Court Opinion

ID: 9575193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:12:21.655541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:05.116482
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because in this case, while the evidence may have been marginally relevant, its absence could not have made a difference.
The earlier molestation by an adult had occurred about two years previously. The doctor who physically examined the victim testified that a child age 3-V2 (the age of the child at the time of the earlier adult molestation) would not have a vivid memory of abuse. While it could have exacerbated or contributed to some of the syndrome manifestations such as withdrawal, bedwetting, nightmares, and hostility to adults, defendant elicited from the examining expert that knowledge of the earlier incident would not have changed his medical testimony. He had testified that the child had a large fresh abrasion brought on by trauma occurring within the past week and was still red, sore-looking, very tender to the touch, and in the process of healing. He also testified that the abrasion was consistent with finger manipulation or fondling of the genitalia area, and that disruption of the hymen ring was old and not consistent with the incident for which defendant was on trial. Evidence of the earlier incident, to which a family member pled guilty, could not have affected the evidence of recent trauma.
As to the “touching” incident by a neighbor’s child five or six months previously, it is even more remote from the purpose for which defendant sought admission. Defendant’s profferred evidence was the testimony of the social services worker who conducted an interview of the child about 5 months before the incident on trial. The child said that one of the girls next door rubbed between, her legs when they were playing. She indicated no fear of this girl and it appeared to the worker that the children had been “playing doctors.”
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Deen joins in this dissent.
*530Decided July 3, 1990
Rehearing denied July 25, 1990 — Cert, applied for.
Chew & Lamberth, Walter S. Chew, Jr., for appellant.
John R. Parks, District Attorney, Barbara A. Becraft, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.