Carving out an exception to the state’s spousal communication privilege law, the state Superior Court has ruled text messages exchanged between a married couple should be admitted as evidence in a criminal prosecution where it is alleged the wife brutally beat her husband’s 4-year-old son.

The unanimous three-judge panel’s ruling turned on the fact that "excluding certain information (the texts) may not always further the intended goal of a privilege (preserving marital harmony)."