Opinion ID: 2096207
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Bolstering Rationale

Text: We turn then to the second rationale frequently offered for the depraved sexual instinct exception  that allowing such evidence lends credence to a victim's testimony describing acts which would otherwise seem improbable standing alone. This rationale has its origins in an era less jaded than today. When the accusations were brought in Robbins, in the late 1930s, the idea that an adult male who occupied a position of responsibility in the community would force himself sexually upon a child bordered on the preposterous. Sadly, it is our belief that fifty years later we live in a world where accusations of child molest no longer appear improbable as a rule. [8] This decaying state of affairs in society ironically undercuts the justification for the depraved sexual instinct exception at a time when the need to prosecute is greater. Indeed, there remains what might be labeled the rationale behind the rationale, the desire to make easier the prosecution of child molesters, who prey on tragically vulnerable victims in secluded settings, leaving behind little, if any, evidence of their crimes. Nearly four decades ago, the Minnesota Law Review, noting the trend toward admissibility of depraved sexual instinct-type evidence, attributed it to a feeling that handicapping the state in the prosecution of criminals is undesirable. It is also likely that a realization of the difficulty of obtaining proof of sexual offenses has been partially responsible for the trend. Note, Evidence of Similar Transactions in Sex Crime Prosecutions; A New Trend Toward Liberal Admissibility, 40 Minn.L.Rev. 694, 704 (1956). The emotional appeal of such an argument is powerful, given the special empathy that child victims of sexual abuse evoke. But even this cannot support continued application of an exception which allows the prosecution to accomplish what the general propensity rule is intended to prevent. In the interest of aiding the prosecution, we could of course expand the exception and abrogate the general rule. After all, our empathy for victims of all crimes is considerable. But the general rule prohibiting the state from offering character evidence merely to show the defendant is a bad guy and therefore probably committed the crime with which he is charged remains as fundamental today as ever. We indeed live in a vulgar age, Lee v. Weisman, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 112 S.Ct. 2649, 2681, 120 L.Ed.2d 467 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting), when recidivists flout the law and routinely violate the behavioral norms of civilized society. We have not yet reached the point, though, where we are prepared to abandon a basic tenet of criminal evidence law older than the republic itself, [9] however desirable the social end may be. As we said in Penley v. State (1987), Ind., 506 N.E.2d 806, 808: The notion that the State may not punish a person for his character is one of the foundations of our system of jurisprudence. Evidence of misconduct other than that with which one is charged (uncharged misconduct) will naturally give rise to the inference that the defendant is of bad character. This, in turn, poses the danger that the jury will convict the defendant solely on this inference.