State v. Jonathan Earl Folk, 341 P.3d 586

December 25, 2007: Mother found defendant Folk kneeling in a five-year-old boy’s bedroom; child later reported in a nightmare that "that guy" had done something to him and identified Folk as the bad guy.
At trial the child testified he remembered Folk pulling down his pants and putting his mouth on the child’s penis; mother did not see a sexual act when she first entered the room.
Before the 2012 retrial, the court admitted (1) the child’s out-of-court statements to his mother about the nightmare as an excited utterance and (2) testimony and convictions from two prior child-molestation incidents (1992 and 1999) under I.R.E. 404(b).
Defense impeached the child with prior inconsistent statements from interviews, preliminary hearing, and the earlier trial.
Jury convicted Folk of lewd conduct with a minor; the court imposed a life sentence. On appeal, the court affirmed admissibility of the excited-utterance testimony but reversed and vacated the conviction because admission of the two prior-conviction 404(b) items was erroneous and not harmless.

Issue	State's Argument	Folk's Argument	Held
Admissibility of child’s statements (hearsay/excited utterance)	The child’s nightmare was a sufficiently startling event and his statements were spontaneous responses admissible as excited utterances	Statements were reflective, made after initial refusal and in response to questioning, so not admissible under I.R.E. 803(2)	Court: Admissible — totality of circumstances (short time after nightmare, age, spontaneous response to open-ended question) supports excited-utterance exception
Admissibility of prior convictions (I.R.E. 404(b))	Prior acts showed motive, opportunity, intent and were thus admissible for non-propensity purposes	Prior convictions were only propensity evidence and therefore inadmissible under Rule 404(b)	Court: Error to admit both priors — neither conviction was properly relevant to motive, opportunity, or intent apart from propensity
Harmless error as to prior-conviction evidence	Admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt given other evidence of guilt	Admission was prejudicial and likely contributed to verdict	Court: Not harmless — both priors were powerful propensity evidence and given impeaching inconsistencies in the child’s testimony, the errors were not harmless; conviction vacated and case remanded

State v. Field, 144 Idaho 559 (Idaho 2007) (excited-utterance totality-of-circumstances analysis; reflective thought defeats exception)
State v. Poe, 139 Idaho 885 (Idaho 2004) (elements and standards for excited-utterance exception)
State v. Thorngren, 149 Idaho 729 (Idaho 2010) (totality of circumstances factors for spontaneity)
State v. Grist, 147 Idaho 49 (Idaho 2009) (Rule 404(b) framework and limits on propensity evidence)
State v. Parmer, 147 Idaho 210 (Idaho Ct. App. 2009) (application of 404(b) relevance and unfair prejudice balancing)
State v. Gomez, 151 Idaho 146 (Idaho Ct. App. 2011) (prior-bad-acts admissible to show opportunity/access when how-abuse-possible is in dispute)
Stevens v. State, 93 Idaho 48 (Idaho 1969) (definition of motive versus intent)
Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (U.S. 1967) (harmless-error standard: State must prove error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt)