Full Opinion

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS NO. PD-0181-25 CARLOS DAVID RODRIGUEZ, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS ON APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW FROM THE NINTH COURT OF APPEALS MONTGOMERY COUNTY WALKER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which SCHENCK, P.J., and RICHARDSON, YEARY, NEWELL, MCCLURE, FINLEY, and PARKER, JJ., joined. KEEL, J. concurred. OPINION In Appellant, Carlos David Rodriguez’s, trial for aggravated sexual assault of a child,1 he wanted to introduce evidence that the complainant had previously made a false allegation of sexual abuse. She had accused her mother’s then live-in boyfriend 1 See TEX. PENAL CODE Ann. § 22.021(a)(1)(B). 2 of sexually abusing her sister, which in turn led to the sister moving to their grandmother’s house. Appellant’s theory was that the complainant wanted to move to her grandmother’s house as well, so the complainant falsely accused him of sexual abuse in order to move. The trial court excluded the evidence of the past allegation as not relevant to Appellant’s case. To the extent Appellant’s desired evidence would have shown that the complainant had a motive to falsely allege abuse, his motive evidence would have been probative of the falsity of an accusation made against somebody the complainant was living with at the time of the accusation. The trial court reasonably concluded that the evidence was not probative of whether the accusation against Appellant was false, because Appellant was not living with the complainant at the time she accused him of abuse. Instead, the outcry came several years after they had lived together. Appellant’s motive theory fails. The trial court did not abuse its discretion excluding the evidence, and the court of appeals did not err in upholding the trial court’s exclusion of the evidence. We will affirm. I — Background[2] 2 Because Appellant’s issue before us is about evidence of an accusation of abuse prior to and separate from the offense for which he was charged and convicted, we do not focus on the evidence 3 Appellant and Vanesa Garza began dating and then moved in together. He became a stepfather to her daughters from a prior relationship, R.G. and J.G., and Appellant and Garza had two more children during their relationship. They eventually separated in 2015. Garza then started dating Carlos Mondragon, and Mondragon moved in with her and her daughters. In 2018, J.G. missed some days at school. When questioned by the school’s principal, J.G. told the principal that her sister had been sexually abused by Mondragon. As a result of the accusation, a CPS investigation was initiated, and R.G. moved in with the girls’ paternal grandmother, Juana Murillo Rios. J.G.’s accusation that Mondragon had abused R.G. proved to be unfounded—R.G. denied that she had been abused. In 2019, nine months after the accusation against Mondragon, J.G. told Rios that Appellant had once sexually assaulted J.G. when he and Garza were still living together. Appellant was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child younger than fourteen years of age. See TEX. PENAL CODE Ann. § 22.021(a)(1)(B). At trial, presented by the State, including the facts of the offense, the outcry, the investigation, and the therapy that the complainant underwent after her outcry. The court of appeals presented that background in its opinion below. See Rodriguez v. State, No. 09-22-00116-CR, 2024 WL 3593185, at *1–3 (Tex. App.—Beaumont July 31, 2024, pet. granted) (mem. op., not designated for publication). 4 Appellant wanted to introduce evidence of J.G.’s prior accusation against Mondragon. He argued that the evidence would show she had made a prior false accusation of sexual abuse and would show she had a motive to make the current accusation of sexual abuse (which he alleged to also be false). During cross-examination of J.G.’s grandmother Rios, Appellant wanted to ask about the prior accusation. He argued that it would tie into evidence that J.G. preferred staying with Rios instead of with her mother. Rios did not impose strict rules on the girls like their mother did. That preference, according to Appellant, motivated J.G. to falsely accuse him of abuse, so she could move out of Garza’s house and in with Rios, as had happened with R.G. previously. The trial court excluded the evidence as not relevant to the case involving Appellant and J.G. because it involved “a separate perpetrator -- alleged perpetrator and a separate alleged individual.” The court later allowed the defense to make a bill of exception. During cross-examination of J.G., Appellant wanted to get into the topic of the prior accusation by asking her about the time that she had missed school, and, more specifically, the excuse that she gave for being absent (that her sister was sexually abused by Mondragon). Appellant argued that it went “back to our motive and bias,” 5 but the trial court did not allow Appellant to explore this line of questioning, concerned that it involved an “unrelated allegation with a different perpetrator and different victim.” Although the trial court did not allow Appellant to explore J.G.’s accusation that caused the CPS investigation, Appellant was able to get J.G. to concede that nine months before her accusation against Appellant, during the CPS investigation (without eliciting that there was a CPS investigation), she denied having ever been sexually abused. Appellant was also able to get J.G. to admit that she thought living with Garza was boring and Rios’s house was less boring. J.G. was also confronted with inconsistencies in her accusation against Appellant as to whether she was eight-years- old or ten-years-old when the abuse allegedly occurred. The morning after J.G. testified, Appellant’s defense counsel presented the bill of exception: We wanted to enter evidence regarding a prior CPS allegation investigation that was in March 2018. It was said that [J.G.], heard -- overheard that [R.G.] was raped by Carlos Mondragon, that’s her mother’s current boyfriend at the time. She made this allegation after missing school on Saturday and Monday. They asked her Tuesday why she missed school and gave this excuse or she made the allegation. This was not a true allegation. [R.G.] denied the allegation. They interviewed Vanesa and Carlos [Mondragon]. Both said that they were just friends and didn’t live together. [E.R., Appellant’s daughter with Garza], the other daughter, [J.G.] and [R.G.], all said that Carlos Mondragon did live 6 there. This could have led to a possible alternative suspect, Carlos Mondragon. During the timeline, it’s possible he was living with Ms. Garza and not Carlos Rodriguez. Ms. [J.G.], the complainant, also denied three times, at least, that she was never sexually abused. She denied to the principal. She denied to the CPS worker, Dan Wilber, and there’s reason for us to believe she was interviewed by Safe Harbor and she denied being sexually abused there, as well. The CPS report in [J.G.’s] interview also states inconsistent testimony that we weren’t allowed to impeach on where she states that dad’s house, they rarely get disciplined and that she’s only allowed to stay there for two days so she doesn’t get in trouble. This goes to motive and bias. The accusations of rape are false nine months prior, and it shows a motive to get out of mom’s house and live in grandma’s house. Furthermore, the CPS investigator, we are not able to get into the full depth of what she said in that prior interview. We are limited, in this case, to just what she told the counselor. In that CPS record, she says parts of the body that were not touched and goes much more into detailed. We are not able to impeach based on that. I think the face of the record allows us, under the cases that we cited earlier . . . to establish a public records exception to hearsay and get into Mr. Wilber’s record that way. The Defense also subpoenaed Mr. Wilber and was going to call him to the stand in order to lay the predicate under business record, if necessary, or public record in order to get this in. In the defense’s case-in-chief, Appellant presented no evidence relating to the prior accusation. Instead, he flatly denied the allegation against him, and his mother and sister testified that J.G. did not seem afraid of him. During closing arguments, the State argued that J.G. had no motive to lie about 7 the abuse: . . . She has no motive to lie. Let’s talk about motive. They want you to believe that “she” [the grandmother and outcry witness] is a puppet master. There was no evidence of that. There’s no evidence that since the outcry three years ago that she ever tried to get custody of [J.G.] or that [J.G.] has ever wanted to go live with her permanently. Yeah, she’s her grandma. She likes spending time at grandma’s and spending her weekend at grandma’s, but it never -- it never panned out for the Defense, this idea that somehow they were making this all up in order to go live with grandma. That just didn’t happen. There’s no evidence of that anywhere[.] The jury found Appellant guilty, and he was given a sentence of twenty years. On appeal, among other issues Appellant contended that the trial court’s exclusion of his motive evidence was error because it was relevant. Rodriguez, 2024 WL 3593185, at *9–10. The court of appeals disagreed with Appellant, instead finding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion “by excluding the questions about an accusation involving two other individuals and by determining that the admission of such testimony would confuse the issues and mislead the jury.” Id. at *10 (citing TEX. R. EVID. 401, 403). The court of appeals also noted that Appellant was able “to develop evidence that [J.G.] had reasons that might have led her to make a false outcry,” alluding to her admission on cross-examination that she thought living with Garza was 8 boring and she preferred staying with Rios because her grandmother had less rules. Id. We granted Appellant’s petition for discretionary review, which asked: Did the Court of Appeals [err] in holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of JG’s prior sexual assault allegations that resulted in her sister getting to live with her grandmother? II — Standard of Review A trial court’s decision to admit or exclude evidence is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. Irsan v. State, 708 S.W.3d 584, 611 (Tex. Crim. App. 2025); Wells v. State, 611 S.W.3d 396, 427 (Tex. Crim. App. 2020). “An abuse of discretion does not occur unless the trial court acts ‘arbitrarily or unreasonably’ or ‘without reference to any guiding rules and principles.’” State v. Hill, 499 S.W.3d 853, 865 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016) (quoting Montgomery v. State, 810 S.W.2d 372, 380 (Tex. Crim. App. 1990)). “A trial court abuses its discretion only when no reasonable view of the record could support its ruling.” State v. Lerma, 639 S.W.3d 63, 68 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021). “In determining whether the trial court abused its discretion, an appellate court must not substitute its own judgment for that of the trial court, and it must uphold the trial court’s ruling if it is within the zone of reasonable disagreement.” Id.; see also Cameron v. State, 241 S.W.3d 15, 19 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (“An appellate court may not reverse a trial court’s decision regarding the admissibility of evidence solely because 9 the appellate court disagrees with the decision.”); Moses v. State, 105 S.W.3d 622, 627 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003) (under the abuse of discretion standard of review, an appellate court “cannot simply substitute its own decision for the trial court’s.”). III — Relevance and Admissibility of Prior, False Accusations of Sexual Assault Today’s issue is whether Appellant’s desired evidence was properly excluded, or if that exclusion was error. We begin at square one: relevant evidence is admissible, and irrelevant evidence is inadmissible. TEX. R. EVID. 402. Evidence is relevant if: (a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and (b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action. TEX. R. EVID. 401. In other words, relevant evidence is evidence that is probative and material. Miller v. State, 36 S.W.3d 503, 507 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001); Henley v. State, 493 S.W.3d 77, 83 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016). Material evidence: must be shown to be addressed to the proof of a material proposition, i.e., “any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action.” “If the evidence is offered to help prove a proposition which is not a matter in issue, the evidence is immaterial.” Miller, 36 S.W.3d at 507 (quoting 1 STEVEN GOODE ET AL., TEXAS PRACTICE: GUIDE TO THE TEXAS RULES OF EVIDENCE: CIVIL AND CRIMINAL § 401.1 (2d ed. 1993 & 10 Supp. 1995)). “For evidence to be probative, it ‘must tend to make the existence of the fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence.’” Henley, 493 S.W.3d 77, 83–84 (quoting Miller, 36 S.W.3d at 507). The “[e]vidence need not by itself prove or disprove a particular fact to be relevant; it is sufficient if the evidence provides a small nudge toward proving or disproving some fact of consequence.” Stewart v. State, 129 S.W.3d 93, 96 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004). “There is no purely legal test to determine whether evidence will tend to prove or disprove a proposition—it is a test of logic and common sense.” Miller, 36 S.W.3d at 507. Sexual assault cases, especially those that arise from outcries several years after the alleged assault, frequently involve little to no forensic or physical evidence. Instead, they commonly amount to “he said, she said” contests. Hammer v. State, 296 S.W.3d 555, 561–62 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009). If the only thing to determine whether the defendant assaulted the complainant is “his word against hers,” then whether the complainant is someone who should be believed is a matter in issue and a fact of consequence. See Miller, 36 S.W.3d at 507 (defining material evidence). But in such cases, credibility is not just material, it is the entire ballgame. Hammer, 296 S.W.3d at 561 (“[T]he credibility of both the complainant and defendant is a central, often 11 dispositive, issue.”). Evidence that the complainant made a prior accusation, that was false, is probative of that material fact. When hearing two total strangers and deciding which one is lying and which one is telling the truth, proof that one of them lied in the past provides a “small nudge” and moves the needle. See Stewart, 129 S.W.3d at 96 (discussing probative evidence). “Logic and common sense” tells us to be skeptical of a person that lied in the past. See Miller, 36 S.W.3d at 507 (test for probative evidence). For all the intuitive sense behind the idea of “he lied before, he could be lying now,” that road leads to “he lied before, he is definitely lying now.” As the saying goes, “Once a liar, always a liar.” But that certainly cannot be the case, because logic and common sense also teach us that, even if a person lied before about one thing at some earlier time, he could nonetheless be telling the truth about another thing at a different time. He could even be telling the truth about the current accusation, which is what the trial is really about. “Once a liar, not always a liar.” That lesson is illustrated by the classic fable from Aesop: There was a boy tending the sheep who would continually go up to the embankment and shout, ‘Help, there’s a wolf!’ The farmers would all come running only to find out that what the boy said was not true. Then one day there really was a wolf, but when the boy shouted they didn’t 12 believe him and no one came to his aid. The whole flock was eaten by the wolf. AESOP, AESOP’S FABLES 78 (Laura Gibbs trans., Oxford University Press 2002). The moral of the story? “The story shows that this is how liars are rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them.” Id.; see also Hammer, 296 S.W.3d at 564 (“The moral of that story was ‘Nobody believes a liar . . . even when he is telling the truth.”).3 While the usual moral of the story is told from the viewpoint of the boy, there is also a moral from the viewpoint of the farmers. The farmers and the community lost 3 See also WILLIAM CAXTON, CAXTON’S AESOP (Robert Thomas Lenaghan ed., Harvard University Press 1967) (1484) (“For men bileue not lyghtly hym / whiche is knowen for a lyer” [For men believe not lightly him / which is known for a liar]); THREE HUNDRED AESOP’S FABLES 38 (George Fyler Townsend trans., London, George Routledge and Sons 1867) (“There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth.”); THE FABLES OF AESOP 103 (Joseph Jacobs ed., London, Macmillan & Co. 1894) (“A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.”). Or, as Samuel Croxall stated: He that is detected for being a notorious liar, besides the ignominy and reproach of the thing, incurs this mischief, That he will scarce be able to get any one to believe him again as long as he lives. However true our complaint may be, or how much soever it may be for our interest to have it believed, yet, if we have been frequently caught tripping before, we shall hardly be able to gain credit to what we relate afterwards. Though mankind are generally stupid enough to be often imposed upon, yet few are so senseless as to believe a notorious liar, or to trust a cheat upon record. These little shams, when found out, are sufficiently prejudicial to the interest of every private person who practices them. AESOP, FABLES OF AESOP AND OTHERS: TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH INSTRUCTIVE APPLICATIONS; AND A CUT BEFORE EACH FABLE 263–64 (Samuel Croxall trans., London 1792). 13 the sheep because they shut their ears to the cries of the boy. The moral for them is that people should not dismiss someone who told a lie in the past, because this time he might be telling the truth. See CROXALL, supra note 3, at 264 (“But, when we are alarmed with imaginary dangers in respect of the public, till the cry grows quite stale and threadbare, how can it be expected we should know when to guard ourselves against real ones?”). Both sides have something to learn.4 Therefore, it has been long-recognized that a prior false accusation has great power to cause reasonable persons to disregard the truth. The balance—between the need to effectively contest a witness’s credibility5 and the outsized effect that specific instances of conduct can have—is struck by Rule 608, which provides: A Witness’s Character for Truthfulness or Untruthfulness 4 We note that there are other reasons to be cautious of using evidence of a past lie to show that a witness should not be trusted. If proof of a past lie is admissible to prove a witness is a liar, trials would become fishing expeditions into every witness’s past for lies. Witnesses would be reluctant to provide any testimony, and victims would be discouraged from coming forth. See Hammer, 296 S.W.3d at 564 (“A sexual assault complainant is not a volunteer for an exercise in character assassination.”). And a predator can choose his victim by seeking one that he knows had told a lie at some point in the past. 5 A witness’s credibility is always an issue. Determining whether a witness is credible is one of the core functions of cross-examination at trial. See Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 316 (1974) (“Cross-examination is the principal means by which the believability of a witness and the truth of his testimony are tested. . . . the cross-examiner has traditionally been allowed to impeach, i.e., discredit, the witness.”). To make cross-examination effective, “defense counsel should [be] permitted to expose to the jury the facts from which jurors, as the sole triers of fact and credibility, could appropriately draw inferences relating to the reliability of the witness.” Id. at 318. 14 (a) Reputation or Opinion Evidence. A witness’s credibility may be attacked or supported by testimony about the witness’s reputation for having a character for truthfulness or untruthfulness, or by testimony in the form of an opinion about that character. But evidence of truthful character is admissible only after the witness’s character for truthfulness has been attacked. (b) Specific Instances of Conduct. Except for a criminal conviction under Rule 609, a party may not inquire into or offer extrinsic evidence to prove specific instances of the witness’s conduct in order to attack or support the witness’s character for truthfulness. TEX. R. EVID. 608(b). Accordingly, a witness’s character for truthfulness can be challenged, but this must be done through general reputation and opinion evidence, not by specific instances. Are specific instances of conduct never admissible? Rule 608(b) only limits evidence of specific instances of conduct when it is offered to attack or support a witness’s character for truthfulness. This suggests that when it is admitted for something else then it may be admissible. And this suggestion—evidence of a specific instance of misconduct is not admissible to attack character, but is admissible for a different purpose—has a familiar parallel in Rule 404(b).6 6 TEX. R. EVID. 404(b) provides, in part: (1) Prohibited Uses. Evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character. (2) Permitted Uses . . . This evidence may be admissible for another purpose, 15 In Hammer v. State, this Court noted the relationship between Rules 608(b) and 404(b), specifically in regard to prior false accusations of sexual abuse: If, however, the cross-examiner offers evidence of a prior false accusation of sexual activity for some purpose other than a propensity attack upon the witness’s general character for truthfulness, it may well be admissible under our state evidentiary rules. . . . The [permissible] chain of logic is as follows: The victim makes false accusations in certain circumstances and for certain reasons; Those circumstances and reasons are present in this case; Therefore, the victim made a false accusation in this case. One might even call this modus operandi evidence admissible under Rule 404(b). Evidence of other acts or wrongs may be admissible under Rule 404(b) to prove such matters as motive, intent, scheme, or any other relevant purpose except conduct in conformity with bad character. Even “the doctrine of chances” has been invoked as a possible basis for admitting evidence of a victim’s prior false accusation of rape. Similarly, evidence of a victim’s prior sexual activity may be admissible under Rule 412, the Texas Rape Shield Law, when offered to establish the victim’s motive or bias against the defendant. In sum, several different state evidentiary rules permit the use of prior false accusations when offered to show the witness’s bias or motive or for some other relevant, noncharacter purpose. Hammer, 296 S.W.3d at 564–66 (footnotes omitted). such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident . . . . 16 IV — Appellant’s Motive Theory Appellant argued to the trial court that the evidence relating to the prior accusation went to show J.G.’s motive to falsely accuse him. The trial court excluded Appellant’s desired evidence as not relevant because it involved Mondragon and R.G., a different perpetrator and victim than Appellant and J.G. The court of appeals upheld the exclusion for the same reason without much analysis on its own part. Rodriguez, 2024 WL 3593185, at *10 (“We cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding the questions about an accusation involving two other individuals[.]”). At this Court, Appellant faults the court of appeals for giving short-shrift to his argument about the relevance of J.G.’s prior accusation involving her sister R.G. and Mondragon. That it revolved around alleged sexual abuse of two other individuals—a victim that was not J.G., by someone who was not Appellant—was beside the point. Appellant argues that J.G.’s prior allegation of abuse, on behalf of her sister, R.G., was relevant because after the allegation against Mondragon was made, R.G. left their mother’s home and moved in with their grandmother. J.G. knew that R.G. moved in with Rios as a result of the allegation. J.G. wanted the same for herself. Accordingly, J.G. alleged that she was abused. 17 The State argues that even if J.G. wanted to move in with her grandmother, and even if she would falsely accuse someone of abuse in order to get there, Appellant would be the wrong person to accuse. Referencing Hammer, the State points out that the second link in the logical chain is broken—the circumstances for a false accusation are not present in this case. See Hammer, 296 S.W.3d at 565. We agree with the State. We take the underlying proposition that J.G. understood that a reasonable response, when a alleged victim is living in the same house as an alleged abuser, is to move the at-risk victim to a safer living situation away from the risk. This is what happened when R.G. was moved out of Garza’s house—away from Mondragon who was living in Garza’s house—and in with Rios. Logically, if J.G. wanted to move in with her grandmother by way of falsely accusing someone of abuse, J.G. would accuse a person that was currently living in the house with her. If Appellant had moved back in and was living with her in Garza’s house, it would be reasonable for J.G. to expect that she would be moved out of Garza’s house and in with Rios, if there was reason to believe that Appellant was an abuser and continued to pose a risk of abuse. J.G. would have had a means to an end. The circumstances for Appellant’s motive theory would have been present. But Appellant was not living there. He and Garza broke up, and he moved out 18 of the house several years before J.G. accused him of abuse. An accusation against someone that was out of the picture and not living with her in Garza’s house would not lead to J.G. moving out of Garza’s house and into Rios’s house. The trial court was not unreasonable in concluding that Appellant’s proposed evidence was not probative to, and thus irrelevant to, showing whether J.G.’s allegation against Appellant was false. Of course, aside from motive, evidence showing that a witness had made a prior false accusation may be probative of something else. While it could provide a nudge towards the witness’s general character for truthfulness, that is an impermissible use of such evidence. Hammer, 296 S.W.3d at 566; TEX. R. EVID. 608(b) (“a party may not inquire into or offer extrinsic evidence to prove specific instances of the witness’s conduct in order to attack or support the witness’s character for truthfulness”). Instead, evidence of a prior false accusation may be permitted when offered to show, aside from motive, the witness’s bias or for some other relevant, noncharacter purpose. Hammer, 296 S.W.3d at 566. But Appellant did not advance any other noncharacter purpose than to show J.G.’s supposed motive to falsely accuse him. We cannot say that the trial court’s decision to exclude the evidence, as not relevant to Appellant’s motive theory of admissibility, was outside the zone of 19 reasonable disagreement. The trial court did not abuse its discretion, and the court of appeals did not err in upholding the trial court’s decision. Appellant’s ground for review is overruled. V — Conclusion J.G.’s prior false accusation of abuse that Appellant wanted to introduce would have been probative of whether her current accusation was false, if her current accusation was made against someone that she was living with. But Appellant had moved away several years before she accused him of abuse. Appellant’s evidence that he says shows J.G.’s motive to make a false accusation does not show she had a motive to falsely accuse him. The judgment of the court of appeals, upholding the trial court’s exclusion of the evidence, is affirmed. Delivered: September 17, 2026 Publish