Court Opinion

ID: 9525684
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:06:19.09814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:16:36.117725
License: Public Domain

GIVAN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in this case. I believe the majority opinion extends the rule laid down in Lannan v. State (1992), Ind., 600 N.E.2d 1334.
In the Court of Appeals opinion in this case, reported at 619 N.E.2d 947, the Court of Appeals set out a quotation from Lan-nan wherein this Court stated that its ruling in Lannan was not intended to prevent evidence of prior conduct which would show “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake.” Id. at 948.
Because the trial court stated that it was admitting the evidence in the case at bar under the depraved sexual instinct rule, which the majority acknowledges was in force at that time, the majority decides the case as though that were the only valid reason for the admission of the evidence. The majority in this case broadens the rule to prohibit the evidence although the precise statements in Lannan would have admitted it.
The case at bar is a clear demonstration of the tactics used by good defense counsel in a case of this type. First, counsel seeks to keep from the jury any past conduct of his client. Secondly, if he succeeds in so doing, he may then proceed to extensively cross-examine the child victim who, of course, is unsophisticated in matters of human sexual conduct and is no match for a skilled cross-examiner.
*802Given this performance alone, it is not too difficult for the skilled defense lawyer to establish reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. If he has been successful in excluding any evidence of his client’s past conduct, he may present his client to the jury as a person of impeccable morals who has been falsely accused by an uninformed or possibly neurotic child who totally misconstrued his client’s good intentions.
I believe the Court of Appeals correctly evaluated this case in view of our holding in Lannan and correctly affirmed the trial court. I would deny transfer in this case.