The Court’s ruling in this appeal pertains to Rules 403 and 404(c) of the Utah Rules of Evidence. Rule 403 requires that evidence of other bad acts by a defendant be excluded if the probative value of that evidence is substantially outweighed by its potential for unfair prejudice. Rule 404(c) specifically allows that evidence of other acts of child molestation may be admitted to prove a defendant accused of child molestation has the propensity to commit this crime.
Facts of the Case
Prior to 2015, Estes lived in the city of Clinton in Davis County with his wife, daughter and stepdaughter. When charges were filed in 2021, stepdaughter reported Estes molested her for the first time around 2015 while they lived in the Clinton home. Later in 2015 Estes and the family moved to a home in the city of Roy in Weber County where the abuse of stepdaughter continued. Estes’s daughter reported that Estes molested her as well while living in the Roy home.
Estes was originally charged in Davis County with five counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child. The district court, however, dismissed four of the counts for improper venue, given they occurred in Weber County at the Roy home. The remaining count referred to the initial instance of abuse of stepdaughter at the Clinton home. At Estes’s bench trial the court admitted evidence from stepdaughter and daughter testifying to the abuse which also occurred in the Roy home. The State claimed this evidence was admissible under rule 404(c) as evidence of other acts of child molestation. Estes was eventually convicted of one count of aggravated sexual abuse of a child.
Issues on Appeal
Estes argued primarily on appeal that the district court erred by admitting the evidence of other, uncharged bad acts involving daughter (the abuse in the Roy home), in violation of rule 403. Estes argued secondarily that the district court committed error by denying his motion challenging the sufficiency of the evidence, asserting stepdaughter’s testimony was inherently improbable.
Analysis
When evidence of other acts of child molestation is admitted under rule 404(c) the evidence’s probative value, weighed against its potential for prejudice, must also satisfy rule 403. The Court reasoned that rule 404(c) evidence of child molestation is presented for the specific purpose of showing a defendant’s propensity to commit child molestation. Therefore, for rule 404(c) evidence to be unfairly prejudicial, the evidence must show something additional beyond the propensity to the act of child molestation.
Estes argued that daughter’s testimony of abuse at the Roy home was insufficiently probative, and unfairly prejudicial, because these allegations were never prosecuted. Rule 404(c), however, does not require a prior conviction for the relevant other-acts evidence to be admissible. The Court also noted that the standard of proof to admit evidence is substantially lower than the standard required to reach a conviction.
Estes argued further that daughter’s 404(c) testimony was unfairly prejudicial because it bolstered stepdaughter’s credibility and testimony of the original instance of abuse at the Clinton home. The Court determined this position by Estes to be untenable, running contrary to the very purpose of rule 404(c). Evidence of other acts of child molestation inherently bolsters the original victim’s testimony by establishing a defendant’s propensity to commit child molestation. The Court determined Estes’s arguments against the 404(c) evidence thus did not show unfair prejudice outweighing the evidence’s probative value.
Holding
The Court of Appeals ruled that the district court did not commit error or abuse its discretion when it admitted the rule 404(c) evidence of Estes’s abuse of his daughter. Because the evidence’s probative value outweighed any unfair prejudice it presented, rule 403 was not violated. The Court affirmed Estes’s conviction.