Title: Ex parte David Paul Pittman.

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

REL:09/30/2015
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance
sheets of Southern Reporter.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-
0649), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before
the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter.
SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA
SPECIAL TERM, 2015
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1141190
____________________
Ex parte David Paul Pittman
PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI
TO THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
(In re: David Paul Pittman
v.
State of Alabama)
(Eufaula Circuit Court, CC-12-330;
Court of Criminal Appeals, CR-14-0021)
BOLIN, Justice.
WRIT DENIED.  NO OPINION.
1141190
Stuart, Shaw, Main, Wise, and Bryan, JJ., concur.
Moore, C.J., and Parker and Murdock, JJ., dissent.
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MOORE, Chief Justice (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from this Court's denial of David
Paul Pittman's petition for a writ of certiorari. Pittman
pleaded guilty to second-degree rape, § 13A-6-62, Ala. Code
1975, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion
in limine. He was sentenced to 102 months' imprisonment; that
sentence was split, and he was ordered to serve 24 months'
imprisonment. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the
judgment of the circuit court in an unpublished memorandum.
Pittman v. State (No. CR-14-0021, July 2, 2015), __ So. 3d __
(Ala. Crim. App. 2015) (table).
The facts before us indicate that Pittman filed his
motion 
in 
limine 
seeking 
a 
pretrial 
ruling 
on 
the
admissibility of evidence of the complaining witness's sexual
history to show that the complaining witness had a motive to
lie about having been raped by Pittman. The first basis for
Pittman's motion was to argue he was not the source of the
complaining 
witness's 
sexually 
transmitted 
disease. 
The 
second
basis for Pittman's motion was to exercise his constitutional
rights to confront and to cross-examine witnesses, to testify
in his own defense, and to have compulsory process to secure
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1141190
witnesses. The Court of Criminal Appeals' unpublished
memorandum presented the following exchange between Pittman's
attorney and the circuit court at the hearing on the motion in
limine:
"'Judge, she was caught earlier in the week, the
complaining witness, with a little boy, and what I
think the evidence will show, alone locked in the
room.
"'Her parents confront her and question her as
to whether she is sexually active. She claims she is
not.
"'The complaining witness' father says, "Well,
I'm going to take you to the health clinic and get
you tested and find out whether you are lying or
not."
"'....
"'So that gives her motive. She is concerned
that she is about to get caught being sexually
active. She fears her parents [sic] disapproval and
she's got to have an out, and she blames Mr.
Pittman. That's what we want to argue.'"
Pittman's petition to this Court asserts that the complaining
witness's father, on the morning of July 8, 2011, repeated the
threat to take her to the doctor for testing. Later that
afternoon, she told her father that Pittman had raped her in
the early morning hours of that same day. The Court of
Criminal Appeals' memorandum also stated:
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1141190
"Defense 
counsel 
further 
explained 
when 
asked 
by
the circuit court how he was going to prove the
complaining witness engaged in sexual activity
before the rape that he 'intend[ed] to do it through
cross-examining 
[the 
complaining 
witness] 
and
cross-examining her mother and her father and say,
"Isn't it true that y'all suspected your daughter
was sexually active?"' ... Defense counsel conceded
to the circuit court 'I don't know that I can prove
that she was sexually active with 100 percent
certainty, but I can prove that her parents were
worried about it and that they had reason to suspect
she was....'"
The district attorney originally alleged that the
complaining witness had been infected with the herpes virus by
Pittman. After being tested, Pittman was found not to have
herpes. Because Pittman could not have infected the
complaining witness, the State abandoned this allegation. The
circuit 
court, 
after 
hearing 
the 
preceding 
arguments 
regarding
the admissibility of the evidence, denied the motion. The
Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Pittman's conviction,
concluding that Pittman had failed to furnish evidence of
specific instances of the complaining witness's sexual
behavior as required by Rule 412(b)(1), Ala. R. Evid., and was
arguing with "nothing more than conjecture." 
Pittman argues in his petition to this Court that he
should have been permitted to offer in his defense evidence
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1141190
indicating that the parents of the complaining witness
suspected her of sexual activity and that the complaining
witness had herpes. I believe this evidence could be relevant
to the complaining witness's alleged motive in accusing
Pittman and that it is not barred by Rule 412, Ala. R. Evid.,
the rape-shield rule. 
Generally, Rule 412, Ala. R. Evid., prohibits admitting
evidence in rape cases that is "offered to prove that any
complaining witness engaged in other sexual behavior." Rule
412(b) provides three exceptions, however, one of which
permits "evidence the exclusion of which would violate the
constitutional rights of the defendant." I believe Pittman's
constitutional rights to be confronted with witnesses against
him, protected by the Sixth Amendment to the United States
Constitution, may have been violated by the denial of his
motion in limine.
Pittman argues that the Court of Criminal Appeals'
decision conflicts with Olden v. Kentucky, 488 U.S. 227
(1988). In Olden, a defendant convicted of rape was prohibited
by a Kentucky court from offering evidence that the alleged
victim cohabited with another man and had a motive to lie
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1141190
about being raped. The United States Supreme Court reversed
the judgment of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, stating:
"We emphasized [in Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308
(1974),] that 'the exposure of a witness' motivation
in testifying is a proper and important function of
the 
constitutionally 
protected 
right 
of
cross-examination.' ... '[A] criminal defendant
states a violation of the Confrontation Clause by
showing that he was prohibited from engaging in
otherwise appropriate cross-examination designed to
show a prototypical form of bias on the part of the
witness, and thereby "to expose to the jury the
facts from which jurors ... could appropriately draw
inferences relating to the reliability of the
witness."'"
488 U.S. at 231 (emphasis added). I believe that we should
issue the writ to consider whether, if Pittman's motion in
limine had been granted, a reasonable jury then "could [have]
appropriately draw[n] inferences relating to the reliability
of the [complaining][w]itness." Instead, it appears Pittman
was unable to confront his accuser, to cross-examine the
complaining witness and her parents, and potentially to
discredit the complaining witness's testimony.
Rule 412 protects victims of sexual crimes from undue
harassment and humiliation by a defendant who seeks to cloud
the minds of the jury with irrelevant issues. See Moseley v.
State, 448 So. 2d 450, 456 (Ala. Crim. App. 1984). However,
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1141190
our attempts to protect complaining witnesses must not
victimize a defendant by removing his confrontation 
and 
cross-
examination rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments
of the United States Constitution and under Article I, § 6, of
the Alabama Constitution of 1901. I would grant Pittman's
petition to examine whether Rule 412 in this case was applied
unconstitutionally.
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