Opinion ID: 2183130
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Occult Practices

Text: On appeal, the defendant argues that he should have been allowed at trial to introduce evidence that Fernandez practiced voodoo and witchcraft and when doing so, often went into trances as a result of such practices. He asserted that in the past during these voodoo-inspired trances, Fernandez had attacked him, thus leading him to believe that she was about to attack him again during the early-morning altercation on February 5, 1994. The trial justice sustained the state's objection to the proffered occult testimony on relevancy grounds. We have consistently held that questions pertaining to the relevancy of evidence proffered at trial are subject to the sound discretion of the trial justice. State v. Tempest, 651 A.2d 1198, 1215 (R.I. 1995). Absent a showing that a trial justice has abused his or her discretion, this Court will defer to thetrial justice's determination of relevancy. State v. Cote, 691 A.2d 537, 543 (R.I. 1997) (citing Tempest, 651 A.2d at 1216.) Our review of the record before us clearly reveals that the trial justice in this case did not abuse her discretion in excluding the defendant's proposed voodoo and witchcraft testimony. The trial record indicates that she allowed extensive testimony concerning the alleged prior assaults upon him by Fernandez to come before the jury in support of his self-defense theory, but that she chose not to overburden the jury with the speculative evidence pertaining to past occult-induced trances and assaults by Fernandez. The trial justice found that such evidence had little relevance to the issues at trial. That choice, we believe, was well within the bounds of sound discretion and was without error.