Court Opinion

ID: 9657372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:23:39.439394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:44.330321
License: Public Domain

SNELL, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur with the majority opinion holding the case must be reversed and remanded for a new trial. The evidence of the defendant’s prior sexual acts with one other than the victim should have been excluded as inadmissible evidence of a character trait under Iowa Rule of Evidence 404(b), and as unfairly prejudicial evidence under Iowa Rule of Evidence 403.
In addition, the evidence should have been excluded as not relevant under the standards established by Iowa Rule of Evidence 401. The prior-acts evidence is dissimilar to the charged offense to which relevancy is claimed. Defendant’s engaging in a sex act with his wife was not only legal but did not involve children in any illegal act. The State’s assertion of relevancy stretches the word “relevant” in a fashion that would unreasonably admit remotely connected subject matter having sex as a nexus.
NEUMAN, J., joins this special concurrence.