State v. Huey
State v. Huey, 2022 UT App 94 (Orme, J.)
Criminal
Defendant, in his 50s, agreed to supervise minor victim in his charity work. Instead, he offered her methamphetamine and eventually committed many sex acts with her. The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed Defendant’s many sex abuse convictions, holding:
- Defendant cannot show that the toxicology expert’s testimony prejudiced him where the State argued three theories of non-consent at trial in addition to the theory that victim had a “mental defect” caused by methamphetamine, and because victim’s testimony also provided evidence of a mental defect due to methamphetamine;
- Counsel was not ineffective when he did not object to multiple instances of hearsay that Defendant raped victim:
- Mother’s testimony that an officer called her and told her Defendant had raped her daughter was used to show why Mother called Defendant, not that Defendant raped her;
- Counsel could have reasonably concluded that the other hearsay-like testimony that Defendant raped victim was not hearsay and was instead an excited utterance—whether or not it was actually an excited utterance.