Mendiola v. State

I admit to a persistent prejudice against the arcane judicial dance required of trial courts when they balance probative and prejudicial value in cases involving deviant behavior, including sexual abuse of the young. The basic problem is an illogical conflict between rules of evidence 403 and 404(b) on the one hand, and certain deviant human behavior on the other. We have become slaves of this ancient rule, in spite of evidence that it conflicts with all we have learned of human nature in the last two hundred years. The net result is that no evidentiary question has been more frequently…