Court Opinion

ID: 9784844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:55:43.606076+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:00.233201
License: Public Domain

ROBINSON, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the Court’s ruling that the trial justice did not abuse her discretion *337when she opted to deny the defendant’s motion for a mistrial, choosing instead to give what the Court accurately describes as an “immediate and thorough instruction to the jury.”
I respectfully dissent, however, from the Court’s holding that the trial justice did not err when she denied defendant’s motion for a judgment of acquittal.14 It is my opinion that the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence that defendant and Mary had “been in a substantive dating * * * relationship within the past one year * * *." G.L.1956 § 12-29-2(b).
The evidence that the prosecution presented with respect to the existence of such a relationship was, in my view, quite meager, and I believe that it was insufficient to establish that there was a substantive dating relationship between Mary and defendant. Mary testified as to when her relationship with defendant began and when it ended; and she responded affirmatively to the prosecutor’s leading question about whether the relationship had been “intimate.” There was no further testimony or evidence about the relationship between Mary and defendant.
I respectfully submit that the just-referenced evidence was insufficient to support a determination that a substantive dating relationship had existed; too much was left unaddressed. For example, we are not even told how often the two individuals saw each other during the six-month period in question, even though “the frequence of the interaction between the parties” is one of the “factors” that the statute specifically directs be considered. See § 12-29-2(b)(3); see also Devon M. Largio, Refining the Meaning and Application of “Dating Relationship” Language in Domestic Violence Statutes, 60 Vand. L.Rev. 939, 965 (2007).
For these reasons, I believe that there was insufficient meaningful evidence as to the existence of a substantive dating relationship. Accordingly, I believe that the defendant’s motion for a judgment of acquittal with respect to that issue should have been granted.

. Although neither party has challenged the fact that the question of whether or not there was a substantive dating relationship was submitted to the jury, I would hope that this Court will have occasion in another case to pass upon the propriety of such a submission to the jury in view of the fact that the statute indicates that it is the court’s role to make such a determination.