Opinion ID: 2826108
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: facts

Text: [¶4] In October of 2011 Matthew Snyder, his girlfriend, and her daughter JL moved to Gillette. Soon thereafter, JL, who was twelve years old at the time, learned she was pregnant. JL gave birth to a daughter in 2012. [¶5] In January of 2012, previous to giving birth, and shortly after her thirteenth birthday, Snyder forced JL to have sexual intercourse. This also happened again after she gave birth in May of 2012 and several more times between June and mid-September of 2012. [¶6] In October of 2012, the Wyoming Department of Family Services removed JL, the infant, and JL’s younger sister AH from the home because of allegations of abuse by Snyder against AH. While in foster care, JL also reported her incidents of abuse. [¶7] On November 8, 2012, the State charged Snyder with five counts of first degree sexual abuse of a minor. Prior to trial, the State filed a notice of its intent to introduce 1 uncharged misconduct evidence against Snyder under Wyoming Rule of Evidence 404(b). The State intended to introduce evidence that Snyder sexually abused JL while still living in California, stating in the notice that “[JL’s] mother allowed [Snyder] to rape [JL] to repay [Snyder] for getting JL back from her [biological] father’s custody.” To help prove that the prior abuse occurred, the State sought to introduce evidence that JL became pregnant while in California and that DNA testing confirmed that Snyder was the father of JL’s child. [¶8] A Gleason hearing was held on this limited issue. At its conclusion the district court ruled that it would allow evidence of the prior sexual abuse in California, as well as the DNA test results. The district court held that the uncharged misconduct was “necessary to the telling and the understanding of the story of the charged acts” and that the evidence would help “a trier of fact in understanding Defendant’s alleged deviant sexual behavior (i.e. sexually abusing a minor child) by showing the victim was essentially offered to [him] as a ‘reward/repayment’ for [Snyder’s] assistance in a custody dispute.” The district court also found that because Snyder denied the sexual abuse occurred, he put every element of the charges at issue; namely, whether or not he was the perpetrator. Finally, the district court determined that the Rule 404(b) evidence’s probative value was not outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice to Snyder. [¶9] At trial, the State called Wyoming State Crime Lab’s Christina Buettner to testify as its DNA expert. The prosecutor asked Ms. Buettner whether “Wyoming ha[s] a requirement as far as proof of paternity.” She referenced a “Wyoming statute,” and while she did not specifically state which statute, both parties agree that she was referencing Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 14-2-705(a)(ii) (LexisNexis 2015), which presumes a man to be the father of a child if he has a “combined paternity index of at least one hundred (100) to one (1).” Ms. Buettner then testified that the paternity index in Snyder’s test was 7 billion to one that Snyder was the father of JL’s child. There was no objection. [¶10] Snyder was convicted of all five counts, and the district court sentenced him to consecutive sentences of 25-50 years on each count. This appeal followed.