Michael Wayne Kelly v. the State of Texas, 09-19-00197-CR

Michael Wayne Kelly was convicted by a jury of continuous sexual abuse of children and appealed, arguing the trial court improperly limited cross-examination and thus violated his Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause rights.
The alleged victims were Kelly’s daughters (pseudonyms: Selena and Kendall); allegations surfaced against the backdrop of a custody dispute between Kendall’s parents.
Defense sought to cross-examine witnesses about Kendall’s prior sexually related encounters with other children in January 2014 (per a school counselor report) to show alternate sources of Kendall’s sexual knowledge and a motive to lie; the trial court excluded inquiries about those encounters as irrelevant and barred by Rule 412.
The defense nonetheless elicited—through cross and an expert neuropsychologist—that (1) the allegations arose during a custody fight, (2) family dysfunction and parental coaching can produce false allegations, and (3) Selena made a prior inconsistent statement denying abuse.
The trial court allowed substantial cross-examination on motive, bias, family dysfunction, and prior inconsistent statements but disallowed questioning about the specific prior sexual encounters; Kelly did not call reputation-for-truthfulness witnesses.
The court of appeals applied the Confrontation Clause test (whether exclusion erred and whether it significantly undermined the defense in light of admitted evidence) and affirmed the conviction.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the trial court’s exclusion of questioning about Kendall’s prior sexual encounters and other limits on cross-examination violated Kelly’s Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses by preventing proof of motive/bias	Kelly: More complete cross‑examination of prior encounters and witnesses’ motives would have shown Selena and Kendall had reasons to fabricate and that Kendall’s sexual knowledge came from others, undermining the accusations	State: The contested prior encounters were not sufficiently similar or relevant to the alleged acts; prior sexual-conduct evidence of a victim is generally inadmissible under Rule 412; trial court reasonably limited cross-examination while allowing other proof of bias	The court found no Confrontation Clause violation: exclusion was within the trial court’s discretion (relevance and Rule 412 grounds) and, given the evidence admitted (motive/bias, prior inconsistent statement, expert testimony), the limitations did not significantly undermine Kelly’s ability to present his defense; conviction affirmed

U.S. v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303 (1998) (evidence-exclusion rules are constitutional unless they significantly undermine a defendant’s right to present a defense)
Potier v. State, 68 S.W.3d 657 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002) (applying Scheffer standard in Texas criminal context)
Hammer v. State, 296 S.W.3d 555 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (Confrontation Clause allows cross-examination on motive/bias but courts may limit scope)
Johnson v. State, 490 S.W.3d 895 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016) (trial courts may limit cross-examination designed to show witness motive so long as Confrontation Clause rights are not infringed)
Delaware v. Van Arsdale, 475 U.S. 673 (1986) (trial courts have latitude to impose reasonable limits on cross‑examination)
Delaware v. Fensterer, 474 U.S. 15 (1985) (same principle reaffirmed)
Tucker v. State, 771 S.W.2d 523 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988) (witness motive to testify is particularly important, but limits on cross‑examination can be upheld)
Lopez v. State, 18 S.W.3d 220 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000) (similarity of sexual acts affects admissibility of prior sexual-conduct evidence under Texas law)