James Wilson had attempted to have his conviction overturned by claiming the trial judge erred in not allowing testimony showing that the 15-year-old had lied about a car accident in which she had been involved.
Wilson also claimed that he had not recklessly infected the teenager, but the court rejected that, noting that he had been aware of his HIV-positive status for five years.
The following summary of the case was provided in the opinion:
From January through November 2003, James Wilson engaged in sexual contact with his girlfriend's 15-year-old daughter. The next summer, the girlfriend was hospitalized. In September 2004, the daughter found a medical record indicating Wilson was HIV-positive. The next day, after she learned her mother also was HIV-positive, she told her aunt that Wilson had been having sex with her. The police arrested Wilson, and in October 2004, a grand jury charged him with eight counts of second-degree statutory rape, three counts of statutory sodomy and one count of recklessly exposing another to HIV. At trial, Wilson sought to cross-examine the daughter and introduce her prior deposition testimony in which she admitted she had lied about her role in a car accident occurring in July 2004. The court excluded this evidence and prohibited the cross-examination as irrelevant. At the close of the evidence, the court granted Wilson's motion for a directed verdict on one of the statutory rape charges, and the jury convicted Wilson of the remaining seven charges. The court sentenced him, as a prior offender, to 15 years in prison for the first statutory rape conviction plus seven years in prison for each of the remaining six statutory rape convictions, the three statutory sodomy convictions and the exposure to HIV conviction. The seven-year sentences were to be served concurrently with each other but consecutively to the 15-year sentence.
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