State v. Hernandez
Annotate this Case
The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the circuit court's preliminary ruling that Appellant could provide testimony from an expert witness on the capacity of a ten-year-old alleged third-party perpetrator to have killed Appellant's daughter, A.H., holding that the circuit court abused its discretion.
Appellant was arrested and charged by complaint with second-degree murder in connection with the death of her three-year-old daughter A.H. Appellant's theory at trial was that a ten-year-old boy inflicted the injuries upon A.H. that caused her death. At issue was the circuit court's grant of Appellant's motion to offer third-party perpetrator evidence at trial. The circuit court denied Appellant's request to admit direct evidence of the boy's other acts but allowed admission of the opinion testimony at issue. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the circuit court erroneously applied Rule 404(a) and (b) and Rule 703 in allowing the admission of the proffered expert testimony.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.