Opinion
CA CR 09-465
Opinion Delivered December 16, 2009
Appeal from the Pulaski County Circuit Court, [No. CR 2008-1404], The Honorable John Langston, Judge Affirmed.
Lewis Williams appeals his convictions for raping his former girlfriend and burgling her apartment. He does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the convictions. Instead, he contends that the circuit court abused its discretion by denying his motion in limine to exclude an order of protection barring him from having contact with the victim.
The circuit court did not abuse its discretion by denying Williams's motion and admitting the order into evidence. The order of protection was in effect on the date of Williams's crimes. His defense to the rape charge was consent. He argued below that the order does not "show that she did or did not consent on that day." But as the circuit court pointed out, the State had to prove forcible compulsion, Ark. Code Ann. § 5-14-103(a)(1) (Supp. 2009), and "the fact that the alleged victim had gotten a — an order keeping the defendant away from her shows lack of consent."
The order of protection was issued a year before the rape, which was a few months after Williams and the victim broke up. The order, however, was valid for two years. While a year is a long time and people change their minds, as Williams points out, these arguments go to the evidentiary weight of the order, not its admissibility. The order had some tendency to make the victim's alleged consent less probable, and thus the circuit court did not abuse its discretion by admitting this evidence. Pyle v. State, 314 Ark. 165, 180-81, 862 S.W.2d 823, 831 (1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1197 (1994).
Williams also presses an unfair-prejudice argument under Rule of Evidence 403. He points out, among other things, that the State opened its case with the order, and argues that this evidence invited the jury to decide this case because one court had already ruled against him. But having not made his Rule 403 points to the circuit court, Williams may not argue them on appeal. Teague v. State, 328 Ark. 724, 727, 946 S.W.2d 670, 672 (1997).
Affirmed.
VAUGHT, C.J., and GLOVER, J., agree.