Court Opinion

ID: 9717957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:13:29.894206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:56.322880
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(specially concurring).
Pedophilia is a type of sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object.
Appellant testified he did not sexually molest A.P.
A.P. testified she was sexually molested by appellant.
R.H., a sister of A.P., who lived in the same household (at one time) * with appellant and her sister, testified that at a time not remote to A.P.’s molestation, she was sexually molested by appellant.
This appellant committed acts which were similar — evincing a plan and a scheme —to sexually molest the little girls in this household. He would, inter alia, try to isolate them from other members of the family — using family transportation — and then perpetrate his sexual advances and contacts.
Though I believe this Court has been far too liberal in the past in affirming some convictions where certain “bad acts” were used, it is my opinion that the credibility of A.P. and appellant were greatly in dispute; R.H.’s testimony was sufficiently probative and relevant for admission under SDCL 19-12-5. Acts against R.H. were not remote-in-time, nor were they extrinsic, for they were within the family circle.

R.H. was removed therefrom through a dependency/neglect action.