Court Opinion

ID: 9737113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:16:24.056026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:56.606862
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I join in the majority’s decision to affirm Nieves’ conviction, and I agree with the majority’s analysis and disposition of the issues regarding the trial court questioning, the contemporaneous misconduct evidence, indirect references to prior misconduct, reciprocal discovery, and the challenge to discretionary aspects of sentencing. However, I do not join in any part of the analysis of the Rape Shield Law issue. I agree with the majority only in that the requested permission to conduct a cross-examination regarding the victim’s prior sexual activity was properly denied.
In this case both Nieves and the twelve-year-old victim had gonorrhea. The victim had been infected less than forty-eight hours before the post-assault examination. Nieves wanted to cross-examine the victim in an attempt to show that she had sexual relations with others, which would be an alternate source of her gonorrhea. He did not have a proffer of specific evidence but rather essentially asked the court to allow him to conduct a fishing expedition. The Rape Shield Law, codified at 18 Pa.C.S. § 3104, provides:
(a) General rule.—Evidence of specific instances of the alleged victim’s past sexual conduct, opinion evidence of the alleged victim’s past sexual conduct, and reputation evidence of the alleged victim’s past sexual conduct shall not be admissible in prosecutions under this chapter except evidence of the alleged victim’s past sexual conduct with the defendant where consent of the alleged victim is at issue and such evidence is otherwise admissible pursuant to the rules of evidence.
*296(b) Evidentiary proceedings.—A defendant who proposes to offer evidence of the alleged victim’s past sexual conduct pursuant to subsection (a) shall file a written motion and offer of proof at the time of trial. If, at the time of trial, the court determines that the motion and offer of proof are sufficient on their faces, the court shall order an in camera hearing and shall make findings on the record as to the relevance and admissibility of the proposed evidence pursuant to the standards set forth in subsection (a).
18 Pa.C.S. § 3104.
The statute is unambiguous, and the legislative intent is clear. In enacting this statute and making evidence of past conduct or reputation for past conduct inadmissible, the legislature “totally rejected]” the notion that the past conduct of the complainant is probative of consent to the act at issue. Commonwealth v. Majorana, 503 Pa. 602, 609, 470 A.2d 80, 83 (1983). The legislature made a strong statement that any use of prior sexual conduct with a third person for the purpose of proving consent or moral defect is prejudicial and of only limited probative value.
The statute allows consideration of whether past conduct evidence is admissible only if the victim and the defendant had past sexual relations, and the defense is consent. In § 3104(b) the statute sets forth a rigorous procedure to determine whether to admit or to exclude the evidence. Preliminarily, the defendant must place consent in issue by an offer of proof of evidence supporting the allegation, and only if the offer is sufficient on its face will the court then conduct an in camera hearing to determine whether the proffered evidence should be excluded pursuant to the rules of evidence; that is, even if logically relevant, the evidence should be excluded if its probative value is outweighed by unfair prejudice. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3104(b); See Commonwealth v. Black, 337 Pa.Super. 548, 487 A.2d 396 (1985).
The Rape Shield Law has withstood challenges to its constitutionality. In Commonwealth v. Quartman, 312 Pa.Super. 349, 458 A.2d 994 (1983) this court decided that *297the Rape Shield Law did not violate the defendant’s right to confrontation, and in Commonwealth v. Strube, 274 Pa.Super. 199, 418 A.2d 365 (1979), cert. denied, Strube v. Pennsylvania, 449 U.S. 992, 101 S.Ct. 527, 66 L.Ed.2d 288 (1980), we decided that the procedure set forth in 3104(b) does not violate a defendant’s constitutional right to due process. In Quartman the court explained that the:
fundamental right to confront witnesses often gives way, however, to certain evidentiary principles. The exclusion of hearsay evidence, for instance, is premised on the idea that such statements often lack the relevancy necessary to outweigh their questionable truthfulness and potential prejudice. In the same way, prejudicial and irrelevant opinion and reputation evidence is often excluded. These varied evidentiary exclusions do not deny an accused his right to a fair trial[,] as his need for the evidence is outweighed by considerations of truth and relevancy. Similarly, there is no constitutional right of the accused in a rape case to introduce evidence that is prejudicial, inflammatory and irrelevant.
Commonwealth v. Quartman, 312 Pa.Super. 349, 353, 458 A.2d 994, 996 (1983).
Our courts have created two additional narrowly-drawn exceptions to the evidence bar in addition to the exception supplied by the statute itself. In Commonwealth v. Majorana, 503 Pa. 602, 470 A.2d 80 (1983), semen was present in the victim after the alleged attack. The defendant’s defense was that there never was an attack but that semen was present because he had consensual sex with the victim two hours before the alleged attack. The Supreme Court distinguished this situation from a consent defense and held that in order to preserve the defendant’s right to confrontation, the Rape Victim Shield Law may not automatically bar evidence that an act other than the charged rape produced the objective signs of intercourse. Such evidence would be directly relevant to negate that there even was a sexual act between the victim and the defendant at the time of the *298alleged attack. However, the court emphasized that the proffered evidence must be:
evidence of an act close enough in time to account for the objective signs of intercourse and is further limited to the purpose of explaining the presence of those objective signs. However, a defendant cannot engage in the wide-ranging and harassing cross examination the statute legitimately prohibits.
Majorana, 503 Pa. at 611, 470 A.2d at 85 (emphasis added).
In Commonwealth v. Black, 337 Pa.Super. 548, 487 A.2d 396 (1985), this court carved out a second exception to the absolute bar of the Rape Shield Law. A father was. convicted of the statutory rape of his thirteen-year-old daughter. In defense, the father sought to introduce evidence that the daughter was having relations with her brother, which the father discovered. The father claimed that his discovery of this relationship triggered the daughter’s retribution through false accusation. We held that the Rape Shield Law cannot unequivocally bar such evidence. The Black court cautioned, however, that:
While we hold that Pennsylvania’s Rape Shield Law may not be used to exclude relevant evidence showing witness’ bias or attacking credibility, we do not hold that all material evidence is necessarily admissible. Although logically relevant, evidence tending to show the victim’s prejudice or lack of credibility may be excluded if “it would so inflame the minds of the jurors that its probative value is outweighed by unfair prejudice.” Commonwealth v. Stewart, 304 Pa.Super. 382, 387, 450 A.2d 732, 734 (1982) (additional citations omitted).
Commonwealth v. Black, 337 Pa.Super. 548, 557, 487 A.2d 396, 401 (1985). Significantly, the court determined that the evidence balancing determination should proceed by the proffer and in camera hearing procedure as mandated by 18 Pa.C.S. § 3104(b).
The majority states that “[tjhough laudable and long-overdue, Rape Shield laws, if rigidly construed, could impermissibly encroach upon a defendant’s right to confront and *299cross-examine witnesses which is secured by the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions.” Majority Opinion at 9. This statement improperly suggests that a re-evaluation of constitutionality by means of balancing the interests must occur every time the Rape Shield Statute is invoked.
First, the question of the Rape Shield Law’s constitutionality has been resolved by our courts and should not be under consideration in the present case. Further, reasoning from the premise of constitutionality, Majorana and Black create the only two exceptions to the absolute bar of the statute outside of the single exception included in the statute itself. The question of constitutionality, by means of applying a balancing of interests test, should not be revisited in every rape case. No authority approves such an approach. Unless the defendant presents the court with evidence that on its face establishes that either the statutory or one of the two judicially-created exceptions applies, the proffered evidence or requested cross-examination will be excluded on the basis of the Rape Shield Law without further consideration. § 3104; Majorana, supra; Black, supra. That the majority invokes numerous cases that consider whether one of these exceptions applies does not prove the contrary; the discussion only creates a misleading impression that courts always go beyond the plain language of the statute when applying the Rape Shield Law.
No cautious analysis is required in the case before us. Rather, it calls for direct application of the law to a fact situation that has already been considered by our Supreme Court. Nieves wanted to cross-examine the victim about prior sexual activity in order to uncover an alternative source of her gonorrhea. Therefore, under Majorana, if Nieves had proffered evidence that the victim had intercourse with another person infected with gonorrhea within forty-eight hours of the incident in question, the court may have allowed such evidence if, following an in camera hearing, it determined that the probative value of the evidence outweighed introduction of unfair prejudice.
*300However, Nieves offered no specific evidence of prior sexual intercourse of the victim with a particular person or a particular time close to the alleged assault. Opinion, Hon. D. Richard Eckman, President Judge, filed March 10, 1989. Rather, he asked permission to cross-examine the victim about her prior sexual activity generally. Because Nieves asked to cross-examine the victim generally regarding her past sexual activity and did not proffer specific evidence, we never reach the Majorana exception. No balancing is called for. All we must do is to apply the Rape Shield Law. I would hold that the trial court properly denied Nieves’ request for permission to cross-examine the victim regarding her prior sexual experience on the sole basis that the Rape Shield Statute prohibits it.
I would also add to the majority’s analysis of the admissibility of prison medical records and scope of business records exception issues that Nieves’ argument based upon the Disease Prevention and Control Law of 1955, codified at 35 P.S. 521.1 et seq., fails on the basis of the reason given by the trial court, that although the act contains penalties, none of these penalties are exclusion of evidence. Further, I would hold that Commonwealth v. Moore, 378 Pa.Super. 379, 548 A.2d 1250 (1988), alloc, granted 521 Pa. 616, 619, 557 A.2d 720, 722 (1989), which interprets 35 P.S. § 521.1 et seq, defeats both a challenge to the admissibility of the medical records that Nieves had gonorrhea and a challenge to the manner of its admission.