“Get ready for an appeal,” Bradley Giovannini had said as he was leaving a St. John’s courtoom in October 2016, sentenced to 4 1/2 years behind bars for luring and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
He followed through on the appeal, which was heard last December. When the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal released its decision last week, however, Giovannini was no further ahead.
The court dismissed Giovannini’s appeal, in which he argued the fairness of his trial had been compromised by the judge’s “extensive and improper” questioning of him on the stand after he had been examined and cross-examined by lawyers.
Giovannini, now 35, communicated with a 14-year-old girl via text message and invited her to his residence in 2012, though she had already told him her age. He offered to pay her cab fare, telling her he would “treat u good.”
The girl testified Giovannini had started touching her and, despite her repeated protests and pleas for him to stop, pushed her down on the sofa and raped her.
Giovannini denied any intercourse with the girl — though expert medical evidence confirmed it had taken place — and said he had thought he was texting with an older girl instead.
Justice Robert Hall rejected most of Giovannini’s testimony and convicted him of sexual assault, sexually touching a person under 16 and communicating by computer with a person under 16 for sexual purposes.
The Court of Appeal acknowledged Hall had questioned Giovannini extensively while he was on the stand, noting his questions spanned 18 pages of the trial transcript, compared to 13 pages for Giovanni’s direct evidence and 31 for his cross-examination. Giovannini argued Hall had “abandoned his position of neutrality” and his questions crossed the line.
Court of Appeal Justice Lois Hoegg determined Hall’s questions to have been appropriate for the purpose of clarifying his understanding of the evidence. She did mention one particular comment Hall made, “I think you were so drunk you didn’t know what you were doing or maybe 14 didn’t bother you,” calling it sarcastic and better left unsaid, but inconsequential.
Giovannini also argued Hall had misapprehended evidence dealing with the possibility the teenager was drunk when she left Giovannini’s residence.
A taxi driver testified he had picked the girl up from the house and driven her home, giving details about what she had been wearing and carrying, where she wanted to be dropped off and conversation between them.
In convicting Giovannini, Hall had referenced the driver’s testimony, saying the cabbie had noted nothing unusual about the girl’s behaviour, and that she had been texting on her phone all the way home. The judge had accepted the driver’s evidence as an indication that the victim wasn’t drunk and therefore her memory of the night would not have been affected by alcohol.
Court transcripts show the driver hadn’t actually said those things on the stand, but the appeal judge ruled it didn’t make a difference.
“It did not go to the substance of the judge’s decision that Mr. Giovannini was guilty of the offences charged beyond a reasonable doubt,” she wrote. “Many factors informed the judge’s decision to accept (the girl’s) evidence as reliable and credible.”
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
