Opinion ID: 834890
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidence of the Victim's Prior Injuries

Text: We turn to defendant's argument that the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court's ruling excluding evidence that the victim earlier had been subjected to physical abuse. As discussed above, defendant initially was charged with, among other things, murder by abuse. During defendant's first trial, the state introduced evidence that the victim had been physically abused as well as evidence of her prior injuries. Before the second trial, the court stated that, given the fact that defendant no longer was being charged with murder by abuse, it intended to try a narrower case and was not inclined to permit the introduction of evidence of the victim's prior abuse or injuries, except to the extent that they related to the cause of her death. Defendant responded, however, that, in addition to other purposes, he intended to offer evidence of the victim's prior abuse and injuries to explain the basis for his experts' opinions that the victim died from injuries that were inflicted at least several days before June 29, 2002. He argued that his experts had reviewed the victim's medical records, including the autopsy report and tests showing healing broken bones, and determined that the victim had been subjected to chronic child abuse. Defendant explained that the experts would testify that that determination supported their conclusions that the victim's fatal injuries were inflicted in the period before June 29. The trial court excluded that evidence, giving multiple alternative reasons for its ruling. First, the trial court ruled that the evidence was irrelevant to defendant's theory that the victim's preexisting abdominal injuries worsened on the night of her death, causing her preexisting subdural hematoma to rebleed. Second, the trial court ruled that the probative value of the evidence of prior injuries was outweighed by the danger of jury confusion. Third, the trial court ruled that the evidence was not admissible under OEC 404(3), which provides: Evidence of other crimes, wrongs or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that the person acted in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident. In that latter connection, the court stated that the prior injuries could not be tied to any particular person, and even if they could have been, they would not be admissible because the defense had not shown that they were being offered for any admissible purpose under OEC 404(3). Finally, the court ruled that neither the defense's nor the state's experts were permitted to allude to the fact that the victim had been abused or that their diagnoses relied on the victim's previous injuries, except to the extent that they could tie the prior injuries to the medical cause of the victim's death. As noted, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's ruling without discussion. Defendant asks this court to reverse the Court of Appeals' decision in that regard. Defendant contends that he did not offer evidence of the victim's prior injuries as prior bad acts to prove anyone's character under OEC 404(3), nor did he contend that anyone was acting in conformity with his or her character in inflicting the victim's fatal injuries. Rather, he argues, the evidence is relevant because it tends to show that the victim had suffered repeated abuse, either negligently or intentionally, that the abuse began long before the victim died, and that that abuse may have included abdominal and head injuries that were inflicted prior to June 29 but that eventually resulted in the victim's death on June 30. According to defendant, his experts based their conclusions that the victim's fatal injuries occurred at least several days before the date of her death, in part, on the fact that the victim had been subjected to child abuse in the past. Defendant argued that his experts were entitled to explain that they reached that conclusion from their review of the victim's medical records and the autopsy and tests showing healing rib and leg fractures. We agree with defendant that the trial court erred in excluding the evidence of the victim's prior physical abuse as a basis for the expert's testimony. Defendant did not offer that evidence to establish any particular person's conduct or character; he offered it for another, permissible, purposeto establish the basis for his experts' conclusions that the victim suffered the injuries that resulted in her death before June 29. See OEC 703, 705 (expert may testify to reasons for opinion and facts on which opinion is based). It is true that defendant's experts did not tie any particular prior abuse, medically, to defendant's theory that, on the night she died, the victim suffered an exacerbation of her abdominal injury and/or a rebleed of a preexisting subdural hematoma. However, defendant did explain to the trial court that his experts concluded that the fact that the victim repeatedly had been harmed in the past was one of the bases for their opinions that the victim had suffered a brain and abdominal injury at least several days before she died. That is, evidence that the victim had suffered frequent serious injuries during the course of her life supported the experts' view that she also had suffered serious injuries the week or so before her death. That, in turn, made it more probable that, in the week before her death, the victim incurred the injuries that, in the defense experts' view, ultimately killed her. The state argues, on the contrary, that evidence of the victim's past injuries was not relevant, because evidence that someone committed earlier child abuse is not evidence that defendant did not commit the fatal injuries on June 29. The state contends that there is no logical inferential connection between those two propositions. We think that the state's argument misses the point. As we have discussed, defendant's experts testified that the autopsy revealed that the victim died from injuries to her abdomen and brain that were inflicted at least several days before her death. The experts would have testified that the fact that the victim also suffered other repeated physical injuries before June 29 supported those conclusions. The experts were entitled to explain the bases for their opinions and were not barred from doing so by OEC 404(3). [17] As noted, the trial court also concluded that, even if the evidence were relevant, it should be excluded under OEC 403, because its probative value was outweighed by the risk of jury confusion. Although the trial court did not explain its ruling, the state argues that assessing who, if anyone, caused the prior injuries would have been confusing and pointless. We agree that evidence of who caused the prior injuries potentially would be confusing to the jury, and, more importantly, under the particular circumstances presented in this case, it would not be relevant to any issue of consequence to the jury's determination. Because the state elected to charge defendant with intentional acts committed on or between June 29 or 30, it was not important who, if anyone, injured to the victim before those dates. [18] As the state acknowledges in its brief to this court, if the fatal injuries were inflicted before June 29, even if they were inflicted by defendant, defendant could not be convicted of the charged offenses. The jury therefore had no need to determine who, if anyone, was responsible for injuries inflicted before June 29. That argument also misses the point, however. Defendant's experts testified that the victim died from injuries inflicted before June 29 and that those injuries (and not what occurred on June 29) were the precipitating cause of the victim's death. To support their testimony, defendant's experts were entitled to testify that they based their opinions, in part, on the fact that the child had been the victim of ongoing abuse throughout her life, as evidenced by her medical records and prior injuries. The experts' reasoning and the evidence on which they relied was not only relevant, it was necessary to aid the jury to evaluate their conclusions. The trial court erred in precluding the experts from testifying to the bases for their opinions. Like the error in excluding Payne's lay opinion testimony, the trial court's error was not harmless. The expert's conclusions went directly to the heart of defendant's factual theory of the case. Davis, 336 Or. at 34, 77 P.3d 1111. The trial court's erroneous exclusion of the evidence that the experts used to reach their conclusions could have affected the jury's determination of whether to believe the experts and whether there was reasonable doubt that defendant fatally injured the victim on June 29 or 30, 2002. On this record, we cannot say that there was little likelihood that the evidence of the victim's prior injuries affected the jury's verdict. Because we conclude that that error was not harmless, we reverse the ruling of the trial court excluding evidence of the victim's prior injuries, and we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals affirming that ruling. The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed in part and affirmed in part. The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case is remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.