State v. Pena-Rojas

OPINION

In this statutory-rape case, the defendant, Rafael Pena-Rojas, 1 challenges the trial justice’s rulings sustaining the state’s objections to certain questions that his attorney posed to him during his direct examination of the defendant at his criminal trial. On his appeal and in his petition for certiorari, the defendant contends that his attorney intended to elicit evidence that the defendant was free of the sexually transmitted diseases that the victim said she had contracted after engaging in the sexual activity in question.

A Superior Court jury found defendant guilty of one count…