Background
Kevin Earl Morris rented a room in the Great Falls apartment of JB and his wife BB beginning in December 2019. On February 6, 2020, while JB was at work, Morris sexually assaulted BB in his room. BB reported the assault to police the following day. Morris, also interviewed by police, admitted to intercourse but claimed he awoke to BB initiating it. The State charged Morris with Sexual Intercourse Without Consent and Solicitation of Tampering with Physical Evidence under Montana law.
Before trial, Morris sought to introduce two text messages — one from BB referencing a prior rape she had experienced, and one from JB calling BB “manipulative and sneaky” — as a basis for a hearing on whether BB had made a prior false rape allegation. The district court denied a hearing under State ex rel. Mazurek v. Fourth Judicial Dist., finding Morris had presented no evidence the prior incident was ever reported or adjudicated, let alone false. During trial, Morris also sought to cross-examine witnesses about BB’s alleged infidelity during a prior marriage as a motive-to-fabricate theory, and belatedly disclosed investigator notes — gathered nearly a year before trial — containing a statement from BB’s ex-husband about marital problems. The court excluded the notes as a discovery sanction and barred the infidelity cross-examination as speculative rape-shield evidence.
The jury convicted Morris on both counts. At sentencing, the district court imposed a 15-year term (10 years suspended) and several probation conditions restricting Morris’s contact with minors — conditions Morris objected to as lacking any nexus to his offenses, which involved no minors. The Eighth Judicial District Court (Hon. John W. Parker) entered judgment, and Morris appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Montana Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Swanson, affirmed the district court’s rape-shield rulings and discovery sanction, reversed the challenged probation conditions restricting minor contact, and remanded for further proceedings. On the rape-shield issues, the Court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a Mazurek hearing: a hearing to assess the admissibility of prior false rape allegations is not a discovery device, and Morris never produced even a scintilla of evidence that BB’s prior rape experience resulted in a false accusation. The Court further held the district court properly required an offer of proof before permitting cross-examination once the State introduced BB’s text referencing her prior assault.
Regarding Morris’s attempt to introduce evidence of BB’s alleged infidelity, the Court affirmed exclusion under Montana’s rape shield statute, § 45-5-511, MCA. Morris’s stated goal — to establish a “pattern of behavior” of sexual conduct with men outside marriage — was precisely the sort of propensity inference the statute forbids. The Court reaffirmed that the Constitution does not require a blanket motive-to-fabricate exception to rape shield laws; any such evidence must pass a balancing test requiring that it be non-speculative, relevant, non-cumulative, and more probative than prejudicial. Morris’s allegations were unsupported speculation and the jury had already heard the core motive theory (BB’s fear that JB would think she cheated) through properly admitted evidence. The discovery sanction barring late-disclosed investigator notes was likewise affirmed as a proper exercise of the district court’s discretion under § 46-15-329(4), MCA.
The Court reversed the two objected-to probation conditions barring Morris from associating with minors or frequenting places where children congregate without a trained adult present. Because Morris’s convictions bore no relationship to minors, the Court found the challenged conditions lacked the necessary nexus to the offense and remanded for the district court to reconsider those conditions.
Key Takeaways
- A Mazurek hearing on prior false rape allegations is not available on demand — the defendant must first produce at least some evidence that the prior accusation was made and was false; the hearing tests admissibility of existing evidence, not a tool to fish for it.
- Evidence of an alleged victim’s past infidelity is classic rape-shield material; a motive-to-fabricate theory does not create a categorical constitutional exception, and speculative or unsupported allegations are insufficient to overcome the statutory exclusion.
- Withholding an investigator’s witness statement — even under an attorney work-product theory — while repeatedly failing to make an offer of proof the court has requested multiple times supports the imposition of a discovery sanction under § 46-15-329(4), MCA.
- Probation conditions restricting contact with minors require a sufficient nexus to the offense of conviction; a sexual assault against an adult victim, with no minor-related conduct in the record, cannot support such conditions without further justification on remand.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the procedural rigor Montana courts apply before rape-shield evidence may be admitted. Defense counsel cannot use a Mazurek hearing as a discovery vehicle, and motive-to-fabricate arguments — however framed — must clear a non-speculative evidentiary threshold before the defendant’s confrontation rights outweigh the victim’s statutory protections. The opinion also underscores the reciprocal discovery obligations that apply even to investigator notes a party believes are work product: sitting on material evidence while repeatedly failing to make a court-requested offer of proof, then springing it at the last moment of trial, exposes counsel to exclusionary sanctions.
On sentencing, the case is a useful reminder that conditions of supervision must bear a rational connection to the offense conduct. The reversal of the minor-contact restrictions signals that Montana courts will scrutinize boilerplate presentence investigation report conditions when the underlying conviction has no relationship to the population the condition targets.