Sweet v. State
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 690
ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION IV
CACR09-1323
No.
Opinion Delivered OCTOBER 20, 2010
DAVID JUNIOR SWEET
APPELLANT
V.
APPEAL FROM THE CRAWFORD
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT
[CR-2008-283 I]
STATE OF ARKANSAS
HONORABLE GARY RAY
COTTRELL, JUDGE
APPELLEE
AFFIRMED
RITA W. GRUBER, Judge
Appellant David Sweet was convicted by a jury of failing to register as a sex offender,
for which he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. He contends on appeal that the trial
court erred in permitting the State to introduce evidence of the specific convictions that
required him to register. We reject appellant’s arguments, hold the trial court did not abuse
its discretion in admitting the challenged evidence, and affirm appellant’s conviction.
Appellant was convicted of violating Ark. Code Ann. § 12-12-904(a)(1)(A), which
provides that a person who fails to register or report a change of address as required under the
sex-offender-registration subchapter is guilty of a Class C felony. The testimony and evidence
at trial showed that appellant was convicted in 1987 in the state of Georgia of three sex
offenses. He was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment for those offenses, was released
from prison in May 2007, and moved to Arkansas. While appellant initially completed sex-
Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 690
offender-registration paperwork with the Alma Police Department and then filed a change-ofaddress form in November 2007—reporting his address as 330 West Cherry, Apt. 4, Alma,
Arkansas—he moved out in March 2008 without reporting any change of address to law
enforcement.
Officer Jeff Pointer of the Alma Police Department, whose duties included overseeing
sex-offender registration for the City of Alma, testified that sex offenders are required to verify
their address every six months and are required to register a change of address ten days prior
to moving. See Ark. Code Ann. § 12-12-906(c), (g) (Repl. 2009). He testified that, when he
discovered in June 2008 that appellant had not verified his address as required, he began
investigating. He learned that appellant moved out of the apartment on West Cherry in
March 2008 .
The issue in this case concerns the introduction into evidence of a document provided
by the Clerk of the Superior Court of Fulton County Georgia concerning appellant’s 1987
convictions. To better understand this issue, we review some of the pretrial hearings. In a
pretrial hearing held on August 10, 2009, defense counsel asked the court not to allow into
evidence “the particulars and the facts” involved in the Georgia case. The State replied that
it planned to introduce the report from the Arkansas Crime Information Center (ACIC) that
appellant had been convicted of child molestation in Georgia. Defense counsel objected to
an ACIC report being introduced and demanded a certified copy of the judgment from
Georgia, which, at that time, the State did not possess.
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 690
The State later obtained a certified copy of the Georgia judgment, which consisted
of seven pages. During a pretrial hearing on the morning of trial, September 8, 2009,
appellant objected to its introduction because of its “graphic nature.” Defense counsel argued
that the actual charges should not be presented but that the “State should be able to say that,
yes, he is convicted of a felony that requires him to register.” It is unclear exactly how
defense counsel expected the State to show this. The court clarified with defense counsel that
appellant was pleading not guilty to the charge and requiring the State to prove each element
of its case—including that he was convicted of a previous sex offense for which he was
required to register—beyond a reasonable doubt. Defense counsel said, “That’s correct.” The
complete document from Georgia included a final disposition, which stated that appellant
was convicted of enticing a child for indecent purposes; child molestation; and aggravated
child molestation. The final disposition also included the date and the sentences imposed.
Other pages included additional details and descriptions of the crimes. At the pretrial hearing,
after lengthy argument and discussion—and in accordance with defense counsel’s
request—the court ordered that pages three, four, and five of the Georgia document be
removed but allowed the final disposition to be introduced.
We now turn to the trial. The State’s first witness at trial was Officer Pointer. When
the State attempted to introduce the Georgia conviction, as redacted in the pretrial hearing,
defense counsel objected to its introduction into evidence because it was “not a certified
copy and a final judgment.” The clerk’s certification was on one of the pages removed by
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 690
the court at defense counsel’s request in the pretrial hearing. The court then allowed the
State to admit the redacted Georgia judgment as Exhibit 1 and the remaining three pages
(including the certification) as Exhibit 1A. Exhibit 1A was allowed only for proof of
certification and was not given to the jury. Defense counsel made no other objections to this
evidence. But when the State rested, defense counsel made a motion for a directed verdict
contending that the evidence was insufficient because the State did not introduce a copy of
the certified judgment for the jury to view and thus the State failed to prove that appellant
had been convicted of a prior sex offense requiring him to register. The court rejected
defense counsel’s argument and determined, in light of Exhibit 1A, that the judgment was
certified.
The decision to admit or exclude evidence is within the sound discretion of the trial
court, and we will not reverse the trial court’s decision regarding the admission of evidence
absent a manifest abuse of discretion. Strickland v. State, 2010 Ark. App. 599, ___ S.W.3d
___. Appellant argues that the trial court’s admission into evidence of the final disposition—
which indicated that appellant was convicted of enticing a child for indecent purposes, child
molestation, and aggravated child molestation—was an abuse of discretion. Specifically,
appellant argues that the details of his Georgia sex offenses had no probative value and were
unfairly prejudicial. In his brief, appellant claims that his counsel’s “offer” to the trial court
to let the jury know appellant had a conviction requiring him to register was “tantamount
to an offer to stipulate or admit to the convictions obligating appellant to register as a sex
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 690
offender.”
First, appellant did not make this argument at trial. The only objection appellant made
at trial to the State’s introduction of the final disposition was that the disposition was “not
a certified copy and a final judgment.” Parties cannot change the grounds for an objection
on appeal, but are bound by the scope and nature of their objections as presented at trial. Frye
v. State, 2009 Ark. 110, at 4, 313 S.W.3d 10, 15.
Moreover, we find appellant’s argument to us disingenuous. Not only did his counsel
fail to “stipulate or admit to the convictions” obligating him to register, he specifically told
the judge in a pretrial hearing that he was requiring the State to prove each and every
element of the offense, including that he had been convicted of a prior sex offense that
required him to register. Further, at trial, he made a motion for directed verdict challenging
precisely this element, arguing that there was not a certified copy of the prior convictions for
the jury to view. We hold the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the State to
admit the final disposition of the Georgia conviction.
Affirmed.
HART and ROBBINS, JJ., agree.
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