Court Opinion

ID: 9778474
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:06:39.970993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:09.768663
License: Public Domain

TOM RICKHOFF, Justice,
concurring.
I admit to a persistent prejudice against the arcane judicial dance required of trial courts when they balance probative and prejudicial value in cases involving deviant behavior, including sexual abuse of the young. The basic problem is an illogical conflict between rules of evidence 403 and 404(b) on the one hand, and certain deviant human behavior on the other. We have become slaves of this ancient rule, in spite of evidence that it conflicts with all we have learned of human nature in the last two hundred years. The net result is that no evidentiary question has been more frequently litigated or is more difficult to resolve.
“This policy of the Anglo-American law is more or less due to the inborn sporting instinct of Anglo-Normandom — the instinct of giving the game fair play even at the expense of efficiency of procedure.” 1 John Henry Wigmore, Evidence § 57 (Chadbourn rev.1940). This ancient concept of excluding character-conformity evidence was further advanced „by the English judiciary’s “merciful impulse to mitigate the cruelty of the bloody criminal code by throwing obstacles in the way of its operation.” Id. (quoting Darling v. Westmoreland, 52 N.H. 401, 406 (1872)).
So the English developed this rule so that simple human characteristics like quarrelsomeness did not lead to convictions for assault. Naturally this rule is antagonistic to the rale which prevails in many other countries, like France, where the fact-finder has “the benefit of the light to be derived from a record of the whole past life of the accused, his tendencies, his nature, his associates, his practices ... all of the facts which go to make up the life of *185a human being.” Id. (quoting People v. Shea, 147 N.Y. 78, 41 N.E. 505 (1895)).
In our age, however, medical science has identified many deviant behaviors that demonstrate that character conformity is as relevant as direct evidence (e.g., Mun-chausen’s syndrome by proxy). Once a chronic deviant behavior is established, evidence of conformity is relevant indeed, and is often the most relevant evidence available.
.My argument is not with this opinion; rather, it is with the rules excluding evidence of character in chronic deviant behavior cases, and with the legal reasoning exhibited in one of the most-quoted cases in this area. To me sexual abuse of young children, for example, is not “some collateral crime or misconduct” that we must shield from the fact finder. Instead, it is consistent behavior, not “other crimes, wrongs or acts.” Tex.R.App. P. 404(b). There should be no search for relevance in some other elemental fact, such as identity or intent. See Creekmore v. State, 860 S.W.2d 880, 885 (Tex.App.—San Antonio 1993, pet. ref d) (arguing that character is always at issue when one is charged with sexually abusing children in one’s care).
Apparently the Texas Legislature’s frustration threshold has been surpassed by this illogical rule. See Tex.Code CRiM. PROC. Ann. art. 38.37 (Vernon Supp.l999)(permitting evidence of other crimes, wrongs or acts by defendant against a victim under 17). This exception is far too narrow. Instead, as other commentators have proposed, Rule 404 “should be deemed irrelevant to situations in which the behavior in issue is thought to be a function of a medical condition rather than a reflection of character commonly understood to involve generalized traits such as honesty.” 1 Steven Goode et al, Texas Practice: Guide to the Texas Rules of Evidence: Civil and Criminal § 404.6.3 fn. 55.5 (2d Ed.1993 & Supp.1998). See also David P. Bryder and Roger C. Park, ‘Other Crimes’ Evidence in Sex Offense cases, 78 Minn. L.Rev. 529 (1994).
I recognize that in this record there exists no expert evidence that a pedophile’s past deviant behavior predicts future behavior. However, it is enough to read Judge Clinton’s euphemistic version of Montgomery’s aberrant behavior to know how far from common sense and how lost in judicial technicalities our law has become. See Montgomery v. State, 810 S.W.2d 372, 392-393 & fn. 5 (Tex.Crim.App.1990)(op’n on reh’g). In this new age of medical and scientific learning, I believe this hoary maxim of Anglo-Norman jurisprudence is overdue for an overhaul.