A Wyoming judge was right to prevent a rape suspect from airing unsavory accusations against his victim at trial, the state’s highest court ruled.
Donald Detimore, 72, who is serving a 40- to 50-year sentence in Wyoming’s corrections system for molesting a 7-year-old girl, lost his appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court on Friday.
Detimore, a Lander man, argued that Fremont County District Court Judge Jason Conder violated his rights by not letting him discuss one of his victim’s own acts, which he called “embarrassing and shameful,” and which he said could explain away some of her claims against him.
The high court ruled that Conder acted correctly in accordance with Wyoming’s rape shield statute, which will only allow juries to hear details of rape victims’ sexual lives if those have more value as evidence than as a mere smear campaign.
Detimore argued on appeal that before his victim disclosed the abuse to a health care provider when she was 16, he had caught her in an “embarrassing and shameful situation.”
That situation could explain why she stopped wanting to visit him and why she brought claims against him, he argued.
During Detimore’s prosecution, Conder held a confidential hearing on the matter. Detimore did not question his victim on the “embarrassing and shameful” situation during that hearing, according to a unanimous Wyoming Supreme Court order penned by Justice Kari Gray.
Because of that, Conder didn’t know how the girl would respond to Detimore’s allegations against her, if forced to face them in front of a jury.
The judge also found that the claim looked more like a smear campaign than evidence. Or in legal speak, the claim’s capacity to prejudice the jury against the girl outweighed its probative value.
He ruled against letting Detimore air that claim at trial.
Citing the rape shield law and earlier cases, the Wyoming Supreme Court upheld Detimore’s conviction Friday and denied him a new trial.
While defendants have the right to confront witnesses against them, courts still can determine whether some evidence is of marginal relevance, the order says.
The high court added another note on Detimore’s claim, that he failed to link it to a motive for the girl coming forward.
“He failed to connect catching her in an ‘embarrassing and shameful situation’ at an unspecified time when she was younger to a motive for her to lie years later,” reads the order. “Mr. Detimore’s right to present a complete defense was not violated by exclusion of the evidence.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
