Gagne v. Booker
Sixth Circuit
680 F.3d 493 (2012)
Lewis Gagne and Donald Swathwood (defendants) were convicted of raping Gagne's former girlfriend, P.C., in a brutal three-way encounter; the trial court admitted evidence that Gagne and P.C. had previously had group sex together with Swathwood and that P.C. initially consented to sex with Gagne that night, but excluded evidence of two other prior incidents -- group sex with a different third man, and an offer to have sex with Gagne and his father -- under Michigan's rape-shield law, which permits only evidence of the victim's past sexual conduct "with the actor." After Michigan courts rejected his appeals, Gagne pursued federal habeas relief arguing the exclusion violated his rights to a fair trial, confrontation, and presenting a complete defense; the district court granted the writ and a Sixth Circuit panel initially affirmed before granting rehearing.
Whether a state court's exclusion, under a rape-shield law, of the victim's prior sexual conduct involving someone other than the charged defendants was an objectively unreasonable balancing of the defendant's confrontation and defense rights against the state's interest in protecting rape victims.