Jeff Fowler v. Sacramento County Sheriff's Department California Attorney General

BEA, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-Appellant Jeff Fowler was convicted of annoying or molesting Charla Lara in violation of California Penal Code § 647.6 following a jury trial in which he was precluded from cross-examining Lara regarding two prior incidents in which she alleged that other men had molested her. We conclude that the proffered cross-examination sufficiently bore upon Lara’s reliability or credibility such that the jury might reasonably have questioned it and, thus, that the cross-examination implicated Fowler’s Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. We further conclude that the…