Per Curiam.This appeal arose from a granted application for interlocutory review wherein James Phillips Burns challenged the trial court’s grant of the State’s motion in limine to exclude evidence that the alleged victim had previously made a false accusation of sexual abuse against another individual. Because we conclude that the trial court erred, we reverse the trial court’s order granting the motion in limine and remand the case. The record shows that in December 2015, Burns’s wife discovered that her daughter, Burns’s stepdaughter, had sent a friend a one-paragraph Twitter message about a sexual incident that she had with Burns the previous July. Toward the end of the paragraph, the victim stated, “And my brother’s best friend tried to rape me.” Burns’s wife contacted law enforcement, and an investigation ensued. When asked about the time her brother’s best friend tried to rape her during a forensic interview, the stepdaughter replied, “Oh, I just made that up.” She explained that she did not know why she said it and suspected that she was high on marijuana at the time. When the police interviewed Burns’s wife, she also stated that her daughter told her she just made up the story. Burns was charged with committing aggravated sexual battery, aggravated sodomy, and incest upon his stepdaughter. The State filed a motion in limine, based on the rape shield statute. During the hearing on the motion, defense counsel agreed that evidence of the victim’s past sexual behavior was inadmissible but indicated that he intended to introduce evidence that the stepdaughter had admittedly falsely accused another person of sexual misconduct. Citing Smith v. State, 259 Ga. 135 (377 SE2d 158) (1989), defense counsel argued that such evidence did not implicate the rape shield statute and was admissible as pertaining to the stepdaughter’s credibility and to Burns’s right to confront her as a witness called against him.After the hearing, the trial court concluded that the prior accusation is inadmissible under OCGA § 24-4-403. Specifically, the court ruled, As a statement made and disavowed, it is a false statement. The Court must, however, further evaluate the statement under the appropriate rules of evidence. The statement the defendant seeks to admit amounts to an aside in [a] much longer paragraph and was immediately disavowed by the victim upon questioning. The statement sought to be introduced lacked specificity does not have significant probative value for a fact finder otherwise charged with determining whether the claims of the victim against the defendant are true. [ ] Thus, the Court finds that the probative value of the statement in question is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice and confusion of the issues and is inadmissible under OCGA § 24-4-403.
