Summary
The New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed Lawrence Sleeper’s convictions for felonious sexual assault and pattern aggravated felonious sexual assault. The court held that the pattern-sexual-assault statute requires jury unanimity as to the existence of the pattern and its statutory time period, but not as to two specific predicate assaults. The court also rejected the defendant’s federal constitutional and due process challenges to the pattern indictments.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the pattern aggravated-felony-sexual-assault indictments were constitutionally defective because they did not identify at least two specific predicate assaults satisfying the statutory temporal requirement.
- Whether the State and Federal Constitutions require jurors to unanimously agree on the specific predicate acts underlying a pattern sexual assault conviction.
- Whether permitting jury disagreement about the specific predicate acts violated federal due process and fundamental fairness.
Holdings
- For aggravated felonious sexual assault under RSA 632-A:2, III, the jury must unanimously agree that the defendant engaged in more than one qualifying sexual assault and that the acts occurred over at least two months and within five years, but the jurors need not agree on the particular predicate assaults comprising the pattern.
- Richardson v. United States does not require New Hampshire to abandon the rule that jurors need not unanimously identify the specific predicate assaults underlying a pattern sexual assault conviction.
- Allowing jurors to disagree about the specific predicate acts does not violate federal due process when unanimity is required regarding the existence of the statutory pattern and its temporal requirements.
Key quotations
“The essential culpable act, the actus reus, is the pattern itself, that is, the occurrence of more than one sexual assault over a period of time, and not the specific assaults comprising the pattern.” (728-729)
“Consequently, “it is ... not unfair or irrational to lift the requirement of jury unanimity as to the specific underlying acts as long as unanimity is required regarding the existence of the [pattern],” defined by the temporal requirements set forth in the statute.” (731)
Factual background
The defendant sexually assaulted S.R., who was approximately ten or eleven years old when he first met her, during a motorcycle trip. Later, after S.R. and K.H. began staying at the defendant's home, he repeatedly performed oral sex on both girls and engaged in sexual intercourse with each of them. K.H. also testified that the defendant digitally penetrated her on multiple occasions. The conduct resulted in two felonious-sexual-assault convictions and four pattern aggravated-felonious-sexual-assault convictions.
Procedural history
The Superior Court denied the defendant's motion to quash four pattern indictments. After a jury convicted him on all counts, he appealed, arguing that the indictments violated jury-unanimity and federal due-process principles because they did not identify at least two specific predicate offenses.