State v. Miles
State v. Miles, 2020 UT App 120 (Appleby, J.)
Criminal
The defendant posted a Craigslist ad looking for a person who was willing to have rough sex with him, and a woman responded. After sending the defendant compromising videos and the defendant threatening to send the videos to the media if she did not engage in sex with him, the woman met the defendant. The two had several types of sex. The jury convicted the defendant of sodomy for having anal sex but found him not guilty of rape and sodomy for four other sexual acts. The Utah Court of Appeals upheld his conviction, holding:
- Even though the jury instructions incorrectly informed the jury on the definition of recklessness, that error did not warrant a reversal because the evidence against the defendant was overwhelming that the defendant at least consciously disregarded the risk that the woman did not consent to anal sex.
- There were several objectively reasonable strategies for trial counsel to not introduce the Craiglist ad into evidence; thus, counsel was not ineffective for not introducing that ad.