Court Opinion

ID: 9583570
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:39:56.637619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:57.844056
License: Public Domain

THOMPSON, J.,
dissenting in part.
As I construe the majority opinion, the only evidence in the proffer that would be admissible is (1) involving Leon Moore. The opinion states:
*222We agree with Winfield, however, that evidence tending to show that Sandra had a distinctive pattern of past sexual conduct, involving the extortion of money by threat after acts of prostitution, of which her conduct in this case was but an example, is relevant, probative, and admissible in his defense. The proffered testimony of Leon Moore appears to contain elements of this kind. . . .
. . . Thus there is a sufficient nexus between Sandra’s alleged efforts to extort money by threats from others, after acts of prostitution, and Winfield’s version of her conduct in the present case, to render such evidence relevant and probative of a motive to fabricate.
The majority pays due respect to the analysis of the statute by Dean Kneedler, but omits his explication of the “motive-to-fabricate” provision:
[The provision] was intended to be quite narrow in scope, limited to instances in which evidence of the victim’s prior sexual conduct creates an inference that the victim had an ulterior motive to charge the defendant with sexual assault.
. . . Properly interpreted, therefore, the provision operates only where the motive to fabricate arises directly from the past sexual conduct. . . .
The victim’s relationship with a third person may suggest a motive to fabricate the charge apart from evidence of the victim’s past sexual conduct with that person. In such cases, evidence of the victim’s past sexual conduct with that person should be excluded. For example, if a man finds his fiancee in bed with his best friend, and his fiancee then accuses the best friend of rape, how much evidence of the relationship between the man and his fiancee should be admitted to support the defense that the fiancee fabricated the charge? Obviously, the best friend would be permitted to introduce evidence of the victim’s relationship with her fiancee as evidence that she had a motive to fabricate the charge. The provision, however, does not permit the admission of . evidence of the sexual relationship between the victim and her fiancee unless it is the sexual relationship that gave rise to the motive to *223fabricate. On the facts of this hypothetical, unless it could be shown that the victim’s past sexual conduct with her fiancee gave rise to the motive to fabricate, evidence of that conduct would not be probative of a motive to fabricate and should, therefore, be excluded. An even clearer case would arise if the accused attempted to show that the victim had had prior sexual relations with third persons with whom the victim had no current relationship. Such evidence clearly would be irrelevant to the existence of a motive to fabricate. Its only use would be either to show that the victim had a general propensity to engage in consensual sexual acts or to impeach the victim’s general credibility, both of which are prohibited under the new sexual assault law.
In sum, a sexual relationship may be relevant to demonstrate a motive to fabricate, but it will not be relevant in every case. Thus, under the motive-to-fabricate provision, the trial judge must consider carefully whether there is a sufficiently direct link between the past sexual conduct and the motive to fabricate to warrant admission of that conduct.
Kneedler, Sexual Assault Law Reform in Virginia—A Legislative History, 68 Va. L. Rev. 459, 494, 495-496 (1982).
These isolated episodes have two common ingredients: (1) sexual intercourse; and (2) the client’s unwillingness to pay for the services rendered. In the first instance, compliance was effected after a threat to expose the client’s conduct to his spouse; in this case, it was alleged that the collection method was an accusation of rape. The majority states there is a nexus or common link between the two. I disagree.
In the Leon Moore liaison, there was no falsehood, no motive to fabricate. Yet from this can the fact finder logically infer the motive to fabricate the charges against Winfield? Is a threat to expose the truth the same as a motive to fabricate? I do not perceive a common thread in such dissimilar conduct.
In my opinion, the Leon Moore incident is not admissible. A threat to extort money is not the legal equivalent of a motive to fabricate, and I dissent to that extent