State v. Harris

One accused of a crime has the right to present all admissible evidence in his/her defense. Generally evidence is admissible if it is relevant. And evidence is relevant if it has “any tendency to make the existence of any fact ... of consequence . . . more ... or less probable[.]” ER 401; State v. Clark, 78 Wn. App. 471, 477, 898 P.2d 854 (1995). In this third degree rape prosecution, Thomas Harris tried to introduce evidence that the fetus being carried by the obviously pregnant prosecuting witness was not his. The court refused the offer, concluding that it would violate the rape shield…