Court Opinion

ID: 9712446
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:54:10.068147+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:12.286572
License: Public Domain

*219MONTEMURO, Judge,
dissenting:
I must respectfully dissent. The Rape Shield Law, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 3104, reads as follows:
(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.
(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 other 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).
The Rape Shield Law governs the admissibility of evidence relating to the alleged victim’s past sexual conduct. The facts of this case pertain to the exception in the statute which allows testimony of the victim’s past sexual conduct with the defendant when consent is at issue. The threshold question therefore is whether Richard Nichol’s version of the events that took place in the garage constituted evidence of past sexual conduct, thereby placing him within the confines of the statute.
Richard proposed to testify that at one point in the evening, about two hours before Carol’s estimation of intercourse, he and Carol went for a walk and had sexual intercourse in a nearby parking garage. Richard’s version included the CYO dance as a backdrop to the alleged event, and the parking garage was in reasonable proximity to the car and the dance. The majority places great emphasis on *220the fact that the “proffered testimony was of an act which occurred at a different time, in a different place, and in different circumstances from those alleged by Carol.” Majority Opinion at 531-532. This strong statement is at best hairsplitting and at worst places undue weight on the testimony of Carol.1 For the purposes of determining what constitutes “past” sexual conduct, it would seem that the majority’s interpretation is much too strict and hypertechnical. A difference of two hours, in the context of the facts of this case, does not, in my opinion, render Richard’s account a past act. The doctor’s testimony established that Carol did in fact have sexual intercourse sometime that evening. Both Richard’s and Carol’s accounts include an act of sexual intercourse. Both accounts occurred generally under the same circumstances. Richard’s proposed testimony was not to be used to show that Carol was inclined to consent to having intercourse at a later time, but as a rebuttal to her version of the act of intercourse and as an explanation for the existence of the sperm in her vagina. Based on the facts of the case, I would conclude that Richard’s version was contemporaneous with Carol’s version for the purpose of defining past sexual conduct under the Rape Shield Law.2 I wpuld therefore conclude that the lower court erred in excluding the testimony, and accordingly, grant a new trial.3 My analysis would not involve the application of a per se *221rule regarding a time differential which would trigger coverage by the statute. Trial courts would, on an ad hoc basis examine both the time interval, and all the particular circumstances in their determination of whether proposed testimony would or would not be considered as past conduct.
Although, under the facts of this case, my interpretation of “past sexual conduct” would in and of itself require a reversal, I find it necessary to address the majority’s discussion of when “consent is at issue”. Because of the contemporaneousness of the two versions, I would find that consent was at issue. Even though Richard testified that intercourse did not occur in the car (denial vs. consent), he would have testified that he had consensual intercourse with Carol that same night. The majority states that consent was not at issue. They reason that because Richard denied the act in the car, and because his version took place at an earlier time and under different circumstances, that consent was not at issue on the night in question. They then go on to say that he could have placed consent at issue simply by raising it pretrial. This conclusion is not only contradictory, but it ignores the wording in the statute; even worse, it accomplishes exactly what the majority states they are trying to avoid—the emasculation of the Rape Shield Law. The majority comments upon the meaning of “consent at issue”.
Viewed from a procedural standpoint, the statute appears to be clearly written to allow an exception only where consent of the alleged victim is at Issue. The term “at issue” is generally understood to mean the stage in the pleadings where there is affirmation on one side and denial on the other. See Black's Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition (1979) at 114. In this criminal context, the legislature has provided ample guidance as to its meaning in the use of “at issue”. Subsection (b) of the Rape Shield Law expressly requires firstly that a defendant—in order to gain use of the narrow exception governing introduction of past sexual conduct—must file a written motion and offer of proof, and secondly the court must determine that the written motion and offer of proof are sufficient on *222their faces. Only after such submission and preliminary review by the court is the question of consent of the alleged victim at issue.
Majority Opinion, at 531 n.7 (Emphasis in original).
I fail to see where the legislature has provided “ample guidance” as to its meaning in the use of “at issue”. Subsection (b) of the Rape Shield Law prescribes when the motion is made and how the motion is presented. Similarly, Black’s Law Dictionary adds nothing. Lack of consent is an element of rape.4 It is necessarily an issue. There is always affirmation on one side and denial on the other.
The majority later comments:
In situations such as that presented by this case, the procedure should be to file the § 3104(b) motion, even though the type of situation which immediately jumps to mind as being covered by the statute is that where a defendant concedes that the sexual act complained of did in fact occur, but insists, contrary to the allegation of the complaining witness, that the act was consensual. The fact that the complaining witness had previously consented to past sexual conduct with the defendant was what would have made him think she consented on the occasion in question.
Majority Opinion at 532 n.10.
The holding urged by appellant and by the dissenting opinion would emasculate the Rape Sheild Law. The statute is a clear command of the legislature . . .
Majority Opinion at 532.
The majority’s conclusion that a defendant may avail himself of the exception of the Rape Shield Law even though he denies the act complained of renders the phrase in the statute, “where consent of the alleged victim is at issue,” either totally meaningless or redundant. My perception of the phrase is the one that the legislature most certainly envisaged; that the testimony may be brought in only when the defendant admits the act of intercourse, but claims that *223the victim consented.5 See Commonwealth v. Strube, 274 Pa.Super. 199, 418 A.2d 365 (1979), cert. denied 449 U.S. 992, 101 S.Ct. 527, 66 L.Ed.2d 288 (1980).
The majority has tortured the facts and has erroneously applied the law to affirm the conviction in this case. In doing so, they have simply made bad law.
I therefore dissent.

. We must keep in mind that the discussion should focus on admissibility not credibility.

. The majority states that the prosecution specifically was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Richard raped Carol in the car, and they treat any other version as a separate incident. The majority’s analysis takes the allegation as a fact and then proceeds to point out how Richard’s version differs from Carol’s. We are not determining sufficiency of the evidence. We are determining admissibility of the evidence and for that purpose we should not base a decision on fine lines as to matters of credibility. The majority states, “They are two separate incidents, whether both, either, or neither in fact occurred.’’ Majority Opinion at 531 (Emphasis added). The majority’s analysis belies that supposition.

. Because the error may have contributed to the conviction, the error was not harmless. Commonwealth v. Story, 476 Pa. 391, 383 A.2d 155 (1978).

. 18 Pa.C.S.A. 3121.

. Here Richard is claiming that he had consensual intercourse with Carol, albeit at a different place and at a different time. Under our analysis, Richard’s version of intercourse was contemporaneous with Carol’s version for the purpose of placing consent at issue. She says, and he denies, that it happened in the car. Clearly, if he had sought to introduce past sexual conduct with Carol allegedly occurring on their previous dates, the § 3104(b) motion would have been necessary.