Opinion ID: 1774407
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Time interval

Text: Mr. Hernandez raises several arguments to support his position that the witness's testimony should not have been admitted despite the pedophile exception. First, he argues that the testimony should not have been admitted because the abuses of the two girls occurred some two years apart. Mr. Hernandez's abuse of the victim ended in 1990 when she was twelve, and the witness testified that she was abused by Mr. Hernandez in 1992. Since the adoption of Rule 404(b), we have recognized time as a factor in determining the probativeness of evidence of a prior crime. Larimore v. State, 317 Ark. 111, 877 S.W.2d 570 (1994). In several cases involving the pedophile exception, we have admitted evidence of another crime which occurred over a year prior or subsequent to the crime with which the appellant was charged. In Douthitt v. State, 326 Ark. 794, 935 S.W.2d 241 (1996), we upheld a refusal to sever three rape counts from other counts involving incest and first-degree violation of a minor against the appellant when the rape counts were alleged to have occurred from 1989 through 1991 and the other sixty counts were alleged to have occurred in 1993 through March 1994. The appellant argued that the break in time reflected that the rape charges were not a part of a single scheme or plan and that the trials therefore should have been severed. We, referring to the pedophile exception, held that the Trial Court did not abuse its discretion in denying severance because the same evidence was admissible against the appellant in each count of sexual abuse. In Mosley v. State, supra , a case involving a charge of rape of the appellant's stepdaughter and incest that began when she was fifteen, we held that the Trial Court properly admitted proof that the appellant, eleven years earlier, had pleaded guilty to the crime of carnal abuse of his six-year-old stepdaughter. Referring to the pedophile exception, we noted that the Trial Court considered both the similarity of the prior conviction to the current charges of rape and incest and the step-parental relationship of the appellant with both of the victims and that the Trial Court correctly applied Rule 404(b). Recently, in Munson v. State, supra , we held it was proper to admit a witness's testimony of sexual abuse that occurred two and a half years prior to the abuse of the victim in the case in view of the similarity of the acts of abuse with each victim. The passage of two years between the time of the abuse of the victim and the abuse of the witness in this instance is not a sufficient basis for us to hold that there was an abuse of the Trial Court's discretion in admitting the witness's testimony.