Tome v. United States

513 U.S. 150 (1995)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Tome (D) was charged with child sexual abuse of his four-year-old daughter. D and the child's mother had been divorced, and a tribal court awarded joint custody of the child to both parents, but D had primary physical custody. The mother petitioned the tribe for primary custody but was awarded primary custody for the summer months. The mother then contacted the authorities and reported child sexual abuse. The child took the stand and gave yes and no answers to a series of leading questions. When questioned about the abuse, she was reluctant to answer. The trial judge commented on the record there were delays in answering by as much as 40-50 seconds and the child was losing concentration on the second day. Six additional witnesses were called to the stand to testify about statements made by the child to them regarding the alleged abuse. These statements were offered and accepted under Rule 801(d)(1)(B), and D objected. The statements rebutted the implicit charge that the testimony was motivated by a desire to live with the mother. D was convicted and sentenced to 12 years. D appealed. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed, adopting the P's argument that all of the out-of-court statements were admissible under Rule 801(d)(1)(B) even though they had been made after the alleged motive to fabricate arose. The court reasoned that the pre-motive requirement is a function of the relevancy rules, not the hearsay rules' and that as a 'function of relevance, the pre-motive rule is clearly too broad ... because it is simply not true that an individual with a motive to lie always will do so. Rather, the relevance of the prior consistent statement is more accurately determined by evaluating the strength of the motive to lie, the circumstances in which the statement is made, and the declarant's demonstrated a propensity to lie.