Opinion ID: 2336542
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidence of Prior Sexual Acts

Text: The defendant points to a second error in the process leading to his conviction, namely, that he was denied the opportunity to present to the jury evidence of certain prior sexual acts purportedly engaged in by the alleged victims. That evidence, the defendant argues, was necessary to rebut the natural inference in the minds of the jurors that the victims, aged 6 and 7, would be too sexually innocent to fabricate their allegations about the defendant and that those allegations must therefore be true. In order to rebut this inference, argues the defendant, the prior sexual conduct of the victims is relevant and admissible under Delaware's rape shield law, 11 Del. C. § 3508. The State counters that other jurisdictions interpreting statutes similar to § 3508 have held such prior sexual activity inadmissible where, as here, the prior acts are different in kind from those alleged in the criminal complaint against the defendant. [9] Because a legally valid determination of jurisdiction was never made before Franklin's Superior Court trial, that trial (and the verdicts reached in it) is of no legal effect. [10] For that reason we have remanded this case for a determination by the presiding Superior Court judge of the defendant's amenability to the jurisdiction of Family Court. Because the defendant (assuming he is found non-amenable to the Family Court's jurisdiction) would have to be retried in the Superior Court, we need not reach the issue of the admissibility of the alleged victims prior sexual acts. We note, however, that the admissibility of any prior sexual acts must be determined in light of the facts and circumstances at hand and the purposes of the rape shield law itself. For these reasons, the Superior Court on retrial (or, if the defendant is found amenable, the Family Court in the first instance) is not bound by the determination of the admissibility of the prior sexual acts based on the law of the case doctrine or otherwise.