Washington Supreme Court

State v. Fisher

March 12, 2009202 P.3d 937

Summary

The court reversed Fisher's convictions for four counts of child molestation and remanded for a new trial because the prosecutor introduced physical-abuse evidence before the defense made delayed reporting an issue and then used that evidence to argue propensity. The court also held that admitting evidence concerning Fisher's current stepchildren was an abuse of discretion, but rejected Fisher's challenges to the exclusion of divorce-related bias evidence and to the jury instructions. The court did not resolve several additional alleged instances of prosecutorial misconduct because the ER 404(b) misuse independently required reversal.