State v. Townsend

Betty C. Dickey, Justice.

The State brings this interlocutory appeal under the rape-shield statute, Ark. Code Ann. § 16-42-101(c)(3)(b) (Supp. 2003), from a pretrial order allowing the defendant-appellee to introduce evidence that the victim, a six-year-old minor, had been sexually assaulted approximately two years prior to the incidents in the present case. Denver Townsend, a sixty-three-year-old male, was charged with the rape of his six-year-old former step-granddaughter, M.A.D. The rape charge was pursuant to Ark. Code Ann. § 5-14-103 (Repl. 2006), which prohibits deviant sexual activity…