WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider New Hampshire’s appeal in a sexual assault case involving two Manchester sisters.

The justices had been asked to use the case to clarify when defendants must be allowed to confront their accusers, in this case girls of 8 and 12.

In February, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the 1997 conviction of Delvin White of Bangor, Maine, who had been found guilty of sexually assaulting the sisters, saying he should have been allowed to question the girls about alleged false allegations of previous assaults.

The appeals court ruled that the refusal violated White’s constitutional rights and sent the case back to New Hampshire.

The appeals court ruled that White, 60, was denied the right to offer the evidence, even though the state Supreme Court, which upheld the convictions, found the prior accusations showed a “reasonable probability of falsity.”

The state court as well as trial judge James Barry, in Hillsborough County Superior Court, said New Hampshire law requires that for such testimony to be allowed, it must meet a higher standard of “demonstrably false.”

White had been behind bars for more than nine years since his March 2, 1996, arrest on charges he sexually assaulted the girls while visiting their father in his Manchester apartment.

Hillsborough County Attorney Marguerite Wageling, whose office prosecuted White, has said her office is prepared to take him to trial again.

The case is Cattell v. White, 05-6.

The docket is available at:

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/05-6.htm