ROBERT W. BLACK Associated Press writer | Posted: Friday, October 17, 2003 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - The Wyoming Supreme Court has upheld the 116-year prison sentence of a Michigan man convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 34-year-old Gillette woman.
The five justices dismissed Dale William Dean Sr.'s contention that the jury had not been given proper instructions, that the evidence was insufficient and that he was denied right to a speedy trial.
In February 2002, Dean, of Fort Huron, Mich., was convicted following a three-day trial and sentenced to 116 to 130 years in prison.
He received 45-50 years for kidnapping, 45-50 years for first-degree sexual assault and 13-15 years each for two counts of third-degree sexual assault. He was also ordered to pay about $8,700 in fines and restitution.
The victim was walking home from a bar in Gillette on July 21, 2001, when Dean stuck a pistol in her side and told her to get in his van, then handcuffed her, the court opinion said. He drove toward Buffalo in Johnson County, stopped at a truck parking area, raped her, then continued down the road with her.
Dean was arrested at a Buffalo restaurant after the victim discreetly told a waitress to call police.
In January 2003, Dean was convicted in Cayuga County, N.Y., of second-degree kidnapping, first-degree sodomy, first-degree sexual abuse and first-degree robbery for the attack on a woman in July 2001.
The New York crimes were committed less than two weeks before the Wyoming case. He was given 25 years to life in prison, then returned to Wyoming to complete his sentence for the Wyoming crimes.
New York prosecutors said he also was convicted in 1981 for attempted murder in Broward County, Fla., and in 1997 for burglary in Palm Beach County, Fla.
In his appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court, Dean argued the jury should have been instructed that it could have found him guilty of false imprisonment, which is a lesser offense than kidnapping. He also said the jury should have been informed of the lesser offense of sexual battery.
After extensive discussion of the differences between false imprisonment and kidnapping, Justice Barton Voigt, who wrote the Oct. 10 opinion, stated the trial court correctly ruled that a jury instruction regarding the offense of false imprisonment would have been inappropriate.
Voigt wrote that the lower court had also correctly disallowed the sexual battery instruction because Dean had admitted to an act that constituted first-degree sexual assault.
Since Dean had contended the act was consensual, the jury was only left with concluding whether he was guilty or not guilty of the higher offense, Voigt wrote.
"There was no evidence of some other unlawful sexual contact upon which the jury could have based a finding of guilt of sexual battery," he wrote. The same applied to the third-degree sexual assault charges, Voigt said.
Dean claimed that although he had a gun the whole time, he did not threaten to use it or ever say he would harm the victim. He also claimed the victim had several opportunities to escape.
"Contrary to what the appellant suggests, the record is replete with evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim was kidnapped and sexually assaulted," Voigt wrote.
The justice also said the man's trial was held within the state's speedy trial rules, even though the rules changed after the man was arrested.
The case is Dean vs. State of Wyoming, 2003 WY 28.