Right of confrontation; People v Masi; The rape-shield statute; MCL 750.520j; Admissibility of evidence of a complainant’s prior sexual conduct; People v Butler; People v Williams

The court held that the trial court did not err by denying defendant’s motion to introduce prior allegedly false allegations of sexual assault made against him. He was charged with CSC II, accosting a child for immoral purposes, and aggravated child sexually abusive activity, for allegedly sexually assaulting the complainant multiple times when she was between the ages of 11 and 13. The trial court denied his motion to introduce four previous allegedly false allegations of sexual assault against him by the complainant’s mother on behalf of the complainant and herself. In a prior appeal, the court denied leave, but the Supreme Court vacated and remanded in light of Butler. The court remanded to the trial court, which again denied defendant’s motion, finding he did not sufficiently offer proof of a prior false allegation and, thus, an evidentiary hearing was unnecessary. In the present appeal, the court rejected his argument that the trial court’s order should be reversed because it “‘failed to articulate an appropriate standard of proof for the admissibility of evidence of prior false allegations of sexual assault by the complainant.’” As the trial court made clear, “it did not need to articulate that standard because, as a threshold matter, it ‘determined that defendant did not make the requisite offer of proof on any of the false allegations.’ This was fully consistent with the direction of the Supreme Court and this Court on remand, which likewise made clear that the trial court was not required to determine an appropriate standard of proof for admission of the evidence unless it first determined that defendant made the requisite offer of proof.” As such, “the trial court did not err by failing to articulate the appropriate standard of proof for admissibility of the evidence.” In addition, he failed to show that the trial court erred in its determination that he failed to make a sufficient offer of proof of a prior false allegation. He criticized its “use of the phrase ‘concrete evidence’ as ‘not an appropriate standard of proof for the admissibility of evidence of prior allegations of sexual assault.’” However, it “was not purporting to articulate any such standard of proof for admissibility; instead, it was describing why defendant’s offer of proof was insufficient. And its use of” this phrase “aligned with this Court’s use of that very same language in” Williams, which was cited by the Supreme Court in its remand. The trial “court further made clear that it understood the phrase to be synonymous with the language used by our Supreme Court in Butler to describe a sufficient offer of proof—that is, ‘a showing of at least some apparently credible and potentially admissible evidence that the prior allegation was false.’” Defendant claimed “he ‘proffered sufficient credible evidence,’” but offered “no meaningful explanation as to how the trial court reversibly erred in applying the standard above to his offer of proof.” Affirmed.