Case Title: State v. Azem Cuni

Citation: 

Docket Number: a-141-97

State: new-jersey

Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Date: 1999-06-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized). HANDLER, J., writing for a majority of the Court. The issue posed by this appeal is whether, in a sexual assault case in which the State claims the victim lacked the mental capacity to withhold consent to sexual acts, the Rape Shield Law, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-7, may be applied to exclude evidence of past sexual conduct that is offered to show that the victim had the mental capacity to consent. The victim, T.O., was thirty years old at the time of the offense and living with her younger sister and mother. She had been tested as being in the borderline range for being mentally deficient. Defendant, a refugee unskilled in English, also had low psychological testing scores. The fact that English is not defendant's first language might have skewed the test results. Defendant met T.O. when he delivered a sandwich to T.O. at her mother's house. Defendant kissed T.O., although T.O. testified she "didn't want it." Two or three weeks later, T.O. ordered another sandwich for delivery. After twenty-five minutes passed, T.O. went to the living room to wait for the delivery. There she encountered defendant standing in the room. T.O. testified that defendant then "start[ed] getting funny with me. He start[ed] kissing me on my lips and then he start[ed] going down in my pants . . . ." T.O. said she did not want to kiss defendant, asked defendant to leave and went to her room to get money to pay for the sandwich. Defendant followed T.O. to her room. T.O. testified that: "We go over to my bed. He sits me down on the corner and then he proceeds to pull my pants -- my undershorts and my slacks down to my ankles and he does his thing." By "does his thing," T.O. meant that defendant had sexual intercourse with her against her will. About two weeks later, defendant returned to T.O.'s house and entered without knocking. Defendant asked T.O. if she liked him, and she told him she would have to think about it and for him to come back later. Defendant apparently left. According to T.O., "Then it clicks. I knew exactly what he did." She called a neighbor and asked her if she could come over because "somebody sexually molested me." At her neighbor's instructions, T.O. called her mother. After a detective interviewed T.O., he went to defendant's place of employment. Defendant agreed to be interviewed at the police station, and subsequently waived his constitutional rights. Defendant admitted to having sex with T.O., stating that he "did her" and that he "guessed" that she wanted to have sex with him as well. Defendant told the detective that he was only familiar with T.O. from delivering food to her home a couple of times. The detective never asked defendant whether he believed that T.O. was mentally defective. At trial, defendant claimed that his sexual encounters with T.O. were consensual, that she was not mentally defective, and that, if she was mentally defective, he did not know it nor should he have known. Defendant testified that he asked for and received permission to kiss T.O. before doing so. He also claimed that when he asked T.O. if she wanted "to do it," she led him to the bedroom where they had sex. The State's expert, a clinical psychologist, concluded that T.O. "lacked any functional ability to understand the sexual assault and . . . to stop the sexual assault . . . ." Defendant's expert, a psychologist, testified that T.O. knew the nature of the sexual acts and that she had the right to say no. During the trial, the chief issue was the admission of evidence of T.O.'s two prior sexual experiences, the last of which occurred eleven years before the encounter with defendant. The two experts referred to T.O.'s description of these two incidents in their reports. According to the State's expert, the first incident occurred when T.O. was 19 and amounted to a sexual assault. Concerning the second incident, the expert quoted T.O. as saying the boy insisted and she wasn't interested in sex. She added, "I want to be a straight person. Not get married. Have no kids" The report of defendant's expert related T.O.'s description of these incidents quite differently. According to that expert, T.O. indicated that in each instance she "let" the boys have intercourse with her. He described them as consensual encounters. On cross-examination of the State's expert, defense counsel asked whether the expert had questioned T.O. about her prior sexual conduct. After the expert answered that he had, the State objected, arguing the testimony was barred by the Rape Shield Law. In response to the court's inquiry, the expert explained that he asked T.O. about her sexual past "to understand what she knew about sexuality and intercourse." He further stated that the history "was just one piece" of the information he used to conclude that T.O. lacked the capacity to consent. The trial court ruled the evidence inadmissible. It noted that defense counsel had failed to give notice of his intent to use such evidence prior to trial as required by the Rape Shield Law. On the merits, the trial court reasoned that the passage of time made relevance of the incidents suspect; the incidents were not similar enough because they involved "friends" not a "stranger;" and the jury would be distracted by delving into the circumstances of those incidents and assessing T.O.'s mental capacity at that point in time. Defendant was convicted of first degree aggravated sexual assault, second degree sexual assault, burglary and trespass, and sentenced to twelve years in prison. The Appellate Division reversed, finding that the trial court erred by not instructing the jury that in order to convict defendant of burglary and aggravated sexual assault based on burglary, defendant had to have entered T.O.'s house with the intention to engage in sexual penetration without T.O.'s consent. Because this error was capable of producing an unjust result, the Appellate Division reversed both the aggravated sexual assault and the burglary convictions. One judge dissented on the ground that defendant's sexual assault convictions should also be reversed because the exclusion of T.O.'s two past sexual experiences violated defendant's right of confrontation. Defendant appealed as of right to this Court based on the dissent. His petition for certification on other issues was denied. HELD: The relevance and probative worth of T.O.'s prior sexual experiences are not clear and substantial, and any probative value is clearly outweighed by its prejudicial effect and capacity to confuse the jury. Therefore, the evidence was properly excluded. 1. The Rape Shield Law provides that if the defendant seeks to admit evidence of prior sexual conduct by the victim, he must apply for a court order before the trial. Under the Rape Shield Law, non-compliance results in the evidence being excluded. However, discretion in the application of that remedy is required if under the facts of a case preclusion violates a defendant's right to confront witnesses. Here, the State's legitimate interests in protecting against surprise, harassment, and undue delay, and the absence of any reasonable excuse or alternative remedies, support the procedural exclusion of the evidence. (pp. 13-20) 2. Whenever the confrontation rights of a defendant are considered in connection with the State's interest in excluding evidence under the Rape Shield Law, courts must consider whether the evidence is relevant to the defense and if so, whether its probative value outweighs its prejudicial effect. Because T.O.'s past sexual experiences occurred eleven years earlier, any evidential connection is remote and attenuated. Also, past consensual sexual experiences, as opposed to previous incidents where a victim effectively refused consent, are not sufficiently probative on the issue of a victim's capacity to consent. (pp. 20-27) 3. Even assuming the relevance of T.O.'s prior sexual experience, the scant probative value of that evidence is outweighed by its prejudice. The Rape Shield Law was designed to protect the privacy and dignity of the victim. A victim should not have to forfeit those protections because she may be mentally challenged. Also, evidence of these remote sexual experiences would have easily mislead and distracted the jury. (pp. 27-33) The judgment of the Appellate Division is AFFIRMED. JUSTICE STEIN, filed a separate dissenting opinion, noting that defendant's convictions were substantially predicated on the testimony of the State's expert who concluded that T.O. lacked capacity to consent. He expresses the view that the majority's application of the Rape Shield Law here prevented defense counsel from adequately cross-examining the State's expert and deprived defendant of his constitutional right of confrontation. JUSTICES POLLOCK, O'HERN, and GARIBALDI join in JUSTICE HANDLER's opinion. JUSTICE STEIN has filed a separate dissenting opinion, in which CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICE COLEMAN join. SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY A- 141 September Term 1997 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. AZEM CUNI, Defendant-Appellant. Argued September 29, 1998 -- Decided June 14, 1999 On appeal from the Superior Court, Appellate Division, whose opinion is reported at 303 N.J. Super. 584 (1997). J. Michael Blake, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Ivelisse Torres, Public Defender, attorney). Catherine A. Foddai, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Peter Verniero, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney). The opinion of the Court was delivered by HANDLER, J. In this case, defendant was convicted of the sexual assault of a mentally defective person. At trial, defendant attempted to introduce evidence of the victim's past sexual experiences through the cross-examination of the State's expert psychologist. The purpose of that evidence, according to defendant, was to demonstrate that the victim had the capacity to consent to sexual relations despite her mental condition. The trial court ruled that defendant could not elicit the evidence. The issue posed by this appeal is whether, in a sexual assault case in which the State claims the victim lacked the mental capacity to withhold consent to sexual acts, the New Jersey Rape Shield Law, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-7, may be applied to exclude evidence of past sexual conduct that is offered to show that the victim had the mental capacity to consent to sexual contact. If such evidence is excluded, we also address whether that exclusion violates the defendant's constitutional right to confront witnesses. A: She knows that intercourse is where a penis is inserted in a vagina. She knows that prophylactics are used for safe sex. She knows that people don't have the right to invade your body. Those are the kind of things that in the concrete she would know. In other words, she can say those rotely to you. She can understand that people have a right to the integrity of their bodies and she can talk to you about the fact that no one has a right to assault anyone else. Q: So she knows that she has a right to refuse? A: She intellectually knows that she has a right to refuse, yes. The expert was then asked whether T.O. had the "ability to resist, to exercise that right to refuse." He answered: I do not functionally believe she has the right to refuse. . . . As a matter of circumstance, when someone is forcing themselves on her, when someone is telling her words and saying things, when people are manipulating her body and touching her, putting her in positions on beds, it is my clinical judgment that she doesn't have the functional ability to say no . . . . Dr. Ronald Silikovitz, a psychologist for defendant, testified that he questioned T.O. about sex in interviews and concluded that she knew the nature of sexual acts and "[s]he knew she had the right to say no." He testified further: She is aware of the mechanics, the anatomy, the physiology and the implications of sexual acts including kissing all the way up through intercourse. She's aware of all that. She can define it. She can verbalize it. She's aware of consequences if you do this this will happen. She's aware about condoms and knows what happens when you do and don't use condoms and she discussed that with me. She certainly I believe knew she had the right to say no and I think she was capable of saying no. I also find a very explicit sexual fantasy in the projective testing. During the trial, the chief issue was the admission of evidence of T.O.'s past sexual experiences. In her interviews with both experts, T.O. related two sexual incidents occurring eleven years earlier.See footnote 3 On cross-examination of Dr. D'Urso, defense counsel asked whether he had questioned T.O. about her prior sexual conduct. After Dr. D'Urso answered that he had, the State objected, arguing that the Rape Shield Law barred the testimony. Dr. D'Urso further explained, in response to the court's inquiry, that he asked T.O. about her past "to understand what she knew about sexuality and what she knew about intercourse and how she experienced those behaviors before." That history was "just one piece" of the information he used to come to his conclusions about T.O.'s capacity to consent. He also indicated that T.O.'s eleven year period of abstinence since the encounters was significant because it showed that her experience was "typical [] of people who were cognitively limited on how sexual experiences typically occur." The trial court ruled that the testimony was not admissible. The court determined that defense counsel had failed to comply with the procedural requirements of the Rape Shield Law because he did not before trial apply to the court for an order to admit T.O.'s sexual history into evidence. On the merits of the claim, the court ruled that the evidence should be excluded for the following reasons: the passage of time made the evidence's relevance suspect; the incidents in the past are not similar enough to the present incident because the past incidents involved friends and the present incident involves a stranger; and, admitting the evidence would distract the jury by "delving into the circumstances of those cases and trying to assess what [T.O.'s] mental capacity may have been at the time." (1) The actor uses physical force or coercion, but the victim does not sustain severe personal injury; (2) The victim is one whom the actor knew or should have known was physically helpless, mentally defective or mentally incapacitated[.] [Ibid.] Under N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2c(2), a person is considered "mentally defective" if he or she has a mental defect that renders him or her "unable to comprehend the distinctively sexual nature of the conduct, or incapable of understanding or exercising the right to refuse to engage in such conduct with another." State v. Olivio, 123 N.J. 550, 564 (1991). Under that standard, because the State and its expert acknowledged at trial that T.O. understood "the distinctively sexual nature of the conduct" and her "right to refuse to engage" in that conduct, the question before the jury was whether T.O. was "incapable of . . . exercising" that right, ibid., that is, whether the victim had the capacity to consent. The Legislature enacted the first Rape Shield Law, N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-32, in 1976. The Legislature enacted the current Rape Shield Law, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-7, as part of the revision of the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice in 1979. After a technical amendment in 1988, the law read as follows: a. In prosecutions for aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual contact, criminal sexual contact, or endangering the welfare of a child in violation of N.J.S. 2C:24-4, evidence of the victim's previous sexual conduct shall not be admitted nor reference made to it in the presence of the jury except as provided in this section. When the defendant seeks to admit such evidence for any purpose, he must apply for an order of the court before the trial or preliminary hearing, except that the court may allow the motion to be made during trial if the court determines that the evidence is newly discovered and could not have been obtained earlier through the exercise of due diligence. After the application is made, the court shall conduct a hearing in camera to determine the admissibility of the evidence. If the court finds that evidence offered by the defendant regarding the sexual conduct of the victim is relevant and that the probative value of the evidence offered is not outweighed by its collateral nature or by the probability that its admission will create undue prejudice, confusion of the issues, or unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the victim, the court shall enter an order setting forth with specificity what evidence may be introduced and the nature of the questions which shall be permitted, and the reasons why the court finds that such evidence satisfies the standards contained in this section. The defendant may then offer evidence under the order of the court. b. In the absence of clear and convincing proof to the contrary, evidence of the victim's sexual conduct occurring more than 1 year before the date of the offense charged is presumed to be inadmissible under this section. c. Evidence of previous sexual conduct shall not be considered relevant unless it is material to negating the element of force or coercion or to proving that the source of semen, pregnancy or disease is a person other than the defendant.See footnote 4 This Court has stated that the purposes of the statute are "to protect rape victims from excessive cross-examination, thereby encouraging them to report the abuse . . . [and to] preserve the integrity of trials . . . [b]y ensuring that juries will not base their verdicts on prejudice against the victim . . . ." State v. Budis, 125 N.J. 519, 529 (1991) (citation omitted). [301 N.J. Super. at 418 (citing Fendler v. Goldsmith, 728 F.2d 1181, 1187-88 (9th Cir. 1983); State v. Caffee, 220 N.J. Super. 34, 37 (App. Div. 1987)).] Based on those factors, the trial court's determination that defendant's procedural non-compliance required exclusion of the evidence was justified. The prosecutor specifically claimed that under the statute the matter should have been brought before the court prior to trial, and that attempting to introduce the evidence in the middle of the trial prejudiced the State. Defense counsel contended that he did not know before trial that he would introduce the evidence, and therefore, he did not bring it to the court's attention. Because the defense had Dr. D'Urso's report, as well as that of its own expert, before trial, however, it clearly had the basis for making an informed decision on whether at trial it would seek to rely on evidence of T.O.'s sexual history. Further, the introduction of such evidence mid-way through the trial without any prior application or warning, in effect, blindsided the State and, in the face of that surprise, left it with no practical alternative to exclusion. Finally, exclusion was the appropriate remedy because, with an already impaneled jury, delay would have been inefficient and distracting. In sum, the State's "legitimate [] interests in protecting against surprise, harassment, and undue delay[,]" see Lucas, supra, 500 U.S. at 153, 111 S. Ct. at 1748, 114 L. Ed. 2d at 214, and the absence of any reasonable or legitimate excuse or alternative remedies, Scherzer, supra, 301 N.J. Super. at 418, support the procedural exclusion of the evidence in this case. STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. AZEM CUNI, Defendant-Appellant. STEIN, J., dissenting. New Jersey's Rape Shield Law, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-7, was enacted primarily to protect sexual assault victims from cross-examination concerning prior sexual conduct that was intended to depict the victim as lacking in moral character and therefore likely to have consented to sexual activity with the accused. State v. Budis, 125 N.J. 519, 528-29 (1991). In this appeal, defendant, an Albanian refugee with minimal skills in the English language, was convicted of sexual assault despite his contention that his sexual contact with the victim was consensual. Defendant's sexual assault convictions were substantially predicated on the testimony of the State's expert psychologist who concluded that the victim, age thirty, lacked capacity to consent. In reaching that conclusion, the State's expert relied in part on the victim's accounts of her only two prior sexual encounters that had occurred approximately ten years earlier. Despite their obvious relevance, the trial court barred defense counsel from cross-examining the expert about his reliance on those two sexual encounters, mistakenly assuming that the vital interests protected by the Rape Shield Law would be compromised. In my view, the trial court's application of the Rape Shield Law was erroneous because defense counsel's proposed cross-examination of the State's expert was not intended to suggest that the victim was promiscuous or to impugn her morality. To the contrary, her minimal sexual experience was undisputed. The cross-examination was intended only to challenge the expert's conclusion that the victim lacked the mental capacity to consent, the pivotal issue in the case. Nevertheless, the Court now sustains defendant's convictions for sexual assault. I would reverse defendant's sexual assault convictions substantially for the reasons set forth in the dissent below. State v. Cuni, 303 N.J. 584, 611-13 (1997) (Pressler, J., dissenting). These supplemental observations address in greater detail my view of Court's severe application of the Rape Shield Law to sustain the lower court's ruling, a ruling that prevented defense counsel from adequately cross-examining the State's psychiatrist and thereby deprived defendant of his constitutional right of confrontation, U.S. Const. amend. VI; N.J. Const. art. 1, para. 10, which encompasses the right to cross-examine the State's witnesses. Budis, supra, 125 N.J. at 530-32. A. [T.O.] was very fluent, very spontaneous[,] spoke[] in complete sentences. She was engaging -- she had a sense of humor. She responded fully and openly to everything I asked her. She appeared very relaxed. She came across as more verbal than the scores would have led me to believe. If I only had her scores, in other words, and didn't see her I would have expected less verbal []ability than I actually saw. She conversed very fluently. The confrontation issue concerned the victim's only two prior sexual experiences, both occurring about ten years prior to the incident at issue, which she had described to Dr. D'Urso and about which he testified in camera at trial. Ante at ___-___ (slip op. at 8-12). Defense counsel attempted to cross-examine Dr. D'Urso concerning those incidents. Unquestionably, the purpose and intended scope of that cross-examination did not infringe on the important interests protected by the Rape Shield Law: the victim's limited sexual activity (two prior experiences in thirty years) obviated any attempt to establish consent based on promiscuity, nor was the cross-examination of Dr. D'Urso calculated to embarrass the victim or invade her privacy. See Budis, supra, 125 N.J. at 528-30. Its sole purpose was to permit defense counsel to challenge Dr. D'Urso's testimony - indispensable to the State's case -- that the victim lacked the capacity to consent. Notwithstanding the Court's conclusion that the evidence lacked relevancy or could confuse the jury, ante at ___-___ (slip op. at 22-26, 28-29), the victim's description to the State's expert of the circumstances surrounding her only two prior sexual encounters provided defense counsel with the most realistic opportunity during the entire trial to challenge the State's expert's conclusion that the victim could not consent to sexual activity. The Court attempts to justify preclusion of the cross-examination of Dr. D'Urso partially on the basis of defense counsel's failure to apply "before the trial or preliminary hearing" to the trial court for an order to permit admission of evidence of the victim's prior sexual conduct. N.J.S.A. 2C:14-7(a). The Court concludes that the remedy for noncompliance with that statutory requirement is preclusion, ante at ___ (slip op. at 18-19), noting that the only exception to the statute's procedural mandate is for "newly discovered [evidence that] could not have been obtained earlier through the exercise of due diligence." Ante at ___ (slip op. at 16-17) (alteration in original). Nevertheless, citing Michigan v. Lucas, 500 U.S. 145, 153, 111 S. Ct. 1743, 1748, 114 L. Ed. 2d 205, 214-15 (1991), the Court acknowledges that the Rape Shield Law must be construed to permit a trial court to waive the procedural bar if in a given case preclusion would violate a defendant's constitutional right of confrontation. Ante at ___ (slip op. at 17-18). The Court concludes, however, that preclusion was the appropriate remedy for the procedural violation because introduction of that evidence in mid-trial without prior notice "blindsided the State." Ante at ___ (slip op. at 19). I suggest that the Court's characterization is excessive, because the critical issue throughout the trial was the victim's capacity to consent to intercourse. In view of Dr. D'Urso's report and testimony that the victim lacked capacity to refuse, that report's reference to the victim's two prior sexual experiences was an obvious target of defense counsel's cross-examination, and was no less obvious because of defense counsel's procedural slip. The correctness of the remedy of preclusion cannot stand or fall on the basis of the statute's procedural requirement, but ultimately must be determined on the basis of defendant's constitutional right of confrontation. See Michigan v. Lucas, supra, 500 U.S. at 153, 111 S. Ct. at 1748, 114 L. Ed. 2d at 215 ("We leave it to the Michigan courts to address in the first instance whether Michigan's rape-shield statute authorizes preclusion and whether, on the facts of this case, preclusion violated Lucas' rights under the Sixth Amendment."). In Budis, supra, we indicated that the reconciliation of the interests protected by the Rape Shield Law with those advanced by the constitutional right of confrontation depended on a balancing of the prejudicial effect and the probative value of the challenged evidence. We noted that [t]he Rape Shield Statute directs trial courts to consider whether evidence of prior sexual conduct will "create undue prejudice, confusion of the issues, or unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the victim." N.J.S.A. 2C:14-7. Similarly, the confrontation clause does not compel the admission of evidence that will prejudice the victim, jeopardize her safety, or confuse the jury. [Budis, supra, 125 N.J. at 538.] The significant interests protected by the Rape Shield Law are material to any fair assessment of whether substantial prejudice to the victim would result from any of defense counsel's proposed cross-examination of Dr. D'Urso. The salutary purpose of the statute is to protect a rape victim from any interrogation about her prior sexual experiences when that interrogation is intended to suggest that her sexual contact with the accused was probably consensual: Before revisions to rape shield laws were made, a victim's past sexual history was admissible in evidence to impeach her credibility or to show, based on these past sexual acts, that it was probable that she consented to the act. It was society's assumption that a woman who had consented to sex in the past more than likely consented to sex during this act. As a result of these unwarranted and overly simplistic assumptions, reformers sought to enact rape shield laws to protect the victim from this scrutiny. [Shacara Boone, New Jersey Rape Shield Legislation: From Past to Present -- The Pros and Cons, 17 Women's Rts. L. Rep. 223, 224 (1996) (footnotes omitted).] We expressed similar observations about our rape-shield statute in Budis: Those laws represent a legislative response to the common law rule permitting cross-examination of a rape victim about her prior sexual conduct. Such conduct was traditionally considered evidence of the victim's inclination to consent to sexual intercourse and of her lack of moral character and credibility. Because of the "character assassination" of the victim, rape trials sometimes degenerated to embarrassing invasions of the victim's privacy. One of the primary purposes of the statutes is to protect rape victims from excessive cross-examination, thereby encouraging them to report the abuse. The statutes also guard against the improper use of evidence of the victim's prior sexual experience. Thus, in addition to protecting victims of sexual assault, rape-shield statutes preserve the integrity of trials. By ensuring that juries will not base their verdicts on prejudice against the victim, the statutes enhance the reliability of the criminal justice system. [Budis, supra, 125 N.J. at 528-29 (citations omitted).] Fairly read, this record demonstrates that none of the interests underlying the enactment of the Rape Shield Law were significantly implicated by defense counsel's proposed cross-examination of Dr. D'Urso. The interest in "protect[ing] rape victims from excessive cross-examination," Budis, supra, 125 N.J. at 529, is not implicated because defense counsel intended only to cross-examine Dr. D'Urso. See Tague v. Richards, 3 F.3d 1133, 1139 (7th Cir. 1993) ("The degree to which A.T. would have been forced to relive this offensive conduct was ameliorated by the fact that she was not the witness being questioned regarding the incident."). The interest in protecting a victim from an accused's attempt to prove her lack of moral character and inclination to consent on the basis of prior sexual conduct is simply not compromised by the proposed cross-examination. The victim's only prior sexual experiences occurred ten years ago. If anything, they demonstrated the victim's lack of interest in sexual contact and established not that she was promiscuous but that her sexual experience was minimal. The question to be pursued by the proposed cross-examination did not concern the victim's inclination to consent, but rather her mental capacity to consent. The protections that the Rape Shield Law were intended to provide simply were not implicated by the proposed cross-examination. The Court insists that because the Rape Shield Law "was designed to protect the privacy and dignity of the victims of sexual crimes," ante at ___ (slip op. at 31), a "victim[] who [is] mentally challenged . . . should not have to forfeit the protections of the Rape Shield Law because an expert must explain her mental condition." Ante at ___ (slip op. at 31-32). The Court's rhetoric observes the issue. No one disputes that vulnerable victims are especially deserving of the protections of the Rape Shield Law. But those protections were designed to shield victims from cross-examination about prior sexual experiences designed to show inclination to consent -- not capacity to consent. The "capacity" issue dominated this trial because the State offered no evidence of force or coercion. The proposed cross-examination was not intended to embarrass the victim or invade her privacy, and the victim was not the witness to be cross-examined. Rather, the object of the cross-examination was the State's expert, who offered the crucial opinion concerning T.O.'s capacity to consent to sexual activity, and who relied on her prior experiences in formulating that opinion. Surely, the victim's privacy interest in avoiding that cross-examination is limited and attenuated. Because the prejudice to the victim from the proposed cross-examination was negligible, the probative value of the proposed cross-examination need not be overwhelming to sustain defendant's constitutional right to adduce that testimony. The Court, however, misperceives the purpose of the expert's cross-examination, observing that "[t}here is no indication that T.O. was not a willing participant in either [prior] sexual encounter . . . . These prior incidents, therefore, do not tend to prove that T.O. had the ability to exercise consent." Ante at ___ (slip op. at 24). Taking into account the context in which the issue of relevance arose, the Court's conclusion is flawed. The prior incidents, in isolation, may not demonstrate T.O.'s present capacity to consent to sexual activity. Their relevance, however, derives from the fact that the State's only expert witness relied on T.O.'s current account of those incidents in reaching his conclusion that she lacked the capacity to withhold consent. Both the State's and defendant's psychological experts conducted examinations of the victim in order to assess her capacity to consent to sexual activity. Both experts questioned the victim about her two prior sexual experiences, but their respective accounts of her description of those events differed sharply. The Court's opinion includes portions of the reports of both experts, and defendant's expert's account fairly can be characterized as describing the victim as a voluntary participant in both encounters, in marked contrast to the account contained in the State's expert's report. Ante at ___-___n.3 (slip op. at 10-11 n.3). Dr. D'Urso's report clearly indicated that he took into account the victim's report of her prior sexual experiences in determining that she lacked the capacity to withhold consent. When questioned by the trial court in camera about whether he relied on her description of her two prior sexual experiences to reach a conclusion about her capacity to consent, Dr. D'Urso replied: [T]he answer is yes. What weight it had, probably no more important or less important than any other example of how she deals with stress in her life. But it's one piece that this does have that nothing else has is obviously her knowledge of sexuality. Accordingly, contrary to the Court's implication, the focus of the proposed cross-examination was not on whether T.O.'s prior sexual experiences were consensual, but rather on the soundness of the conclusion reached by Dr. D'Urso in reliance on those experiences. Defense counsel also stressed the unique significance of the evidence relating to the victim's only two prior sexual experiences in the course of in camera argument to the trial court: I submit, Your Honor, that the State's case is almost entirely if not entirely predicated upon a psychological finding of defectiveness under the [C]ode. That's the whole State's case, Judge. There's no other evidence that I think would sustain a conviction in this case. If I am not allowed to examine the doctor on the factors that made up his opinion, his diagnosis as it will then, Judge, I'm [e]ffectively barred from cross-examining or from attacking that conclusion. What Your Honor is going to be saying to me is that you can ask him everything but perhaps the most important aspect of this particular case whether this girl has, could, would be able to consent to a sexual act or would be able to resist or repel that sexual act. In State v. Olivio, 123 N.J. 550, 564 (1991), this Court held that for purposes of prosecutions under N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2c(2) a person is mentally defective "if, at the time of the sexual activity, the mental defect rendered him or her unable to comprehend the distinctively sexual nature of the conduct, or incapable of understanding or exercising the right to refuse to engage in such conduct with another." We also held that the statute "imposes criminal liability only if the defendant 'knew or should have known' that the complainant was mentally defective." Id. at 568. Accordingly, Dr. D'Urso's opinion that the victim was incapable of exercising the right to consent or to refuse to engage in sexual activity was crucial to the State's case, and obviously was a primary factor in the jury's decision to convict defendant. Moreover, the expert's assurance -- or lack of assurance -- about the correctness of his conclusion obviously would bear on the jury's consideration of whether defendant knew or should have known that the victim's capacity to consent may have been impaired. Because defendant's English language skills were minimal, the strength or vulnerability of the expert's conclusions about the victim could have been the decisive factor in the jury's determination of defendant's culpability. Accordingly, an intense and comprehensive cross-examination of Dr. D'Urso was essential to the defense case. That an expert ordinarily is subject to cross-examination concerning the facts underlying his opinion is incontrovertible. See N.J.R.E. 705 ("The expert may testify in terms of opinion or inference and give reasons therefor without prior disclosure of the underlying facts or data, unless the court requires otherwise. The expert may in any event be required to disclose the underlying facts or data on cross-examination.") (emphasis added); see also State v. Martini, 131 N.J. 176, 264 (1993) ("'[A]n expert witness is always subject to searching cross-examination as to the basis of his opinion.' To determine the credibility, weight and probative value of an expert's opinion, one must question the facts and reasoning on which it is based.") (quoting Glenpoint Assoc. v. Township of Teaneck, 241 N.J. Super. 37, 54 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 122 N.J. 391 (1990)); State v. Clowney, 299 N.J. Super. 1, 19 (App. Div.) ("Thus, by its very premise for admissibility, its esoteric, abstruse, and especial nature, expert testimony and opinion are subjects for legitimately expansive cross-examination if a jury is to be enabled to assess their soundness."), certif. denied, 151 N.J. 77 (1997). The trial court not only barred defense counsel from cross examining Dr. D'Urso about his reliance on the victim's prior sexual experiences, but it also precluded defense counsel from questioning defendant's own psychological expert on the extent to which his opinion about the victim's ability to engage in consensual sexual activity was influenced by her own description to him of her two prior sexual encounters. Chief Justice Poritz and Justice Coleman join in this opinion. NO. A-141 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. AZEM CUNI, Defendant-Appellant. DECIDED [T.O.] has had two other sexual experiences that she related to this examiner. She stated that when she was still in high school a boy who was a friend of her[s] "demanded me to come over and like the stupid jerk, I went. I thought we were going to listen to albums and talk. He was in love with me" since elementary school. [T.O.] stated that she was "pinned." After the sexual assault, she stated that the male "had to use the men's room. I could have left, but I felt sorry (for him) because no one was home." [T.O.] stated that it also happened with a male "across the lake. After he did his thing on me, we played pool and I went home. I wasn't interested. I still don't. I don't want to do this." With regard to her sexual behavior, [T.O.] stated "I want to be a straight person. Not get married. Have no kids." Defendant's expert, Dr. Silikovitz, also recounted T.O.'s description to him of the same two incidents: The psychologist asked [T.O.] about her history of sexual contact. She indicated she was "molested" on two different occasions. On the first occasion, she was 19 years old and attending high school. A [male], who was approximately her age, asked her if she wanted to "f--- him." Not really knowing what it meant, she said no. He demanded that she come and she went to his place. She added, "I went and he did it." When asked what he did, she said, "I asked him to touch my breasts." He did this and then he stuck his penis in her vagina. When asked if she tried to stop him at the time, she said that, "No, we were just high school kids, we didn't know what we were doing." She added that she "let him" have intercourse with her. On the second occasion she was 19 or 20 and still going to high school and [another male] asked her to play pool at his place. She went. He undid her clothes and, "we hopped into bed." It was voluntary. She knew what she was doing. She let him have sex with her. . . . a. In prosecutions for aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual contact, criminal sexual contact, endangering the welfare of a child in violation of N.J.S. 2C:24-4 or the fourth degree crime of lewdness in violation of subsection b. of N.J.S. 2C:14-4, evidence of the victim's previous sexual conduct shall not be admitted nor reference made to it in the presence of the jury except as provided in this section. . . . If the court finds that evidence offered by the defendant regarding the sexual conduct of the victim is relevant and highly material and meets the requirements of subsections c. and d. of this section and that the probative value of the evidence offered substantially outweighs its collateral nature or the probability that its admission will create undue prejudice, confusion of the issues, or unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the victim, . . . . . . . . c. Evidence of previous sexual conduct with persons other than the defendant which is offered by any lay or expert witness shall not be considered relevant unless it is material to proving the source of semen, pregnancy or disease.