United States v. Johnny Yazzie, Jr.

Johnny Yazzie, Jr., appeals his conviction for sexual abuse of a minor (statutory rape) in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1153 , 2248. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . Because we conclude that the district court improperly excluded lay witnesses’ testimony that the minor appeared to be at least sixteen years old when the alleged sexual abuse occurred, we reverse.

I.

Johnny Yazzie, Jr., was charged with aggravated sexual abuse (forcible rape) in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1153 , 2241(a), and with sexual abuse of a minor (statutory rape) in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1153 , 2243. Both charges stemmed from an incident involving Yazzie and a female minor that occurred on a Navajo Indian reservation on July 19, 1989, one month before Yazzie’s twenty-first birthday and not quite six months before the sixteenth birthday of the minor.

Yazzie admitted that he had sexual intercourse with the minor on the night in question. His defense to the charge of forcible rape was that the intercourse was consensual. The jurors acquitted Yazzie of forcible rape but convicted him of statutory rape.

Yazzie’s sole defense to the statutory rape charge was an affirmative defense permitted under 18…