Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sex Crimes

Criminal Law

: Sex Crimes

Character Evidence in Child Molestation Cases

By Corey Rayburnyung

Colin Miller at EvidenceProf has a post about a recent effort in South Dakota to allow the use of prior child molestation evidence in certain instances in criminal prosecutions:South Dakota does not currently have a rule of evidence that allows for the admission of a criminal defendant's prior acts of child molestation when he is charged with child molestation.  But if an incoming lawmaker has his way, that will all soon change. Like its federal counterpart, Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), SDCL 19-12-5 provides in relevant part that "[e]vidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith."  In other words, evidence that a criminal defendant charged with child molestation had previously molested children would be inadmissible to prove that he had a propensity to molest children and that he likely acted in conformity with that propensity at the time of the alleged crime...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sex Crimes on January 20, 2009 (boomark / email).