Court Opinion

ID: 9611380
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:56:16.19918+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:14.290988
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM RAY PRICE, JR., Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. I would not overrule State v. Bernard, 849 S.W.2d 10 (Mo. banc 1993). Neither would I overrule State v. Gilyard, 979 S.W.2d 138 (Mo. banc 1998). As Judge Holstein wrote in Gilyard,
... when two or more victims independently report the same distinctive acts during or preliminary to separate sexual assaults by a defendant, the earlier acts are probative of the veracity of the last victim. Bernard, 849 S.W.2d at 17. The more unusual and distinctive the act, the higher the probative value of the act in corroborating the last victim’s testimony.
979 S.W.2d at 141. Defendant’s actions here, as described in the majority opinion, were sufficiently distinctive to warrant their probative value and, in. turn, their admissibility. I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.