State of Tennessee v. David Gene Hooper

A Hamilton County Criminal Court Jury convicted the defendant, David Gene Hooper, of rape, a Class B felony, and incest, a Class C felony, and the trial court sentenced him to concurrent terms of eight years for the rape and three years for the incest to be served on community corrections after serving eleven months and twenty-nine days in the county workhouse. The defendant appeals, claiming the trial court erred (1) in failing to grant a mistrial based upon the state's failure to disclose exculpatory evidence until the middle of trial and in prohibiting him from cross-examining the victim concerning the exculpatory evidence; (2) in repeatedly admitting testimony which bolstered the victim's complaint through multiple witnesses; (3) in allowing testimony from various witnesses concerning the fact that victims of sexual abuse frequently delay reporting an attack; (4) in allowing the state to cross-examine the defendant concerning his possession of marijuana on the day he was arrested, approximately two years after the crime; and (5) in failing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offenses of attempted rape, attempted sexual battery, and assault pursuant to State v. Burns, 6 S.W.3d 453 (Tenn. 1999). We conclude that although the trial court should have allowed the defendant to cross-examine the victim concerning the evidence the state failed to disclose until trial, the error was harmless. We affirm the trial court.