Criminal Law Update September 10, 2008
Prior false accusations by an accuser in a sex crimes case
The First District Court of Appeals recently decided in Pantoja v. State that neither the Florida Evidence Code nor the United States Constitution require that a defendant be allowed to cross-examine a victim about her prior false accusations of sexual abuse against people other than the defendant. This was in conflict with the Second District Court of Appeals’ decision in Jaggers v. State, 536 So. 2d 321 (2nd DCA 1988), and the First DCA certified this conflict to the Florida Supreme Court.
Typically, attacks on a witness’ credibility must come in the form of reputation evidence or prior convictions. Specific instances of misconduct, such as prior false accusations, typically would not be allowable under the Florida Evidence Code. The First DCA rejected the Jaggers decision as a judicial creation of an exception to the evidence code; the Jaggers court had created the exception in those sex crimes cases where there was no independent or corroborative evidence of the crime, thus making the attacking the victim’s credibility the sole method of defense.
The First DCA acknowledged that the Florida Evidence Code must yield to the Confrontation Clause in the United States Constitution, and therefore, if not allowing the defendant to impeach a victim in this manner violated the Confrontation Clause, then this methodology would have to be accepted regardless of what the Florida Evidence Code states. The review of federal case law showed that the Confrontation Clause does not require this type of attack to be admissible.
Finally the argument by the defendant that this type of evidence should be admissible because the victim’s trait of character on truthfulness, or lack thereof, is an essential element of the criminal charge involved was also rejected.
Expect this issue to be decided in favor of the First District Court of Appeal’s reasoning in the near future; do not count on your defense attorney to be able to attack a victim’s credibility in this manner in sexual abuse prosecutions.
