The Alabama Supreme Court has declined to grant a new hearing to an Eight Mile man convicted of sexually abusing two teenage girls, a decision that drew a sharp dissent from the state’s chief justice.
The defendant, now 37, had worked with young people through a Mobile-area youth mentoring program. According to trial testimony from 2013, he used that position to abuse two 15-year-old girls enrolled in the program. A jury convicted him, and a circuit judge sentenced him to eight and a half years in prison in February 2013.
At trial, the judge had ruled that testimony about a romantic relationship between the two victims could not be introduced as part of the defense. Attorneys for the defendant argued on appeal that the exclusion was improper, saying the relationship was relevant to questions of possible bias or a fabricated account. The state’s Court of Criminal Appeals rejected that argument, and the Alabama Supreme Court likewise declined to take up the case for further review.
The vote among the justices was 5-3. In his dissent, the chief justice wrote that he believed the excluded testimony could have supported the defense’s argument that the girls had reason to coordinate their allegations, and that jurors should have been allowed to weigh it. Three justices, including the chief justice, dissented from the denial, while five others concurred with letting the conviction and the lower court’s rulings stand.
The defendant’s trial attorney said he welcomed the dissent but remained frustrated with the outcome of the broader appeals process. He argued that the courts’ unwillingness to allow the contested testimony reflected discomfort with the underlying allegations rather than a straightforward legal judgment, and he maintained his client’s defense team had raised a legitimate evidentiary question rather than an attempt to attack the victims.
The attorney also said he did not believe the excluded evidence pointed to a specific motive for revenge, but argued that jurors were entitled to hear all context bearing on the credibility of testimony central to the case.
With the state Supreme Court’s decision, the conviction and sentence handed down in Mobile County stand. The case had drawn attention in the Eight Mile community, where the mentoring program at the center of the allegations was based, as an example of how appellate courts weigh evidentiary disputes in sensitive criminal cases.