Background
In August 2019, Jeffrey Sawtelle, the step-grandfather of the thirteen-year-old victim, sexually assaulted her in her bedroom while her mother and grandmother were away. Sawtelle entered the victim’s room, touched her thighs, inserted his hands into her pants and digitally penetrated her genitals, then pinned her down and raped her. He threatened her with harm if she disclosed what had occurred. The victim did not come forward until February 2022, when she disclosed the assault to her mother. She subsequently gave a detailed account to investigators and a Child Advocacy Center interviewer.
The State charged Sawtelle with first-degree statutory rape (Count I) and first-degree statutory sodomy (Count II), the latter based on his touching of the victim’s genitals with his hand. Following a jury trial in February 2025, Sawtelle was convicted on both counts and sentenced to consecutive life terms. However, the written judgment erroneously identified Count II as a second charge of first-degree statutory rape rather than first-degree statutory sodomy.
Sawtelle appealed, arguing that the State failed to prove the sodomy charge because the victim never precisely explained what she meant by the term “fingering,” and separately requesting correction of the clerical error in the written judgment.
The Court’s Holding
The court affirmed the sodomy conviction, holding that the State presented sufficient evidence for a rational juror to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Sawtelle touched the victim’s genitals with his hand. Although the victim did not use anatomically precise language, her testimony that Sawtelle was “fingering” her under her pants — combined with contextual inferences such as the secrecy of the act — was sufficient to support the jury’s verdict. The court distinguished the case from State v. Barbee, 568 S.W.3d 28 (Mo. App. W.D. 2018), noting that Barbee involved a failure to prove penetration for a rape charge, whereas here the State needed only to prove genital touching, a lower threshold aided by additional circumstantial inferences.
On the second point, the court granted relief and remanded with instructions to enter a nunc pro tunc order correcting the written judgment. The State conceded the error. Because the jury was charged with and returned guilty verdicts on both statutory rape and statutory sodomy, the written judgment’s labeling of Count II as a second statutory rape charge was a clerical error that failed to reflect the actual proceedings, and correction under Rule 29.12(c) was appropriate.
Key Takeaways
- A victim’s use of colloquial rather than anatomically precise language does not render evidence of sexual contact legally insufficient; circumstantial context — such as the secrecy surrounding the act — can support the inference that genitals were touched.
- Missouri’s first-degree statutory sodomy statute requires proof of genital touching, not penetration; this lower evidentiary threshold distinguishes sufficiency analyses for sodomy from those for statutory rape.
- Clerical errors in a criminal judgment that misidentify the offense of conviction may be corrected by a nunc pro tunc order under Missouri Rule 29.12(c), even on remand from appeal, where the written judgment does not reflect what actually occurred at trial.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that Missouri courts will not require child victims to use clinical anatomical terminology when describing sexual abuse in order to sustain a conviction. By affirming that colloquial language combined with contextual inferences is legally sufficient, the ruling reduces the burden on young or traumatized witnesses and limits defendants’ ability to exploit imprecise testimony as a basis for acquittal.
The nunc pro tunc aspect of the ruling is a practical reminder to practitioners that clerical errors in written judgments — even when they misstate the offense itself — are correctable on remand and do not require a new trial or resentencing. Courts retain authority to conform their records to the truth of what actually transpired in the proceeding.