State v. Martinez, 476 P.3d 189

Simon Ortiz Martinez was charged with first‑degree rape of his daughter for acts alleged between July 2009 and July 2012; the State limited the charging period to those three years.
The victim testified that the sexual abuse began when she was about five and continued until she left home at ~14; she reported the abuse to several people in 2014 (after the charging period) and later to authorities.
At trial the court admitted testimony from four witnesses (two friends, the victim’s mother, and a friend’s mother) that the victim had told them she had been raped, under Washington’s "fact of the complaint" (fresh‑complaint) doctrine; Martinez objected.
The jury convicted Martinez; the Court of Appeals affirmed, reasoning the four complaints were contemporaneous with the ongoing abuse; this Court granted review.
The central legal questions were whether Washington should abandon the fact‑of‑complaint doctrine as inconsistent with the hearsay rules, and whether the 2014 complaints were untimely or improperly admitted (including number of witnesses and jury instruction issues).

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Martinez)	Held
Whether to retain the fact‑of‑complaint doctrine	Preserve doctrine to counter juror myths; it supplements hearsay rules and is still needed	Doctrine conflicts with the Evidence Rules and perpetuates rape myths; should be abandoned	Court declined to abandon the doctrine; Ferguson/Goebel remain good law
Timeliness of complaints made after charging period	Complaints were timely because they were made while abuse was ongoing and within "opportunity to complain" standard	Post‑charging‑period complaints are untimely and should be excluded	Admission was not an abuse of discretion; trial court may assess timeliness based on circumstances
Number of witnesses allowed to testify to complaints	Multiple witnesses may testify; Washington has no single‑witness rule	Allowing four witnesses was prejudicial and excessive (citing other jurisdictions limiting number)	No abuse of discretion in admitting testimony from four witnesses
Failure to give a fact‑of‑complaint jury instruction	No specific instruction requested; omission is not reversible error	Omission compounded prejudice and required instruction	Error was not preserved (no request); no plain error found

State v. Ferguson, 100 Wn.2d 131 (1983) (recognizes admissibility of fact‑of‑complaint testimony in Washington)
State v. Goebel, 40 Wn.2d 18 (1952) (limits complaint testimony to the fact of a complaint and excludes perpetrator ID)
State v. Murley, 35 Wn.2d 233 (1949) (discusses prior consistent statements and historic prompt‑complaint rationale)
State v. Griffin, 43 Wash. 591 (1906) (timeliness/opportunity to complain standard for admitting complaint evidence)
State v. Hill, 578 A.2d 370 (N.J. 1990) (critical discussion of fresh‑complaint origins and persistence of juror bias)
Commonwealth v. Arana, 901 N.E.2d 99 (Mass. 2009) (Massachusetts limitation to one witness for complaint testimony)
State v. Daniel W.E., 142 A.3d 265 (Conn. 2016) (recent defense of retaining fresh‑complaint doctrine to mitigate juror bias)