Court Opinion

ID: 9819501
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:26:37.77416+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:30.863333
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE KUEHN, specially concurring: I concur with the majority opinion. However, I believe the trial judge’s refusal to allow impeachment with a former false accusation to law enforcement authorities was harmless error. The majority does not see how a prior false complaint of domestic battery against the accuser’s husband is relevant to whether she is making false accusations of rape against the defendant. It seems to me highly relevant for an accused to be able to show that his accuser is capable of initiating criminal charges, bringing to bear the power of the State through law enforcement and judicial institutions, against an innocent person by the leveling of a false accusation. The defendant was trying to show something far more troubling to an accuser’s credibility than a mere showing that she had lied about something on a former occasion. He wanted to prove that she had invoked the power of the State and procured criminal charges with falsehoods in the past. Such a desire does not appear to be all that collateral to what is at issue when she is the sole accuser and witness against an accused in a criminal case. I agree with my colleagues that the use of this evidence to impeach would not have changed the outcome, given the physical corroboration of the accusation, the defendant’s vacillating explanations to authorities, and the defendant’s implausible testimony. Therefore, I specially concur.