Opinion ID: 1929404
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of Victim's Sexual Contact with Others

Text: In the past, we have relied on principles of retroactivity established by the United States Supreme Court as a matter of federal constitutional law. For example, in Poitraw v. State, 322 A.2d 594, 597 (Me.1974) and Nadeau v. State, 232 A.2d 82, 86 (Me. 1967), we applied the retroactivity standard established by the Court in Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965). The United States Supreme Court has since rejected the Linkletter approach as unprincipled and inequitable, see Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 322, 107 S.Ct. 708, 712, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987); and adopted a new standard of retroactivity for convictions on post-conviction review in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. at 302, 109 S.Ct. at 1071. In Teague, the Court adopted a position previously advocated by Justice Harlan in his concurring opinion in Mackey v. United States, 401 U.S. 667, 692, 91 S.Ct. 1160, 1180, 28 L.Ed.2d 404 (1971) (separate opinion of Harlan, J.). Teague, 489 U.S. at 309, 109 S.Ct. at 1075. The general rule adopted in Teague provides that new constitutional rules of criminal procedure will not be applicable to those cases which have become final before the new rules are announced. Id. The Court explained: Application of constitutional rules not in existence at the time a conviction became final seriously undermines the principle of finality which is essential to the operation of our criminal justice system. Id. 489 U.S. at 307, 109 S.Ct. at 1074. The Court summarized the two exceptions to the general rule of nonretroactivity identified by Justice Harlan as follows: First, a new rule should be applied retroactively if it places certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making authority to proscribe. Mackey, 401 U.S., at 692, 91 S.Ct., at 1180 (separate opinion). Second, a new rule should be applied retroactively if it requires the observance of those procedures that ... are `implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.' Id., at 693, 91 S.Ct., at 1180 (quoting Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S.Ct. 149, 152, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937) (Cardozo, J.)). Id. 489 U.S. at 306, 109 S.Ct. at 1073. The Court applied the second exception in Teague with a modification that it be reserved for watershed rules of criminal procedure. Id. at 308, 109 S.Ct. at 1075. The trial court found that our decision in Jacques met the requirements for retroactivity described in the second Teague exception. Thompson argues that, although Jacques fits into one of the Teague exceptions, we should not adopt the Teague approach because it places its highest premium on the finality of criminal judgments. We need not reach this issue, however, for both Linkletter and Teague require that the case in question announce a new rule in order to be retroactively applied. See Poitraw, 322 A.2d at 597 (applying the Linkletter standard to determine whether retrospective effect [should] be given to ... court decisions changing the rules and law in existence at the time of trials ) (emphasis added); Teague, 489 U.S. at 300, 109 S.Ct. at 1070 ( Teague standard requires court to first consider whether the case announces a new rule ) (emphasis added). We hold that Jacques did not announce a new rule. In State v. Davis, 406 A.2d 900, 902 (Me.1979), we held that a defendant was unfairly prejudiced by the exclusion of evidence of a child victim's sexual curiosity because this subjected the defendant to the grave risk that, not being otherwise informed, the jury might regard a complainant of tender years as too innocent of sexual matters to think up the kind of sexual conduct she had described unless it was real and she had actually experienced it. Id. Thompson argues, however that the adoption of M.R.Evid. 412 [1] which became effective on February 1, 1983 changed this area of the law. In State v. Albert, 495 A.2d 1242 (Me.1985), we distinguished Davis not by the intervening adoption of Rule 412 but instead by the defendant's inadequate offer of proof, holding: [i]n contrast to the offer of proof made by defense counsel in State v. Davis, 406 A.2d 900, 901 (Me.1979), here defense counsel did not, as was required of him by M.R.Evid. 103(a), make known to the court the substance of the ... testimony that was to be used to establish what the Defendant claimed was the victim's lack of innocence. Id. at 1243; see also id. at 1244 (also implying that, notwithstanding Rule 412, evidence of prior sexual contact might be admissible if offered to challenge the jury's assumption of child's innocence). In Jacques, we made it clear that a defendant may be allowed to offer evidence of a child victim's sexual conduct with others to rebut a presumption of naiveté despite Rule 412. Jacques, 558 A.2d at 708. Given our prior decisions in Davis and Albert, however, Jacques did not announce a new legal concept changing the rules and law in existence at the time of Thompson's trial. Because Jacques did not announce a new legal concept, Thompson could have raised this evidentiary question on direct appeal and it is now deemed waived by 15 M.R.S.A. § 2128(1) (Supp.1991). See McEachern v. State, 456 A.2d 886, 889 (Me.1983).