COURT OF APPEALS DECISION DATED AND FILED August 27, 2009 David
R. Schanker Clerk of Court of Appeals |
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NOTICE |
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This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports. A party may file with the Supreme Court a petition to review an adverse decision by the Court of Appeals. See Wis. Stat. § 808.10 and Rule 809.62. |
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APPEAL
from judgments and orders of the circuit court for
Before Dykman, P.J., Vergeront and Lundsten, JJ.
¶1 PER CURIAM. Edward Cramer, Jr., appeals from judgments convicting him on seven counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child, and two counts of repeated sexual assaults of the same child. He also appeals from orders denying him postconviction relief, but raises no issues concerning those orders. The State originally filed three complaints, each charging assaults against a different victim. The cases were subsequently joined and tried together to a jury. The sole issue on appeal is whether the trial court properly ordered joinder of the three prosecutions. We affirm.
¶2 The information in case No. 2005CF407 charged Cramer with
repeated sexual assaults of Amanda R.M., DOB 12/27/1989, in 2002, and two
counts of second-degree sexual assaults of Amanda in July 2005. The information in No. 2005CF422 charged
him with repeated sexual assaults of Mallory K.H., DOB 08/16/1990, between
April and September 2005. The
information in No. 2005CF424 charged five counts of second-degree sexual
assault of Samantha S.D., DOB 10/01/1989, two committed on April 1, 2005 and
three committed on July 11, 2005. On the
State’s motion, and over Cramer’s objection, the court joined the three
cases. The court concluded that the
charges were similar in character, and constituted a common plan or
scheme. The court also applied the test for
other acts evidence set forth in State v. Sullivan, 216
¶3 The trial court may order that crimes charged in two or more
complaints or informations be tried together if the State could charge them in
a single complaint or information. Wis. Stat. § 971.12(4) (2007-08).[1] The State may charge crimes in a single
complaint or information if, among other things, they are of the same or
similar character, or constitute parts of a common scheme or plan. Wis.
Stat. § 971.12(1). “To be of
the ‘same or similar character’ …, crimes must be the same type of offenses
occurring over a relatively short period of time and the evidence as to each
must overlap.” State v.
¶4 The court should not grant joinder if the defendant can show
substantial prejudice. State
v. Locke, 177
¶5 Cramer contends that the charges involving Amanda should have been tried separately because they were not, in his view, of the same or similar character to those involving Mallory or Samantha. In support he notes that the first set of assaults against Amanda occurred three years before the second set of assaults against all three girls, Amanda was twelve when first assaulted while Mallory and Samantha were fourteen and fifteen when first assaulted, Amanda was Cramer’s stepdaughter while Mallory and Samantha were not related to Cramer, and the charged assaults against Mallory and Samantha involved significantly more intrusive sexual contact than the assaults on Amanda. However, the court reasonably determined that these factors did not outweigh the similarities between the cases, including the fact that all the charged offenses occurred in the same location (Cramer’s home), he used the same general methods of approach to assault all three victims, and the contact was of the same general nature even if it progressed to more intrusive contact with Mallory and Samantha. Additionally, only one of the three offenses against Amanda preceded the assaults on the other two girls, while two were contemporaneous. Locke deemed offenses committed two years apart sufficiently close in time to support joinder, see id. at 595-96, and under the circumstances here we conclude that the one offense against Amanda was sufficiently close in time for joinder with the other offenses against Amanda and with those against the other two victims.
¶6 Cramer next contends that the evidence of his offenses
against Mallory and Samantha was inadmissible other acts evidence for the
purposes of proving the offenses against Amanda. We disagree.
In cases charging sexual assaults against children the “greater latitude
rule” permits the more liberal admission of other crimes evidence, and is
applied to the entire Sullivan analysis. State v. Davidson, 2000 WI 91, ¶51,
236
By the Court.—Judgments and orders affirmed.
This opinion will not be published. See Wis. Stat. Rule 809.23(1)(b)5.