Opinion ID: 1669169
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Pregnancy and Miscarriage

Text: During trial, Hankins made an offer of proof that, if permitted, Stortz would testify that 2 days before the killings, Danae Cook told him she had miscarried their baby, and that he was certain he was the father. The State objected to the evidence because of a lack of relevance and unfair prejudice, confusion, and misleading of the jury. The trial judge sustained the State's relevancy objection, and Hankins now claims the ruling as error, asserting the evidence is relevant to show that Stortz had motive to kill Danae Cook. Relevant evidence means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action appear more probable or less probable than it would appear without the evidence. In re Interest of Adams, 230 Neb. 109, 430 N.W.2d 295 (1988); State v. Wells, 229 Neb. 89, 425 N.W.2d 338 (1988); Neb.Rev.Stat. § 27-401 (Reissue 1985). Evidence is probative if it tends in any degree to alter the probability of a material fact. State v. Wells, supra ; State v. Oliva, 228 Neb. 185, 422 N.W.2d 53 (1988). If the evidence offered could show that a material fact is slightly more probable than it would appear without the evidence, it is relevant. Id. Section 27-401 requires only that the degree of probativeness be something more than nothing. Id. The evidence has little, if any, probative value as to whether Stortz had motive to kill Danae Cook, her mother, and her brother. Moreover, even if the evidence were relevant and thus should have been admitted, its exclusion was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Harmless error exists in a jury trial of a criminal case when the court makes an erroneous evidential ruling which, on review of the entire record, did not materially influence the jury in a verdict adverse to the defendant. State v. Cox, 231 Neb. 495, 437 N.W.2d 134 (1989). Here, Hankins' confession, combined with the abundance of extrinsic evidence which corroborates it, overwhelmingly establishes Hankins' guilt, as is more fully developed in the analysis which follows in part II, 6.