Fox v. State

In Fox v. State, 115 S.W.3d 550, 559 (Tex. App.--Houston 14th Dist. 2002, pet. ref'd), the Fourteenth Court of Appeals applied the doctrine of chances to conclude that certain defensive evidence regarding previous sexual assault accusations by a complainant's siblings was relevant and admissible. Fox, 115 S.W.3d at 561. Fox was accused of sexually assaulting his two minor step-children and his biological daughter. Id. at 556-57. A consolidated trial led to an acquittal on the charges pertaining to one child and a mistrial as to the others. Id. at 557. Fox was tried again on charges pertaining to one child. Id. During the guilt-innocence stage of the trial, Fox unsuccessfully sought to offer evidence that two other children had made similar sexual abuse allegations on the same day. Id. Fox contended that this evidence supported his theory that the children's mother had coached them to make false allegations in order to gain leverage in a custody dispute. Id. The complainant accused Fox of molesting her on a nearly daily basis, as she pretended to sleep on a creaky, metal bunk bed she shared with her step-sisters. Id. at 556. She testified that her sisters never awoke while Fox was molesting her. Id. During the punishment phase of trial, the complainant's older sister testified that she slept in the top bunk and that Fox frequently climbed into her bed and had sexual intercourse with her while her sisters slept in the lower bunk. Id. at 557. The court of appeals noted the similarities in the sisters' stories: the abuse occurred frequently, at night, in a creaky bunk bed, while the other sisters slept. Id. at 561. The court in Fox thus relied on the combination of the similarity and the implausibility of the sisters' accusations to conclude that the evidence of extraneous acts was relevant to the defendant's theory that all three girls had been coached to make false allegations, and thus should have been admitted. Id.