People v. Harris
California Court of Appeal
2012 WL 1651015 (2012)
Over ten years of marriage, Shawn Harris (defendant) repeatedly threatened, hit, held down, choked, or sexually assaulted his wife C.H., who eventually tape-recorded him coercing her into choosing between oral or anal sex and pressed charges; Harris claimed the recorded incident was consensual role-play and denied the roughly eight earlier acts of violence and assault the prosecution introduced at trial. After hearing the recording, in which C.H. protested some fifty times, the jury convicted Harris of forcible oral copulation but deadlocked on sodomy by force and spousal rape; Harris appealed, arguing the prior-acts evidence unduly prejudiced the jury.
Whether evidence of approximately eight prior acts of domestic violence and sexual assault against the same victim is admissible in a prosecution for intimate-partner violence, given the risk that such evidence could inflame the jury.