S-24-0850 State of Nebraska (Appellee) v. Christopher C. Ansell (Appellant)
Appeal from the District Court for Douglas County, Judge Kimberly Miller Pankonin
Attorneys: Ryan S. Crnkovich (Dornan, Howard, Breitkreutz, Dahlquist and Kleim PC LLO for Appellant) and Nathan A. Liss (Asst. Attorney General for Appellee)
Criminal: First-degree and third-degree sexual assault of a child
Proceedings Below: A jury found Appellant guilty two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child and one count of third-degree sexual assault of a child. The district court sentenced him to forty (40) to sixty (60) years in prison. Because the district court found that Appellant committed an aggravated offense, it ordered Appellant to register as a lifetime sex offender under the Nebraska Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA). On its own motion, the Nebraska Supreme Court ordered this case to be transferred from the docket of the Nebraska Court of Appeals to its docket.
Issues: Appellant assigns the following errors: 1) The district court erred when, over a defense objection, it granted the state leave to file a third amended information midway through its case in chief that fundamentally changed and inverted an essential element of the offense alleged in Count I; 2) The district court erred in proceeding with critical portions of Appellant’s trial in his absence, including both a jury instructions conference and mid-trial motion to file a third amended information, without taking reasonable efforts to secure Appellant’s presence and without having an adequate basis upon which to conclude that Appellant was knowingly and intelligently waiving his personal right to attend these portions of his trial as guaranteed by the due process clause of Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Article I, § 11 of the Nebraska Constitution, and Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29- 2001; 3) The district court erred in prohibiting the defense from asking J.M. about prior specific acts bearing on his credibility, thereby running afoul of the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause; 4) To the extent this Court agrees that the relief Appellant seeks in his first assignment of error is appropriate, the district court erred in finding that Appellant had committed an “aggravated offense” within the meaning of the Nebraska Sex Offender Registration Act because the offenses charged in Counts II and III are not inherently aggravated offenses and, therefore, do not compel lifetime sex offender registration; 5) Trial defense counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to object to inadmissible character evidence, or, in the alternative, trial defense counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to seek reconsideration of the district court’s ruling prohibiting inquiry into J.M.’s prior bad acts after the state opened the door to such questioning; 6) Trial defense counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel by opening the door to testimony they successfully excluded through their motion in limine; 7) Trial defense counsel were ineffective in failing to impeach J.M. on his assertion that Appellant was always in the room with him during his therapy sessions; 8) Trial defense counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to request a lesser-included offense instruction; and 9) Trial defense counsel were ineffective in failing to poll the jury.