Court Opinion

ID: 9856874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:03:48.785972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:30.594834
License: Public Domain

NEELY, Justice,
dissenting:
In all regards this is a tragic case. The record reveals that the Peyatt family lived in a squalor that is almost beyond the imagination of most ordinary people. The actions of the defendant that are alleged by the State are such as to inflame our passions and outrage our sensibilities. Nonetheless, this is a serious case involving twenty years of prison and the defendant is *325entitled to all evidence that could possibly raise a reasonable doubt about his guilt in any juror’s mind. Consequently, I must dissent from the court’s holding in section II of the majority opinion, for reasons that I have already explored at length in my dissent in State v. Green, 163 W.Va. 681, 260 S.E.2d 257 (1979).
The victim in the case before us testified that she had not had sex with any person but her father and that she had never seen another penis. The defendant proffered evidence from siblings that the victim had confessed to sexual relations with others and that those siblings had witnessed events that would lead an observer to conclude that the victim had engaged in sexual relations with others. The offer of testimony disclosed in the in camera hearing did not consist of eyewitness evidence of the victim’s sexual intercourse with others, but it did consist of circumstantial evidence that might have led a reasonable person to conclude that the victim had had sexual relations with men other than her father. Apparently the siblings were willing to testify that an older man got into bed with the victim and the bed shook, and they were also willing to describe the victim under a pile of leaves with a male companion under compromising circumstances. Certainly evidence of this type would be admissible in a divorce case if the issue were adultery.
The victim’s past sexual history was placed in issue because the condition of her hymen was used as circumstantial evidence to incriminate the defendant. Furthermore, testimony was elicited from her regarding her lack of sexual contact with men other than her father. If, indeed, the testimony proffered by the defendant were sufficient to convince a member of the jury that the victim had lied under oath about her prior sexual experience, such a blow to her credibility might have been sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt about her primary accusatory testimony.
I am also unpersuaded by the majority’s assertion that the men who allegedly engaged in sexual relations with the victim should have been called as witnesses. What man in his right mind would admit to sex with an underaged minor in open court? The options of the fifth amendment and a grant of immunity are, of course, always open when such testimony is sought, but the far more practical course is to lie. If the men chose the option of lying, the defendant would have been worse off than by not offering their testimony.
The right to confront witnesses is a constitutional issue that goes directly to the truth-finding function of a court. Unlike so many of our other constitutional rules in criminal cases, it is not aimed at regulating official conduct in the abstract, but rather at assuring that particular individuals in very concrete cases are not convicted when they are innocent. Naum v. Halbritter, 172 W.Va. 610, 309 S.E.2d 109 (1983).