State v. Steele
State v. Steele, 2021 UT App 39 (Mortensen, J.)
Criminal Law
The defendant and a woman had sex; the defendant said it was consensual, and the woman said it was rape. Before trial, the court ruled that at trial the woman’s wife (who was a witness) could be referred to as the woman’s spouse, but the defendant could not bring in evidence of the woman’s bisexuality because of a prior stipulation that prevented that evidence from coming in. The jury convicted the defendant. The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed, holding:
- The defendant’s trial attorney was not ineffective for stipulating to excluding evidence of the woman’s bisexuality and for objecting to a favorable ruling excluding evidence of the bisexuality.