Opinion ID: 2487581
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Progeny of Lee v. State

Text: In holding that evidence showing the defendant impregnated the sister of the victim is inadmissible in Alabama, Williams v. State, 73 So.3d at 736, the Court of Criminal Appeals also relied on Bowden v. State, 538 So.2d 1226 (Ala.1988), Watson v. State, 538 So.2d 1216 (Ala.Crim. App.1987), Grizzell v. State, 507 So.2d 969 (Ala.Crim.App.1986), and Sellers v. State, 41 Ala.App. 612, 145 So.2d 853 (1962). In reviewing the holding of the Court of Criminal Appeals, we consider these cases as well as related cases decided by this Court. In Bowden v. State, supra , this Court affirmed the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision in Watson v. State, supra . [4] In Anonymous v. State, 507 So.2d 972 (Ala. 1987), this Court affirmed that court's judgment in Grizzell v. State, supra . [5] A plain reading of these cases reveals that they do not support the holding of the Court of Criminal Appeals in this case that evidence showing the defendant impregnated the sister of the victim is inadmissible in Alabama. 73 So.3d at 736. In both Bowden and Anonymous, this Court considered, among other issues, the admissibility of evidence indicating that the defendant in each of those cases had committed wrongful sexual acts with the victim's sister and the admissibility of evidence indicating that the defendant had impregnated the victim's sister. In both cases, this Court held that those issues were to be determined by applying certain general rules of evidence to the facts of each case. See Bowden, 538 So.2d at 1233 (The same factors for determining the admissibility of collateral acts of misconduct by the accused in other types of prosecutions are to be applied in determining the admissibility of collateral acts of sexual misconduct in the prosecution of sex crimes. Which is to say that, provided the test for materiality is met, evidence of collateral crimes or misconduct may be admitted. Of necessity, this analysis is case by case . (final emphasis added)); Bowden, 538 So.2d at 1227 (Applying the [general exclusionary] rule [of evidence] and its exceptions to the facts in Anonymous, we concluded that the Court of Criminal Appeals correctly determined that the evidence of ... the [victim's] sister's pregnancy and resulting child was inadmissible.); Anonymous, 507 So.2d at 973 (In order to reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals, a determination must necessarily be made that the evidence which that court held to be inadmissible was, indeed, admisible. To make that determination, the applicable laws of evidence must be applied to the unique facts of this case. . (emphasis added)). In Sellers v. State, 41 Ala.App. 612, 145 So.2d 853 (1962), the victim's sister testified at trial that the defendant had raped and impregnated her. Unlike Lee, however, there was no suggestion in Sellers that someone other than the defendant could have been the father of the victim's sister's child. The Court of Appeals provided no analysis of the application of general rules of evidence to the specific facts of the case. Rather, citing the result in Lee, the Court of Appeals held that testimony that the defendant had raped the victim's sister was admissible but that evidence of the resulting pregnancy multiplied the issues and tended to divert the minds of the jury from the main issue. Sellers, 41 Ala.App. at 615, 145 So.2d at 856. It appears that, in Sellers, the Court of Appeals interpreted the result Lee as a blanket rule that, in a prosecution for rape of a child, evidence showing that the defendant raped another child is always admissible, while evidence of the resulting pregnancy of the other child is never admissible. See Sellers, 41 Ala.App. at 615, 145 So.2d at 856 (We cannot circumvent the holding of the Lee case and are, therefore, compelled on the authority thereof to order a reversal of this case.). Lee, of course, did not lay down such a blanket rule. See Lee, 246 Ala. at 72, 18 So.2d at 708. Because Sellers misapplies Lee in this regard and also conflicts with Bowden and Anonymous, we hereby overrule Sellers. Alabama has no general rule that evidence showing the defendant impregnated the sister of the victim is inadmissible. Williams, 73 So.3d at 736. Rather, the admissibility of such evidence is to be determined according to the rules of evidence on a case by case basis. Bowden, 538 So.2d at 1234.