State v. Patterson, 2017 SD 64

Background

On October 9, 2013, two-year-old T.R. was left in the care of Joseph Patterson; shortly after, Patterson reported the child unresponsive and said he had removed a piece of gummy candy from T.R.’s mouth. Paramedics transported T.R. to the hospital.
Hospital testing revealed intracranial hemorrhaging, widespread retinal hemorrhages, four subcutaneous scalp hemorrhages, and brain death; T.R. was removed from life support two days later.
Patterson was charged with second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter, and aggravated battery of a child; a jury convicted on all counts and Patterson received life for murder and concurrent 25 years for aggravated battery.
At trial the State presented (among other things) testimony from nine medical experts who opined abusive head trauma caused T.R.’s death; the defense argued choking and alternative third-party culpability (daycare provider) were possible causes.
The trial court admitted testimony from Patterson’s ex-girlfriend about three prior alleged child-abuse incidents as "other acts" for motive/absence of accident, excluded some third-party incidents about the daycare provider, and provided limiting instructions; Patterson moved for acquittal, which was denied.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of prior "other acts" evidence	Other acts show motive and absence of accident	Prior acts were improper propensity evidence and unduly prejudicial	Court upheld admission of three prior child-abuse incidents as relevant to motive/absence of accident; reversed only the allowance of a generalized statement that Patterson was "very verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive" but found no prejudice warranting a new trial
Prosecutorial argument on specific factual theory (TV change → strike)	Argued evidence and reasonable inferences supported the theory	Theory was unsupported and amounted to prejudicial misconduct	Court found argument within permissible closing-argument latitude and not reversible misconduct
Admission of multiple expert opinions diagnosing abusive head trauma	Experts' opinions supported by training and evidence; admissible	Experts impermissibly invaded the jury's province and gave conclusory testimony	Court found no abuse of discretion; experts stated opinions without unduly telling jury what to decide and defense had full opportunity to challenge them
Exclusion of additional third-party (daycare) incidents	Additional incidents were relevant to third-party culpability and defense	State sought exclusion for relevance and prejudice	Court reviewed each proffered incident and did not abuse discretion in excluding some; allowed two incidents but excluded six others
Sufficiency of evidence (motion for acquittal)	State: expert testimony and other evidence sufficed to prove nonaccidental trauma and murder beyond a reasonable doubt	Patterson: triad theory questionable, experts conflicted, choking/third-party plausible → reasonable doubt	Viewing evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the Court held the expert and other evidence were sufficient to support convictions

Key Cases Cited

State v. Toohey, 816 N.W.2d 120 (S.D. 2012) (standard for reviewing admission of other-acts evidence)
State v. Birdshead, 871 N.W.2d 62 (S.D. 2015) (two-part factual/logical relevancy test for other-acts evidence)
State v. Reay, 762 N.W.2d 356 (S.D. 2009) (prejudice standard for erroneously admitted evidence)
State v. Golliher-Weyer, 875 N.W.2d 28 (S.D. 2016) (prejudice must have produced some effect on the verdict)
State v. McKinney, 699 N.W.2d 471 (S.D. 2005) (deference to trial court on expert admissibility)
State v. Buchholtz, 841 N.W.2d 449 (S.D. 2013) (limits on expert testimony invading jury's province)
State v. Thomason, 845 N.W.2d 640 (S.D. 2014) (standard of review for judgment of acquittal)
State v. Smith, 599 N.W.2d 344 (S.D. 1999) (latitude in closing argument and permissible inferences)