Court Opinion

ID: 9746367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:13:28.442057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:48.002868
License: Public Domain

SCOLNIK, Justice,
with whom NICHOLS, Justice, joins, dissenting.
Although I agree that the presiding justice acted within his discretion in the conduct of the jury voir dire examination, I would vacate the conviction because I conclude that the admission of evidence of John Doe’s heterosexuality, in violation of M.R.Evid. 404(a), was obvious error.
Recognizing that the admission of the evidence in question was improperly received, the court, nevertheless, concludes that this unpreserved error failed to meet the “obvious error” test. It is with this conclusion that I strongly disagree. The defendant’s guilt or innocence in this case turned on whether John Doe consented to the sexual act in question; the victim’s lack of consent being an essential element of the crime charged. To determine this critical issue the jury was required to decide which of the two, John Doe or the defendant, was telling the truth on the witness stand. In what should have been an oath against oath “swearing contest” for the jury to resolve, several witnesses were permitted to give testimony of John Doe’s heterosexuality. Because the jury was *894thus permitted to mfer that this heterosexual victim would not have freely consented to a homosexual act, the balance in the credibility contest was prejudicially tipped against the defendant. The jury was permitted to do exactly that which the rule of evidence forbade: it could infer that a trait of John Doe’s character, his alleged heterosexuality, proved that he acted in conformity with that trait by not consenting to a homosexual act on this particular occasion. In a one-on-one credibility competition for the jury’s acceptance of testimony, I cannot imagine a clearer instance of “a seriously prejudicial error tending to produce manifest injustice.” See State v. True, 438 A.2d 460, 467 (Me.1981).
The court, in recounting portions of the testimony of the two principal parties, appears to employ a sufficiency of the evidence analysis. In the context of the obvious error standard, such a review of the evidence is inappropriate. The crucial issue is a narrow one: whether the erroneous admission into evidence of testimony from four witnesses regarding John Doe’s heterosexuality so tainted the proceedings as virtually to deprive the defendant of a fair trial. Id. at 468.
Only if the testimony of John Doe is believed on the consent issue can it be concluded that no obvious error has occurred. It is exactly that credibility question that is unfairly skewed by the improper admission of the prejudicial testimony. In the circumstances of this case, where proof beyond reasonable doubt of an essential element of the crime, John Doe’s consent, turned on the jury s resolution of conflicting testimony between the defendant and the victim and where inadmissible testimony of other witnesses was in all probability used by the jury to infer the existence of that element, I conclude that the defendant was deprived of a fair trial.
As we said in State v. Smith, 472 A.2d 948, 950-51 (Me.1984):
This Court has used various verbal formulations to explain what constitutes obvious error — e.g., “error ... so highly prejudicial and so taintpng of] the proceeding as virtually to deprive the aggrieved party of a fair trial,” State v. Langley, 242 A.2d [688] at 690 [Me.1968]; “seriously prejudicial error tending to produce manifest injustice,” State v. Baker, 409 A.2d 216, 219 (Me.1979); and “injustice done to the defendant ... so great the Law Court cannot in good conscience let the conviction stand.” State v. True, 438 A.2d 460, 469 (Me.1981).
Under any one or all of these standards, I conclude that the admission into evidence of testimony regarding John Doe’s heterosexuality constituted obvious error.
I would vacate the defendant’s conviction and remand this case to the Superior Court for a new trial.