State of Missouri v. Jerry Lee Rice, 504 S.W.3d 198

Jerry Lee Rice, age >21, lived with a woman and her 11-year-old daughter; mother briefly absent in Feb 2014 when incidents occurred.
Rice showed the child pornographic videos, picked up a drumstick while pointing to explicit acts and asked if she "wanted to know what it felt like," told her to lie down, put his arm around her neck, and attempted to kiss her; the child resisted and later reported to her mother.
Child was interviewed at a Child Advocacy Center by a trained forensic interviewer; a recorded interview was played to the jury (child was 12 at interview).
Rice was convicted by a jury of attempted enticement of a child (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 566.151) and sentenced to 25 years as a prior offender; conviction for furnishing pornographic material was later vacated at trial level on statutory grounds but is not at issue on appeal.
Rice appealed on two grounds: (1) insufficient evidence that he took a "substantial step" toward enticement; (2) trial court abused discretion by excluding his expert's proposed testimony about biasing factors in child forensic interviews (PEFIC protocol).
Trial court precluded testimony applying the expert's PEFIC score or opining on specific bias factors absent foundation applicable to this case and barred any testimony that would comment on the victim's credibility; Rice did not call the expert at trial.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Rice)	Held
Whether evidence was sufficient to establish a "substantial step" for attempted enticement of a child	Showing pornographic film and asking the child if she "wanted to know what it felt like," plus the drumstick and kissing attempt, are actions strongly corroborative of intent to entice	Showing a film and asking a question are not, as a matter of law, substantial steps; analogizes to letter-writing cases where words alone were insufficient	Affirmed: Court found Rice's actions (film, solicitation, drumstick, attempted kiss) constituted a substantial step toward enticement and supported conviction
Whether the trial court abused its discretion by excluding expert testimony about 17 biasing factors (PEFIC) and a case-specific score	Expert testimony about interview bias can assist jurors evaluating interview process; would not necessarily comment on victim credibility if limited to general biases	Expert would improperly comment on the victim's credibility and invade the jury's province; no foundation showed those biasing factors were present in this interview	Affirmed: Exclusion was not an abuse of discretion because the proffered PEFIC score and generalized bias-factor testimony lacked case-specific foundation and risked improperly influencing credibility determination

State v. Blair, 443 S.W.3d 677 (Mo. App. W.D.) (standard for reviewing sufficiency of evidence)
State v. Faruqi, 344 S.W.3d 193 (Mo. banc) (attempt statute applies to enticement)
State v. Davies, 330 S.W.3d 775 (Mo. App. W.D.) (substantial-step standard for attempted enticement)
State v. Fleis, 319 S.W.3d 504 (Mo. App. E.D.) (substantial-step need not be a step toward actual sexual contact but toward persuasion/enticement)
State v. Bates, 70 S.W.3d 532 (Mo. App. W.D.) (words/letters alone may be insufficient for substantial step)
State v. Biezer, 947 S.W.2d 540 (Mo. App. E.D.) (limits on expert testimony that effectively opines on a witness's credibility)