Court Opinion

ID: 9757221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:26:15.61566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:36.573948
License: Public Domain

BECK, Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result. I, however, would find testimony of prior incestuous activity which occurred nine years before the incident complained of inadmissible as not relevant. Although testimony of prior incestuous relations between the parties is admissible under some circumstance, testimony of isolated acts remote in time should not be admitted.
As the majority indicates, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in Commonwealth v. Bell, 166 Pa. 405, 412, 31 A. 123 (1895), held admissible testimony of prior incestuous acts. The Bell court underscored that such evidence is “admissible if it is one of a series of acts indicating contin-uousness of sexual intercourse. ” (emphasis added).
Similarly, in Commonwealth v. Niemetz, 282 Pa.Super. 431, 422 A.2d 1369 (1980), testimony of prior incestuous acts was held admissible. The victim’s testimony painted a picture of sexual intercourse with her stepfather that had become routine pattern for a period of nine years. In Niemetz, unlike the case sub judice, the nine-year-old sexual act testified to was one link in a continuous chain of sexual assaults.
Testimony of prior incestuous acts was admitted in Commonwealth v. Leppard, 271 Pa.Super. 317, 413 A.2d 424 (1979). Once again, however, the victim testified to repeated sexual acts over a period of several years.
In contrast with these cases, the testimony offered in the instant case concerned acts which occurred nine years before. The past acts did not indicate a pattern of sexual intercourse in a series. Rather, the crime charged and the prior acts were isolated events. The prior acts were too *497remote and therefore not relevant as to whether the appellant was guilty of the act complained of.
Given the overwhelming evidence of appellant’s guilt of the crime charged, I would find the admission of the testimony of prior sexual acts harmless error.