Opinion ID: 1500007
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Past Sexual Conduct

Text: By a motion in limine, the appellant sought to prevent any testimony as to sexual contact between his stepdaughter and himself other than the offense charged. The motion was denied. The victim testified as to her prior sexual relationship with the appellant. She said he had hit her in connection with prior sexual episodes and she testified that he hits pretty hard. In Price v. State, 267 Ark. 1172, 599 S.W.2d 394, (Ark.App.1980), our court of appeals analyzed Uniform Rule of Evidence 404(b) which provides: Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he 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. The court said: In our view, the rule should be interpreted to exclude evidence of other offenses when its only purpose is to show the accused's character or some general propensity he might have to commit the particular sort of crime in question. It should not be interpreted to exclude evidence of other offenses when that evidence is probative of the accused's participation in the particular crime charged. If it is probative of his participation the only remaining question should be whether it is so prejudicial that it should be excluded because the prejudice brought about by exposition of other offenses is not sufficiently balanced by the probative value of the evidence on the facts sought to be proved. See, Rule 403. [267 Ark. at 1176, 599 S.W.2d at 396.] We affirmed the court of appeals decision in Price v. State, 268 Ark. 535, 597 S.W.2d 598 (1980). We said: Although petitioner contends that Rule 404(b) prohibits the introduction of testimony of other criminal activity, the rule clearly permits such evidence if it has relevancy independent of mere showing that the defendant is a bad character. In other words: `If other conduct on the part of the accused is independently relevant to the main issuerelevant in the sense of tending to prove some material point rather than merely to prove that the defendant is a criminalthen evidence of that conduct may be admissible, with a proper cautionary instruction by the court. (Citation omitted.)' [268 Ark. at 538, 597 S.W.2d at 599.] We most recently dealt with the question in Johnson v. State, 288 Ark. 101, 702 S.W.2d 2 (1986), where we again held that evidence of prior incestuous acts with the same person was admissible. We interpret Rule 404(b) as meaning that if the evidence of prior bad acts is relevant to show the offense of which the appellant was accused occurred, and is thus not being introduced to show only bad character, we will not exclude it. While we may not be able to tie the evidence specifically to proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity or absense of mistake or accident, if it has an independent relevancy we will regard it as being, in the words of the rule, such as one of those permissible objects of proof. In this case the evidence that this forcible sexual intrusion by the appellant had been going on for some time was probative of both the victim's fear of the appellant and the fact that a rape could have occurred in the bathroom of a house which might have been full of people, after the accused merely shoved the victim to the floor. The trial court properly admonished the jury that the evidence was not being introduced to show the appellant's bad character or that he may have been acting in conformity with that bad character. We find no error.