State v. Lutes
557 S.W.3d 384 (2018)
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Rule of Law:
Under Article I, section 18(c) of the Missouri Constitution, evidence of a defendant's prior sex crime convictions is admissible as propensity evidence in a prosecution for a sexual crime against a minor, even if the prior convictions are remote in time and factually dissimilar, so long as their probative value is not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.
Facts:
- Terry Lee Lutes had three prior convictions for sexual crimes involving minors from 1993, 1994, and 2004, all of which involved sexual intercourse with female victims aged fourteen to sixteen.
- In March 2014, Lutes was staying at the home of his daughter and his six-year-old granddaughter, L.B.
- While staying there, Lutes placed his finger into L.B.'s vagina, licked his finger, and then re-inserted it.
- Immediately after, Lutes compelled L.B. to hold his penis and masturbate him.
- After Lutes left the home, L.B. disclosed the incident to her mother and another adult resident, John Giese.
Procedural Posture:
- The State charged Terry Lee Lutes with two counts of child molestation in the first degree in the Circuit Court of Caldwell County, Missouri, the trial court.
- The State filed a pre-trial motion to admit evidence of Lutes's three prior sex crime convictions as propensity evidence, which the trial court granted over Lutes's objection.
- The trial court denied defense counsel's request to ask the jury pool during voir dire whether knowledge of Lutes's prior convictions would affect their ability to be impartial.
- The first trial resulted in a mistrial.
- Before the second trial, the child victim's father refused to bring her from Kansas to Missouri to testify.
- The trial court found the victim was 'unavailable' as a witness and admitted her video-recorded testimony from the first trial over Lutes's objection.
- A jury convicted Lutes on both counts, and the trial court sentenced him to two consecutive twelve-year terms of imprisonment.
- Lutes appealed his conviction to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.
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Issue:
Under Article I, section 18(c) of the Missouri Constitution, is evidence of a defendant's prior sex crime convictions, which are remote in time and factually dissimilar from the current charge, legally relevant and admissible as propensity evidence?
Opinions:
Majority - Mark D. Pfeiffer
Yes, under Article I, section 18(c) of the Missouri Constitution, this evidence is legally relevant and admissible. The constitutional provision explicitly allows the use of prior criminal acts to demonstrate a defendant's propensity to commit sexual crimes against minors. The standard for exclusion is high, requiring that the probative value be substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. Citing State v. Prince, the court reasoned there is no rigid rule for temporal remoteness, as time gaps of over twenty years have been found permissible. The prior acts need only be similar, not identical; the court found Lutes's prior convictions for sexual intercourse with teenage minors sufficiently similar to the current charge of manual-genital contact with a young child, as both involved sexual gratification with minor females. The court also found the danger of unfair prejudice was low because the evidence was presented dispassionately through certified records and mentioned only briefly in closing arguments, thus the trial court did not abuse its discretion.
Dissenting - Alok Ahuja
No, the evidence of Lutes's prior convictions was not legally relevant and should have been excluded. The probative value of these decades-old, dissimilar convictions was minimal and substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. The dissent argues for an inverse relationship between remoteness and similarity: the more time that has passed, the more similar the prior act must be to the charged offense to be probative. Here, the prior offenses (sexual intercourse with unrelated teenagers 12-21 years earlier) are fundamentally different from the charged offense (manual-genital contact with a six-year-old granddaughter). The only commonality is that they are sex crimes against minors, which is insufficient. The dissent also argues that, even if the evidence were admissible, the trial court committed reversible error by prohibiting the defense from questioning potential jurors during voir dire about their ability to remain impartial after learning of the defendant's status as a convicted sex offender.
Analysis:
This decision significantly broadens the admissibility of prior sex crimes as propensity evidence under Missouri's constitutional amendment, Article I, § 18(c). By upholding the admission of convictions that were both remote in time and dissimilar in nature, the court sets a precedent that lowers the bar for establishing 'similarity' and reinforces a highly deferential standard of review for trial court decisions. The ruling makes it more challenging for defendants to exclude prejudicial prior convictions in cases involving minor victims, signaling that almost any prior sexual misconduct with a minor will be deemed relevant. The case solidifies the shift in Missouri's evidence law away from the general prohibition of character evidence toward a special, more permissive rule for sex crime prosecutions.
