State v. Bran
State v. Bran, 2021 UT App 62 (Appleby, J.)
Criminal
The State alleged that the defendant touched a patient’s labia during a massage. Based on these allegations, the jury convicted the defendant of object rape. The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed, holding:
- The district court did not err when it refused to exclude as hearsay testimony that the patient was crying when she left the clinic; because the defendant did not argue that patient was making an assertion when she was crying, testimony about patient’s crying was not hearsay.
- Counsel was not ineffective for failing to ask the district court to question a sleepy juror about testimony the juror missed, when the district court noticed that a juror was having a hard time staying awake and opted for a recess so that the juror could wake up.
- Sufficient evidence supported an object rape conviction.
- Counsel was not ineffective for not requesting a lesser-included instruction on sexual battery.