assault. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

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Recently, an Arizona court of appeals had to decide whether to grant a defendant’s request to overturn his convictions and sentences for sexual assault, kidnapping, and sexual abuse. Originally, the defendant was charged after he dragged a coworker to a warehouse and raped her; his case went to trial, and he was found guilty. On appeal, the defendant argued that the jury should not have been privy to the confession he made to an investigator since the confession was made involuntarily. The higher court considered this argument but eventually rejected it, denying the defendant’s appeal.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant and the victim in this case worked together, and the defendant had repeatedly asked the victim to go on a date with him. The victim denied the defendant’s advances, and the defendant retaliated because of the rejection. On one morning, when the two individuals were working together, the defendant dragged the woman into a warehouse and slammed her into the wall, then raped her.

A motorcyclist driving by saw the defendant dragging the woman on the ground, and he called 911. Soon after, several police officers arrived at the scene, found the woman unconscious, and arrested the defendant.

The victim sustained multiple injuries, including a concussion and injuries consistent with strangulation. The defendant was taken to the police station. An officer read him his Miranda rights, and he immediately confessed to injuring and raping the woman.

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Late last month, the defendant in a sexual misconduct case appealed his guilty conviction before an Arizona court of appeals. The defendant had been found guilty after his stepdaughter accused him of sexually assaulting her, and he argued on appeal that the trial court should have admitted certain evidence that it kept out of the trial record. If that evidence had been admitted, argued the defendant, he might have walked away without a guilty verdict. Ultimately, the court of appeals disagreed and denied the defendant’s appeal.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant lived with his wife and his wife’s daughter, who was 11 years old at the time of the alleged incidents. Twice over a period of two days, the defendant initiated sexual contact with the child, and she reported it to her school counselor later that week. Local law enforcement got involved, and the defendant was charged with sexual conduct with a minor.

When the case went to trial, the defendant’s attorney wanted to introduce into evidence two other examples of the when the child accused men of raping her. According to defense counsel, these other rapes ended up being false accusations, and the court should be allowed to consider this history when deciding whether the girl was telling the truth about the defendant in this case.

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In a recent case before an Arizona court of appeals, a defendant convicted of sexual exploitation unsuccessfully argued that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support the lower court’s ruling. Originally, the defendant was charged after investigators found child pornography on a laptop in his home. The case went to trial, a jury found the defendant guilty, and the defendant promptly appealed.

Facts of the Case

This case began when investigators in Arizona were alerted to the fact that an IP address in the area had been used to download child sexual abuse material. An alert was placed on that particular IP address, and investigators noticed files of a similar nature were being downloaded on the computer. The investigators obtained a valid warrant and went to search the defendant in this case’s home.

While at the house, the investigators found several laptops. They brought the laptops for a closer look, and they eventually found the child sexual abuse material on one of the computers – specifically, the investigators found nine movie files with child pornography. The laptop did not, however, have any immediately evident connections to the defendant – instead, the username and account information on the computer all suggested that the defendant’s mom owned the device.

Eventually, the defendant’s case went to trial, and he was found guilty as charged.

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