A Ward man convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl will get a new trial after an Arkansas Court of Appeals ruling Wednesday.
Four members of a five-judge panel agreed that Lonoke County Circuit Judge Sandy Huckabee should not have allowed prosecutors to show the entirety of the alleged victim's forensic interview after attorneys for the defendant, Ramon Perez, began picking apart inconsistencies in her testimony.
The majority ruling found that Perez's defense was compromised by the judge allowing the jury to watch the entirety of a 30-minute interview in the middle of the victim's testimony.
"In this case, there was no physical evidence to support the allegations against Mr. Perez, and the primary evidence supporting his conviction was the victim's testimony," Judge Kenneth Hixson wrote. "By permitting the State to play the entire recording of the forensic interview to the jury, the trial court erroneously allowed the State to bolster [the victim's] testimony with multiple prior consistent statements detailing her accounts of the rapes."
Judge Rita Gruber disagreed and argued in her dissent that though the interview was entered in "error" because it amounted to hearsay, its inclusion resulted in harmless error and she would have upheld Perez's conviction.
Perez was living in Ward in 2013 and knew the girl.
That November, the victim came forward, saying that Perez had routinely beaten her and then began to use sex as an alternative to physical discipline.
Perez, now 34, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of rape as well as aggravated assault and sexual assault.
After a trial in late October 2014, Perez was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
During Perez's trial, his attorney began questioning the victim on the stand about several inconsistencies between her interview with investigators and the testimony she gave during direct examination -- inconsistencies ranging from questions of timing to the manner of her sexual assaults.
Halfway through the questioning, prosecutors asked to play the girl's entire interview to the jury. Perez's attorney, Jonathan Streit, objected.
"If we show the video now, she's just going to get a tutorial of exactly what she needs to say," Streit told the circuit judge.
There was no substantial physical evidence linking Perez to any assault, according to the Court of Appeals. The girl's mother testified that she never saw signs of abuse and said that her daughter was often untruthful and "was a very good liar."
The Court of Appeals judges found the video to be hearsay and inadmissible in the case and that its use in trial harmed Perez's opportunity to defend himself.
"The victim's credibility was a major consideration to the jury," Hixson wrote.
Perez remained in a state prison in Brickeys on Wednesday night.
Metro on 01/28/2016