Case Name: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Randy Alan PARKER, Defendant-Appellant
Court: Idaho Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Idaho
Decision Date: 1986-11-19
Citations: 112 Idaho 1
Docket Number: No. 15588
Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Randy Alan PARKER, Defendant-Appellant.
Judges: BISTLINE, J., concurs.
Reporter: Idaho Reports
Volume: 112
Pages: 1–10

Head Matter:
730 P.2d 921
STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Randy Alan PARKER, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 15588.
Supreme Court of Idaho.
Nov. 19, 1986.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 16, 1987.
Renae Hoff, Caldwell, for defendant-appellant.
Jim Jones, Atty. Gen., Lynn E. Thomas, Sol. Gen., and Myma A.I. Stahman, Deputy Atty. Gen., for plaintiff-respondent.

Opinion:
HUNTLEY, Justice.
A jury convicted Randy Alan Parker of forcible rape. On appeal, Parker argues the district court erred in admitting the prosecutrix's taped statement made between two and three hours after the alleged rape. Parker further argues the district court erred in barring evidence of his character for the trait of sexual non-ag gression towards women and the victim's admission that she left home the day before the alleged rape because she was pregnant.
The case arises from the following facts: The fourteen-year-old victim was walking alone on a road near Lake Lowell one evening at about midnight. A car driven by Parker approached her. She did not know him. There was a woman passenger in the car named Peggy Bauder, a friend of Parker's and unknown to the victim. Parker asked the victim if she wanted a ride and she eventually got in the car. Bauder testified that when asked where she was going, the victim said, "I don't know."
In Marsing, Idaho, Parker stopped the car to make a phone call which lasted just a few minutes. The victim remained in the car, though she admitted at trial she could have gotten out. The three then drove to a house "far out in the country" and went inside. There, the victim told Bauder that she had left home that day because she was pregnant. Bauder then went to bed leaving the victim alone in the front room with Parker. At trial the court struck Bauder's testimony as to the victim's admission of her pregnancy on grounds that I.C. § 18-6105 (1984), the rape-shield law, made inadmissible any references to the victim's prior sexual conduct.
The victim, while in the house to which Parker had taken her, picked up the phone and called her home. This occurred between five o'clock and five-thirty in the morning. Her mother answered. When the victim said "Mom," Parker grabbed her arm, forcing the receiver to the hook. Parker then made advances towards her, which culminated in sexual intercourse. Shortly thereafter, at about six-thirty in the morning, the victim went to the residence of the Durrant family, which was near the house to which Parker had driven her. At the Durrant's, she called her mother and asked that the family pick her up and to bring the police. The victim's father called Brent Mabbott, an Idaho Fish and Game officer and a cousin of the victim's, and asked him to meet the family at the Durrant residence.
At the Durrant's, within three hours after the alleged rape, Mabbott tape recorded a statement of the victim in which she contended she had been raped. The trial court allowed the tape to be played to the jury. Later, when the defense presented its case, it offered as character evidence the testimony of Joseph Shaw, to the effect that Parker was not violent and, specifically, was not sexually aggressive towards women. The court denied admission of this evidence on grounds that the evidence of rape indicated that while Parker used his weight to hold the victim down, he did not use enough violence to raise an inference that he had a trait for violence which would justify admitting rebuttal character evidence of Parker's reputation for sexual non-aggression towards women. The jury found Parker guilty of forcible rape, declined to find him guilty of statutory rape, and found him not guilty of kidnapping.
I.
The first issue is whether the district court erred in denying the admission of character evidence of Parker's trait for sexual non-aggression towards women. To properly review a challenged denial of evidence, this court must know exactly what evidence the lower court denied. This requires that an offer of proof be made at trial. Such an offer must include evidence of all the specific facts which the proffered testimony tends to establish, rather than mere "argumentative conclusions." The Boise Association of Credit Men, Ltd. v. United States Fire Insurance Co., 44 Idaho 249, 260, 256 P. 523, 526 (1927). In Credit Men, the offer of proof asserted a Mr. Smith had committed several acts of arson as part of a continuing scheme to collect insurance money. The offer included evidence of his motive to commit arson. However, the trial court excluded the evidence, and this court affirmed, on grounds the offer of proof included no evidence that the previous fires were set, or that Smith could have set them. Credit Men, 44 Idaho at 260, 256 P. at 526.
In the instant case, Parker's counsel called a reputation witness. The prosecution objected. In the ensuing colloquy, Parker's counsel stated in general terms that she wanted to call some witnesses who knew Parker socially and in business, who would testify that Parker had a reputation for being sexually non-aggressive towards women. At no point did Parker's counsel state for the court and the record the specific reputation testimony she intended to elicit, or the foundational testimony that would tend to establish all the facts requisite to the admission of reputation evidence. For example, counsel did not state explicitly the extent to which the witnesses were familiar with the circles in which Parker moved, sufficient for the court to rule on the adequacy of a foundation for reputation evidence. Nor did counsel state explicitly whether the character witnesses based their perception of Parker's reputation either upon the affirmative statements of others that Parker did not behave in a sexually aggressive manner toward women, or upon a lack of statements indicating Parker behaved in a sexually aggressive manner towards women. For these reasons, there is no proper offer of proof preserved for appeal. As stated in Credit Men:
An offer cannot be made in general terms, but must be so made as to give the court an opportunity to rule on the specific testimony, and must embrace all the facts showing the admissibility of the evidence, and must be of facts, and not of conclusions. Credit Men, 44 Idaho at 261, 256 P. at 256.
The inadequacy of Parker's offer of proof prevents this court from determining that the district court erroneously excluded reputation evidence of Parker's lack of a trait for sexual aggression towards women. On this issue we affirm the trial court.
II.
We turn to the issue of whether the district court erred in admitting the victim's taped statement made to an Idaho Fish and Game officer two to three hours after the alleged rape. The prosecution offered the out-of-court statement to prove the truth of the matter asserted — that Randy Parker had raped the victim. The statement was, therefore, hearsay. Isaacson v. Obendorf, 99 Idaho 304, 309, 581 P.2d 350, 355 (1978).
The prosecution argues the district court properly admitted the statement under the excited utterance exception to the rule against the admission of hearsay. That exception has two requirements. "First, there must be an occurrence or event sufficiently startling to render inoperative the normal reflective thought processes of an observer. Second, the statement of the declarant must have been a spontaneous reaction to the occurrence or event and not the result of reflective thought." E. Cleary, McCormick on Evidence, § 297 (3d ed. 1984). Whether the taped statement met this test lay within the district court's exercise of sound discretion. We must affirm the admission of the evidence unless the court abused its discretion. State v. Randolph, 99 Ariz. 253, 408 P.2d 397, 398 (1965); Frazee v. State, 79 Okl.Cr. 224, 153 P.2d 637, 642 (1944).
In sex crime cases, the excited utterance exception often receives broader application than in other cases. From the traditional admission of evidence of the fact of a victim's complaint of sexual assault, there has developed an expansion of the excited utterance exception under which many jurisdictions admit not only the fact of complaint, but its details. Six Wigmore, Evidence in Trials at Common Law, § 1761 and cases cited in n. 2, p. 243-44 (Chadbourn rev. ed. 1976). "The trend is to allow details of the offense and the identity of the offender, a result which appears wholly justifiable." E. Cleary, McCormick on Evidence, § 297 at p. 859 (3d ed. 1984). The tendency to admit such statements, even when made hours after the event, probably lies in their high probative value. Given that sexual assault crimes violate one's most intimate physical and mental feelings, the victim can reasonably be expected not to discuss the crime until meeting with a family member, close friend, law enforcement agent, or other trusted individual. State v. Adams, 394 So.2d 1204 (La.1981). In Adams, the court affirmed the trial court's admission of a five-year-old victim's hearsay complaint made eight to ten hours after the rape, where that was the earliest opportunity the child had to report the occurrence to a close family member.
In the instant case, the victim got away from Parker, apparently within a few minutes after the rape, went directly to the home of a total stranger, called her parents, and waited silently for their arrival. When they did arrive, she did not immediately tell them what happened. Instead, she waited a few minutes for her cousin, a State Fish and Game officer, to arrive. She then related to him the events of that morning, which he taped. According to the Fish and Game officer's testimony, at the time of her statement, she was crying, red-eyed, looked very tired, and looked like a lot had happened to her.
A sexual assault is one of the most distressing experiences a person could have. The distress is likely to remain bottled up in the victim until she or he can talk about what happened. Since a fourteen-year-old girl told a trusted individual of her alleged sexual assault at virtually the first opportunity she had while in a state of obvious emotional distress, the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting her taped statement as an excited utterance.
III.
Parker's third major contention is that the district court erred in excluding the victim's statement to Ms. Bauder that she had left home because she was pregnant. The district court excluded this statement on the ground that "I.C. § 18-6105 [Idaho's "rape shield law"] provides clearly in the prosecution of the crime of rape, evidence of the prosecuting witness' previous sexual conduct shall not be admitted nor reference made thereto."
I.C. § 18-6105 reads:
18-6105. Evidence of previous sexual conduct of prosecuting witness. — In prosecutions for the crime of rape, evidence of the prosecuting witness' previous sexual conduct shall not be admitted nor reference made thereto in the presence of the jury, except as provided hereinafter. The defendant may make application to the court before or during the trial for the admission of evidence con cerning the previous sexual conduct of the prosecuting witness. Upon such application the court shall conduct a hearing out of the presence of the jury as to the relevancy of such evidence of previous sexual conduct and shall limit the questioning and control the admission and exclusion of evidence upon trial. Nothing in this section shall limit the right of either the state or the accused to impeach credibility by the showing of prior felony convictions. (Emphasis supplied).
Defense counsel argued at trial, and now on appeal, that the statement was not offered as evidence of the victim's prior sexual conduct, but as evidence of her belief that she was pregnant. Parker convincingly argues that the victim's belief in her own pregnancy would provide a motive to fabricate her rape testimony. That is, she might try to blame the pregnancy on the rape, and thereby deflect any suspicion, particularly on the part of her parents, that she had engaged in consensual sexual activity at her young age.
However, the court did not inquire into the relevancy of the evidence to her motive to fabricate, which inquiry is mandated by the statute.
The statutory requirement of a judicial inquiry into the relevancy of evidence of prior sexual conduct is a legislative recognition that, where the defendant denies ever having had intercourse with the prosecutrix, then evidence of her prior unchastity is immaterial, since it is relevant to consent, and consent would not be in issue in such a case. People v. Battilana, 52 Cal.App.2d 685, 126 P.2d 923, 929 (1942). The defense in the instant case appears to have been consent, based on defense counsel's attempt on cross-examination of the victim to show she did not resist Parker's sexual advances.
In rape cases where the defense is consent, evidence of prior unchastity may be relevant and material, under I.C. § 18-6105, on the issue of consent. Moreover, whether consent is an issue in the case, the prosecutrix's motive to fabricate, that is, her credibility, is always in issue. Therefore, the victim's admission of her belief she was pregnant was relevant, as a matter of law, on the charge of forcible rape and should not have been summarily excluded. This error requires that the conviction be set aside and the case be remanded for retrial or other appropriate proceedings.
Reversed and remanded for further appropriate proceedings.
BISTLINE, J., concurs.
SHEPARD, J., concurs in I and II, concurs in the result in III.
DONALDSON, C.J., and BAKES, J., concur in I and II, dissent in III.
. Parker's counsel strongly indicated in the following colloquy that the reputation testimony would be based upon the fact the witnesses had never heard anyone discuss Parker's reputation for sexual aggression towards women:
MR. ANDERSON [prosecuting attorney]: Your Honor, if she's telling me that Joe Shaw is going to tell us that he's asked other members of the community whether this guy's got a trait for sexual aggression—
MS. HOFF [defense attorney]: Your Honor, that's not a requirement. In Idaho, when you talk about character evidence, it's not proper then — if the prosecutor asks the person if they've ever heard anyone say that he has this kind of reputation, that's not proper cross.
In some states it is, but in this jurisdiction, just because they haven't heard about his reputation or haven't discussed it with other people does not mean that he doesn't have that reputation in the community where he works and lives.
And the only other thing that I can say about that is I know men who I could honestly say I've never discussed the fact — you know, I've discussed with people that he has a reputation for not being sexually aggressive, but that's really what the gist is here. You can still have a reputation for certain things and not have it discussed among other members of the community.
Testimony offered to prove good reputation, when based on the witnesses' complete lack of exposure to discussion of the subject's bad reputation, is inadmissible in Idaho, contrary to defense counsel's assertion. State v. Trego, 25 Idaho 625, 650, 138 P. 1124, 1132 (1914). A character witness's lack of exposure to discussion of bad reputation creates a weak negative inference of good reputation for all character traits. The weak negative inference is outweighed by the inference that the individual has no particular reputation for the trait in issue or the inference that the witness is simply unfamiliar with the individual's reputation and is therefore incompetent to testify. As held in Trego, such evidence is inadmissible as a matter of law.