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show Medicine Eagle had a common plan or scheme. She said the trial judge also properly considered a prior conviction in enhancing Medicine Eagle's sentence.
• Medicine Eagle was first charged in 2001 with assaulting the 15-year-old girl in September of 2000, but those charges were dismissed after testing failed to implicate him and instead indicated the presence of DNA from another male.
• After the girl acknowledged she had sex with her boyfriend on the day of the alleged rape, the case was reopened in 2008 and additional DNA testing was done with a new method to determine if Medicine Eagle's DNA was also present. A jury later convicted Medicine Eagle of rape, kidnapping and sexual contact with a child younger than 16.
• In Tuesday's hearing, Jensen told the Supreme Court that Medicine Eagle's convictions should be thrown out because an expert who analyzed DNA evidence in 2008 did not appear in the trial.
• Jasper said Medicine Eagle's rights were preserved because he questioned the expert who analyzed the DNA evidence in 2011 and presented that final analysis to the jury.
• Jensen also said Medicine Eagle was harmed when the trial judge allowed testimony that Medicine Eagle later assaulted another girl in a similar manner by offering to give her a ride and then taking her to a remote place outside of town.
• The Supreme Court should forbid such evidence unless a judge or jury finds that a common scheme or plan existed at the time of the offense at issue in a trial, Jensen said. Otherwise, evidence of an alleged similar assault becomes an impermissible character attack, he said.
• Jasper said that evidence was properly admitted in the trial. She said the jury was correctly told it could only consider the alleged second crime as evidence of a common plan or scheme, not as evidence that Medicine Eagle was guilty of the offenses at issue in the trial.
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