State v. Nowlin

818 A.2d 1237, 149 N.H. 221, 2003 N.H. LEXIS 30
CourtSupreme Court of New Hampshire
DecidedMarch 6, 2003
DocketNo. 2001-378
StatusPublished

This text of 818 A.2d 1237 (State v. Nowlin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of New Hampshire primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Nowlin, 818 A.2d 1237, 149 N.H. 221, 2003 N.H. LEXIS 30 (N.H. 2003).

Opinion

Duggan, J.

The defendant, Richard Nowlin, was convicted of three counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault. RSA 632~A:2, I. The only issue on appeal is whether the Superior Court (McGuire, J.) erred when it denied the defendant’s request to argue an inference of consent from the victim’s manner of dress. We affirm.

The following facts are supported by the trial testimony. The defendant and the victim dated in high school. After the relationship ended, they remained friends and sometimes had sex at the victim’s apartment. On May 18,1999, the victim saw the defendant riding his bicycle while she was on a bus. She signaled to him that she wanted him to come to her apartment after work.

The victim returned to her apartment after work that evening, showered, put on a night-shirt but no underwear, and had started to cook dinner when the defendant arrived. She had her legs covered with a quilt while they talked, watched television and played cards. The victim told the defendant that she had a boyfriend and he told her that he was engaged. After the defendant won a card game, the victim kissed him on his cheek.

Later, as they watched television, the defendant kissed the victim but she pushed him away. As they continued watching television, the defendant began kissing her neck and shoulders. The victim told him to stop and he did. The defendant then slid the victim onto the floor and continued kissing her. The victim repeatedly told the defendant to stop.

The defendant pulled the victim’s night-shirt off and forced the quilt out of her hands. He performed cunnilingus. When he told the victim to remove his pants, she refused. He then removed his pants and had intercourse with her as she continued to protest. Afterward he said, “[0]h my God, what have I done?” The defendant told the victim not to tell the police, but the victim insisted that she would report the incident.

The defendant left the victim’s apartment and went to the apartment that he shared with his fiancee. She asked the defendant why he was visibly upset. The defendant responded, “My worst fear, forced sex.” He explained that he became frustrated with the victim because she refused to undo his pants. The defendant asked his fiancée to go to the victim’s apartment to persuade her not to report the incident to the police.

When the fiancée arrived at the victim’s apartment, she observed that the victim was upset. The victim said that the defendant had raped her. After the fiancée left, the victim called a friend and told her that the [223]*223defendant had raped her. She then went to the Concord Police station and was interviewed by Officer John Thomas.

After talking with Officer Thomas, the victim went to Concord Hospital for an examination while Officer Thomas telephoned the defendant. The defendant admitted to Thomas that he heard the victim say “no” but continued to kiss, fondle and have intercourse with her. He explained that he apologized afterwards because they were both upset.

At trial, the defendant testified that he and the victim had previously had intercourse many times and that she had never before indicated a lack of consent. With respect to this incident, the defendant testified that he was unable to remember what happened. The jury returned a guilty verdict on three counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault.

Before trial, the defendant had filed a motion in limine to admit the victim’s manner of dress. The defendant also sought to argue an inference of consent from her manner of dress. The superior court granted the motion to admit the victim’s manner of dress because the State intended to introduce evidence of her manner of dress to show the defendant’s ability to undress her. The court, however, denied the defendant’s request to argue an inference of consent. The court indicated that the defendant could renew his motion should the testimony make it fundamentally unfair for him not to be able to argue an inference of consent.

The defendant argues that the superior court improperly denied him the opportunity to argue an inference of consent based upon the victim’s manner of dress. We disagree.

The “rape shield statute” provides that “(t)he victim’s manner of dress at the time of the sexual assault shall not be admitted as evidence in any prosecution under this chapter to infer consent.” RSA 632-A:6, Ill-a (Supp. 2002). In Opinion of the Justices (Certain Evidence in Sexual Assault Cases), 140 N.H. 22, 26 (1995), we reviewed HB 301, which became paragraph Ill-a of RSA 632-A:6, and we concluded that RSA 632-A:6, III-a does not violate a defendant’s constitutional right to present all proofs that may be favorable to him because a victim’s manner of dress has no relevancy on the issue of consent. We held that RSA 632-A:6, IH-a does not violate a defendant’s due process rights because it is not a blanket exclusion of relevant manner of dress evidence. Id. at 27; cf. State v. MacRae, 141 N.H. 106, 111 (1996). We said that while “the probative value of a victim’s manner of dress per se to imply consent to sexual activity is not demonstrable,” due process may require admission of such evidence in some cases. Opinion, 140 N.H. at 27.

Opinion of the Justices was necessarily qualified because it could not “anticipate every possible fact pattern that may arise.” Id. We were unwilling “to categorically rule out the possibility that there may be [224]*224situations in which the manner of dress is so interrelated with contemporaneous conduct of the victim that it could provide evidence helpful to the defense.” Id. We thus required that the court afford the defendant the “right to move for the opportunity to demonstrate that due process requires admission of manner-of-dress evidence because the probative value of the evidence in the context of the particular case outweighs its prejudice to the victim and its tendency to mislead and confuse the jury.” Id.

Here, the defendant had the opportunity, during the pre-trial hearing, to demonstrate that the probative value outweighed the prejudice to the victim. We must determine whether the superior court’s exercise of discretion precluding the defendant from arguing an inference of consent was unsustainable because it was clearly untenable or unreasonable to the prejudice of his case. See State v. Spaulding, 147 N.H. 583, 589 (2002).

The defendant relies upon Brown v. State, 581 S.W.2d 549 (Ark. 1979), in support of his argument that “a woman’s manner of dress may, in the context of the relationship between the parties, language, and non-verbal communication, be probative of consent.” He argues that “because the jury learned in [the victim’s] direct examination that she wore only a t-shirt, and learned about the other events that comprised the relationship and the evening, the potential for prejudice to [the victim] was low.” The defendant further argues that because the State introduced evidence of her manner of dress to show how the assault occurred, he must be allowed to counter with his own explanation.

The defendant’s arguments, however, do not meet the standard suggested in Opinion of the Justices; i.e.,

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Related

State v. Howard
426 A.2d 457 (Supreme Court of New Hampshire, 1981)
Brown v. State
581 S.W.2d 549 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1979)
Opinion of the Justices
662 A.2d 294 (Supreme Court of New Hampshire, 1995)
State v. MacRae
677 A.2d 698 (Supreme Court of New Hampshire, 1996)
Opinion of the Justices
688 A.2d 1006 (Supreme Court of New Hampshire, 1997)
State v. Spaulding
794 A.2d 800 (Supreme Court of New Hampshire, 2002)

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Bluebook (online)
818 A.2d 1237, 149 N.H. 221, 2003 N.H. LEXIS 30, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-nowlin-nh-2003.