Bladen man convicted of child sex crimes granted new trial

BLADEN COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — A Bladen County man accused of having sex with a child for several years is getting a new trial.

On July 28, 2015, a jury found John Owen Jacobs, of Bladenboro, guilty of first degree sex offense with a child. He was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.

On Friday, The North Carolina Supreme Court overturned the conviction and granted Jacobs a new trial, ruling the Court of Appeals erred by holding there was no error in the trial court’s decision to withhold evidence that the victim had two STD’s that Jacobs did not.

During the original trial, the State filed a motion to prohibit the defense from referencing any sexually transmitted diseases or infections the child tested positive for, trichomonas vaginalis and herpes simplex virus, Type II.

In response, the defense filed a notice of intent to call an expert witness to testify that the child has STDs that the defendant does not have.

Before opening statements, the judge ruled that the evidence was inadmissable under Rule 412, North Carolina’s rape shield law. The law limits the introduction of evidence about the sexual behavior of an alleged victim in criminal trials for rape and other sexual offenses, but there are exceptions to the law.

During the trial, the child testified that the alleged assaults began in 2011, when she was eight or nine years old and continued until 2013.

The Supreme Court ruled that based on the materials presented in defendant’s offer of proof, the STD evidence was an essential part of the proposed expert testimony. The proposed expert’s conclusions regarding the presence of STDs in the victim and the absence of those same STDs in defendant affirmatively permit an inference that defendant did not commit the charged crime.

Furthermore, such evidence diminishes the likelihood of a three-year period of sexual relations between defendant and Betty. Therefore, the trial court erred in excluding this evidence pursuant to Rule 412 and there is “a reasonable possibility that, had the error not been committed, a different result would have been reached at trial,” the ruling states.

The NC Supreme Court ruled that the STD evidence fell within the Rule 412 exception and reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals with instructions to vacate the defendant’s conviction and to further remand this case to Bladen County for a new trial.