State v. Suttles

Defendant appeals from conviction for sodomy upon his nine-year-old stepson. His sole assignment of error is the admission into evidence of a letter written to his wife while he was incarcerated awaiting trial. Defendant contends the letter should not have been admitted, first, because it is a confidential communication between spouses, and second, because it was irrelevant to the charge upon which he was tried. We reverse.

At the preliminary hearing the stepson testified to the incident. Subsequent to the hearing, defendant wrote the letter in question to his wife, which the wife voluntarily…