Background
Gary Edward Shumate was convicted by a jury of four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving his five-year-old daughter, AM, in 1997. AM testified that Shumate penetrated her anally on three occasions after moving her from the living room to a bathroom and forced her to perform oral sex during a separate incident in which she and her five-year-old friend, JK, were blindfolded. Shumate received a sentence of 209 to 600 months’ imprisonment for each conviction.
JK testified about the blindfold incident and two other alleged assaults by Shumate. Shumate had pleaded guilty in 1998 to assault with intent to commit second-degree criminal sexual conduct arising from his assault of JK. On appeal, Shumate challenged the sufficiency and weight of the evidence, admission of JK’s testimony, the prosecutor’s closing argument, trial counsel’s performance, and the scoring of several sentencing offense variables.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions. It held that AM’s testimony, together with JK’s corroborating testimony, permitted a rational jury to find the charged penetrations beyond a reasonable doubt. AM’s delayed disclosure, her uncertainty about earlier statements to protective-services investigators, and her statement that she wanted Shumate dead presented credibility questions for the jury and did not render the verdict against the great weight of the evidence.
The court also upheld admission of JK’s testimony under MCL 768.27a and MRE 403 because the assaults involved similarly aged children, similar conduct, and the same period. It found no reversible prosecutorial misconduct and rejected Shumate’s ineffective-assistance claims, concluding that counsel’s questioning about another investigation furthered an apparent strategy of attacking AM’s credibility and the prosecution’s motives.
On sentencing, the court upheld the scoring of offense variable 8 because Shumate moved the children away from another person’s observation. It held, however, that the trial court improperly assessed five points under OV 3 for the oral-penetration count because the record did not establish bodily injury from that incident, and improperly assessed 10 points under OV 9 for the three anal-penetration counts because the evidence did not show that AM’s nearby brother was placed in a physically threatening situation. Those corrections did not change Shumate’s guidelines range, so resentencing was unnecessary. The court remanded solely to correct the sentencing investigation report.
Key Takeaways
- A child complainant’s testimony can support a CSC-I conviction even when the child did not visually observe the instrument of penetration, if the testimony and reasonable inferences establish penetration beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Other sexual acts against a minor may be admitted under MCL 768.27a when relevant, subject to MRE 403; similarities in the victims’ ages, timing, circumstances, and nature of the abuse supported admission here.
- An offense-variable scoring error does not require resentencing when correcting it leaves the guidelines range unchanged, but the sentencing report must still be corrected because its scores may affect Department of Corrections decisions.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the substantial deference appellate courts give juries on witness credibility in delayed-disclosure child-sexual-abuse cases. Inconsistencies, anger toward the defendant, and the passage of time do not make testimony legally insufficient when the jury could reasonably credit it and other evidence provides corroboration.
The opinion also distinguishes between an error that changes the applicable sentencing range and one that only makes the official sentencing record inaccurate. Even without resentencing, a defendant is entitled to correction of erroneous offense-variable scores that may later influence correctional decisions.