Butcher v. Kentucky
Kentucky Supreme Court
96 S.W.3d 3 (2002)

- Written by Sean Carroll, JD
Facts
Larry Butcher (defendant) was charged with rape of a minor under the age of 12 and other sexual-abuse crimes related to abuse of his minor stepdaughter, H.B. Butcher was also charged with incest. At age 14, H.B. had had a baby. At trial, the prosecution (plaintiff) called an expert witness to introduce a paternity test that said that there was a 99.74 percent chance that Butcher was the father of the baby. The paternity test involved a formula with three different values: probability that Butcher could be excluded as a possible father, a paternity index that measured the likelihood that Butcher was the father as opposed to another random person of the same race, and ultimately an overall probability of paternity expressed as a percentage out of 100. To get from the paternity index to an understandable percentage, the prosecution’s expert used a prior probability of 0.5, which was typical in criminal cases. This means that the formula assumed a 50 percent chance that Butcher had sex with H.B. Because the test results were introduced to prove that Butcher had sex with H.B., Butcher objected to the evidence on the ground that the test essentially assumed what it was being introduced to prove. Butcher asserted that this assumption permitted the prosecution to prove its case with a lighter burden of proof than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard, thus violating his constitutional due-process rights. The trial court rejected Butcher’s arguments, and a jury convicted Butcher of rape and sexual abuse. The jury acquitted Butcher of incest. Butcher appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Graves, J.)
Concurrence (Cooper, J.)
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