CAMILLE R. McMULLEN, Judge.
The Defendant-Appellant, Michael Scott Knerr, was indicted by the Davidson County Grand Jury in counts 1 and 2 for attempted aggravated rape, in counts 3 and 4 for aggravated sexual battery, in count 5 for attempted especially aggravated kidnapping, and in count 6 for attempted aggravated kidnapping. A jury convicted Knerr of the lesser included offenses of attempted sexual battery in count 3, attempted aggravated sexual battery in count 4, and attempted false imprisonment in count 6 and acquitted him of the remaining counts. At the sentencing hearing, the trial court merged count 3 with count 4 and sentenced Knerr to four years with all but sixty days suspended. In addition, the court imposed a concurrent sentence of six months with all but sixty days suspended for Knerr's conviction for attempted false imprisonment. On appeal, Knerr argues that the evidence is insufficient to sustain his convictions for attempted aggravated sexual battery and attempted sexual battery. Upon review, the judgments of the trial court are affirmed in part and vacated in part, and the case is remanded to the trial court for entry of a corrected judgment.
This case concerns allegations by E.E.
At trial, E.E., the victim, testified that at the time of these offenses, she was working as a prostitute and that she advertised on an internet website as an "adult escort." Prior to the incident in this case, the victim had been arrested for prostitution and had made a deal with Detective Corey Wilson to work undercover so that her case would not be prosecuted. She worked through her website to help Detective Wilson and his team arrest four men in a sting operation. Because of her cooperation, Detective Wilson dropped her charge for prostitution.
On the night of November 6, 2010, the victim received several phone calls from Knerr, but she kept putting him off because "he was kind of weird." She said they eventually agreed on a price, and Knerr gave her an address in Hermitage that he said was his house. Knerr asked her to wear high heels and no underwear, which she said was not that unusual. He also asked her to call fifteen minutes before she got there, which she decided not to do. Instead, she drove directly to the address Knerr had provided, arriving there sometime after 3:00 a.m. on November 7, 2010.
The victim stated that she had a "bad feeling" when she got to the address, which was at the back of an apartment building, not a home, and was "really dark." Because she was nervous, she called her sister, A.W., and asked her to stay on the line while she walked to the back of the apartment building. When she found the address, she thought the apartment was vacant because there were no lights on and no blinds on the windows. She said she did not leave at that point because she turned around and saw Knerr, who was wearing a scarf and a big jacket, approaching her. When she asked Knerr why he was outside, he claimed he had just run out to his car. Because she did not believe that he would have "bundle[d] up" to run to his car, she immediately became suspicious. She said, "I just looked at him like no way, something is wrong. . . . I knew I had to get out of there, but I was nervous."
When the victim asked Knerr if this was his apartment, he told her that he did not live there and pointed to an area near the woods, claiming that he lived "over [t]here." The victim told him that she was not going over there, and Knerr demanded that she go with him in the direction of the woods. The victim replied, "[N]o, you told me that you lived here, I don't feel comfortable, I'm going to go." She began asking him questions until she could figure out a way to leave. She said he never responded to her questions and "just had a blank stare" on his face, which scared her. She also said that Knerr never mentioned the money he had promised her. As they were walking, she turned so that she could run away from him, and Knerr "turned [her] around and grabbed [her] underneath [her] knees and pulled [her] so [she] would . . . go down on the ground." She said she her hit the back of her head during the fall, which left "a huge bump." Knerr fell on top of her, and they began "wrestling" on the ground. During this altercation, she saw what looked like the blade of a knife, and she said Knerr "was insinuating" that he had a weapon to scare her. She said that during the struggle, Knerr touched the skin of her inner thigh while he was lying on top of her. She also said that his pelvic region touched her pelvic region through her dress, which was the only clothing that she was wearing that night.
The victim said that Knerr's assault stopped when she told him that she was an "undercover cop" and that other officers could hear them and were right around the corner. When Knerr heard this, he got up and ran away, and the victim ran to her vehicle. She said that she was upset and crying and that her sister, who had remained on the line, had heard everything that happened. The victim told her sister the details of the incident as soon as she got back inside her car. She also told her sister that Knerr had a knife during the incident.
The victim said she did not call 9-1-1 because she had been engaging in prostitution when the incident occurred. She went home and left a message for Detective Wilson in the early hours of the morning, and he interviewed her about the incident later that morning. She gave Detective Wilson Knerr's phone number and the address where the incident had occurred. A few days later, she immediately identified Knerr as her assailant in a photographic lineup.
A.W., the victim's sister, testified that the victim called her in the early morning hours of November 7, 2010, and asked her to stay on the phone because she was concerned for her safety. A few minutes later, A.W. heard a "scuffling" sound and a man's voice, but she could not understand what he was saying. Despite this, A.W. could tell that the victim was struggling with this man. Then she heard the victim say, "I'm a cop, this is a sting" and the scuffling ended. She heard the victim "running and talking at the same time." A.W. said the victim was upset and crying and told her that the man she had met had a knife. When the victim got home, A.W. talked to the victim about calling the undercover police officer that the victim knew.
Detective Corey Wilson with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department testified that the victim in this case had agreed to "work off" her prostitution charge by assisting him in "an undercover prostitution sting targeting johns." Detective Wilson said that some time after the victim cooperated in the sting operation, he received a phone call from the victim, who reported the incident with Knerr. He interviewed the victim and noticed that she had a small knot on the back of her head. He said that he did not take a photograph of the knot because it was under her hairline. Following the interview, Detective Wilson tried to find the victim's assailant based on his phone number, the address, and the physical description that she had given him. During his investigation, Detective Wilson discovered that Knerr had once lived at the address where the incident occurred. He then assembled a photographic lineup, and the victim immediately identified Knerr as her assailant.
Detective Eric Fitzgerald with the Sex Crimes Division of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department testified that he interviewed Knerr at the request of a different detective. He stated that he never talked to the victim and that his involvement in the case was limited to his interview with Knerr. This interview, which was recorded on videotape, was played for the jury. In the interview, Knerr denied having a knife during the incident but acknowledged that he prevented the woman from leaving because he intended to have sex with her. Detective Fitzgerald acknowledged that Knerr signed a formal consent form to search to his car and house and that no knife was ever found.
Knerr testified that on November 6, 2010, he called a woman who was listed in the escort section of a website, and the woman agreed to meet him when he left work. Knerr asked this woman to wear "a short skirt, some high heels, and no underwear," and the woman agreed to this request. He said he sent the woman text messages "to get to know her so [she] wouldn't be too scared when [they] first met."
Knerr stated that he could not have the woman come to his home because he lived with his parents, so he gave her his former address at an apartment in Hermitage because he was familiar with the area and it was close to work. He said he intended to take the woman back to his truck and go to a different area because he knew that a security officer for the apartment complex came through the parking lot once every hour after a certain time at night. He said he asked the woman to call him fifteen minutes before she got there because he did not live at that address and wanted to get there so he "could intercept her before she knocked on the door [to the apartment]" and nobody answered. At the arranged time, he parked his truck on the street near the apartments. He approached the woman as she was knocking on the door to his old apartment. He said, "I just walked up and . . . told her who I was. And I said I really didn't live at that address." He explained that he lived "over in this other direction, so we went from there." Knerr said that they began walking in the direction of his truck, and the woman tried to talk to him, but he "was shy and . . . didn't say much" because he had just met her. Knerr said that he did not immediately try to convince her to go to his truck because he did not believe that she would agree to leave with him, given that she thought she was going to a house. Knerr explained, "I just said we could go over here and hope[d] that she would say yes once we got there." He thought that if he could get her to his truck, she would agree to have sex with him once he gave her the money.
Knerr said that he walked with the woman to the corner of the apartment building and then the woman began "walking the other way." He followed her "to get her attention" and said, "[O]ver here." When the woman looked at him and continued walking, he "grabbed her jacket . . ., and she got her heel caught in . . . one of those cracks between the cement blocks. And that's when she started to fall." He said he grabbed her by her jacket and below her kneecap "to hold her up[.]" Knerr denied that he was ever on top of the woman and insisted that "[s]he fell away from me on her butt." Approximately fifteen seconds later, the woman told him she was a cop and this was a sting operation, and he ran away. Knerr denied grabbing her under her knee to force her to fall to the ground; instead, he claimed that the woman "tripped." He also denied grabbing her and pulling her toward him. Knerr stated that he never touched the woman's inner thigh, never pressed his pelvic region into hers, and never tried to rape her. He asserted that "[t]he most I touched was her jacket and below her kneecap." Knerr acknowledged that he was "bent over" but asserted that he was never on the ground. He also denied that he had a knife.
Knerr stated that during his interview with Detective Fitzgerald he initially denied actually meeting the woman from the website because he was hoping to get out of trouble. He said he agreed to many of the things that Detective Fitzgerald said in the interview, even though they were not true, because he was "really tired" from only getting an hour and a half of sleep and "kept dozing off." However, Knerr acknowledged that he was able to repeatedly deny that he had a knife during the incident at the interview.
In rebuttal, the victim testified that she was not wearing a jacket or any other clothing over her dress.
Knerr argues that the evidence is insufficient to sustain his merged convictions for attempted aggravated sexual battery and attempted sexual battery. He claims that "the evidence did not establish that he attempted, but did not complete, these offenses." Interestingly, Knerr does not contend that the trial court erred by instructing the jury on the lesser included offenses of attempted sexual battery in count 3 and attempted aggravated sexual battery in count 4. We conclude that the evidence is sufficient to sustain Knerr's convictions.
The State, on appeal, is entitled to the strongest legitimate view of the evidence and all reasonable inferences which may be drawn from that evidence.
The trier of fact must evaluate the credibility of the witnesses, determine the weight given to witnesses' testimony, and reconcile all conflicts in the evidence.
We note that Knerr was charged in counts 3 and 4 with two counts of aggravated sexual battery under alternative theories. In count 3, Knerr was charged with intentionally engaging in unlawful sexual contact with the victim where force or coercion was used to accomplish the act and where he was armed with a weapon or any article used or fashioned in a manner to lead the victim reasonably to believe it to be a weapon.
Here, the jury acquitted Knerr of the charged offenses of aggravated sexual battery but found him guilty of the lesser included offenses of attempted sexual battery in count 3 and attempted aggravated sexual battery in count 4. The judgments show that the conviction for attempted sexual battery in count 3 was merged with the conviction for attempted aggravated sexual battery in count 4. However, we will consider the sufficiency of the evidence as to each of these convictions in order to facilitate the possibility of further appellate review. Sexual battery, as relevant to count 3, is the "unlawful sexual contact with a victim by the defendant" where "[f]orce or coercion is used to accomplish the act[.]"
Citing
In
The court also held that contrary to the ruling in
Finally, in
Based on these authorities, we agree that the jury does not have to wholly reject or adopt any witness's testimony and may accredit any part of any witness's testimony when reaching a verdict.
Knerr asserts that the victim unequivocally testified that he grabbed her inner thigh and touched his pelvis against hers and that he unequivocally testified that no sexual contact occurred. Although he concedes that he met the victim for the purpose of paying her for sex, he asserts that no sexual contact occurred, which he claims is supported by the jury's acquittal of him for attempted rape in counts 1 and 2. Regarding his convictions in counts 3 and 4, he contends that the evidence "presented only two possible interpretations of the facts-that [he] either completed offenses involving unlawful sexual contact or he did not." Citing
In determining whether the evidence was sufficient to support Knerr's conviction for attempted aggravated sexual battery and attempted sexual battery, this court must assess the evidence in the light most favorable to the State. As we previously noted, in order to obtain a conviction for attempted aggravated sexual battery, as relevant in this case, the State had to establish that Knerr acted with the intent to commit the offense of aggravated sexual battery and that his conduct constituted a substantial step toward the commission of this offense.
We conclude that a reasonable jury could have found that Knerr committed the lesser included offenses of attempted aggravated sexual battery and attempted sexual battery beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence offered at trial.
Here, the proof showed that Knerr intended to commit the offenses of aggravated sexual battery and sexual battery. Aggravated sexual battery, as relevant to count 4, is the "unlawful sexual contact with a victim by the defendant" where "[t]he defendant causes bodily injury to the victim[.]" T.C.A. § 39-13-504(a)(2). In addition, sexual battery, as relevant to count 3, is the "unlawful sexual contact with a victim by the defendant" where "[f]orce or coercion is used to accomplish the act[.]"
Moreover, we note a large discrepancy between the facts in
Lastly, we note an error in the judgment forms in this case. Here, the State conceded and the trial court found that the conviction for attempted sexual battery should merge with the conviction for attempted aggravated sexual battery. The court subsequently entered separate judgment forms for each conviction. The judgment form for the attempted sexual battery conviction notes the jury's finding of guilt, states that no separate sentence is imposed, and asserts that this conviction is merged with the attempted aggravated sexual battery conviction. Although the trial court in this case entered two separate judgment forms for the merged convictions, this court has stated that the proper procedure is to enter only one judgment form for the surviving conviction with a notation that the other conviction is merged.
We conclude that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to sustain Knerr's convictions for attempted aggravated sexual battery and attempted sexual battery. However, because the proper procedure is to enter a single judgment of conviction showing that the attempted sexual battery conviction is merged with the attempted aggravated sexual battery conviction, we must vacate the attempted sexual battery judgment form and remand the case for entry of a corrected judgment form for the attempted aggravated sexual battery conviction, showing that the attempted sexual battery conviction is merged with the attempted aggravated sexual battery conviction. Accordingly, the judgments are affirmed in part and vacated in part, and the case is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.