Criminal Law – Case Law Wire

Allen v. State — Alternative-Suspect Defense Requires Access to Juvenile Records Showing Similar Prior Assault

The Nevada Supreme Court reversed Allen’s convictions for sexual assault on a minor, holding en banc that a district court abused its discretion in finding A.S.’s juvenile records of a nearly identical prior sexual offense irrelevant to Allen’s alternative-suspect defense. The court found the error was not harmless where it foreclosed pretrial investigation, terminated the admissibility inquiry, the jury independently indicated interest in the alternative suspect, and the State exploited the exclusion to elicit misleading testimony.

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Commonwealth v. Albert — Private Diary Entry Cannot Serve as First Complaint Evidence; Rape-of-a-Child Convictions Vacated

/ July 3, 2026

The Massachusetts Appeals Court vacated Robert Albert’s rape-of-a-child convictions and remanded for a new trial, holding that his daughter’s private diary entry — written the day after the last alleged assault but never shared with anyone — could not qualify as “first complaint evidence” under Commonwealth v. King because the first complaint doctrine requires a communication to another person; the entry was more detailed than the actual oral disclosure, deprived the defendant of a witness to cross-examine, and was accompanied by a limiting instruction that misdescribed the diary as a “telling” of the assault.