Case Title: Ex Parte Casey

Citation: 889 So. 2d 615

Docket Number: 1021603

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 2004-03-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
889 So. 2d 615 (2004)
Ex parte Quintus Bernard CASEY.
(In re Quintus Bernard Casey
v.
State of Alabama).
1021603.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
March 5, 2004.
*616 Gary P. Wilkinson, Florence for petitioner.
William H. Pryor, Jr., atty. gen., and Nathan A. Forrester, deputy atty. gen., and Michael B. Billingsley, asst. atty. gen., for respondent.
JOHNSTONE, Justice.
The defendant Quintus Bernard Casey was indicted and tried for three counts of first-degree receiving stolen property, ten counts of second-degree receiving stolen property, and five counts of illegal possession of a credit or debit card. The jury found him guilty of one count of first-degree receiving stolen property and one count of second-degree receiving stolen property, but found him not guilty of the other charged offenses. The trial court adjudged Casey guilty of the two counts of receiving stolen property, and sentenced him, as an habitual felony offender, to concurrent terms of twenty years and fifteen years in prison. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, in an unpublished memorandum, the judgment of the trial court. Judge Cobb dissented from the memorandum affirmance on the ground that the trial court had erroneously admitted evidence of prior collateral offenses committed by Casey. Casey v. State, 889 So. 2d 613, 613 (Ala.Crim.App.2003) (Cobb, J., dissenting).
After the Court of Criminal Appeals overruled Casey's application for rehearing, he petitioned this Court for certiorari review, which we granted to determine whether the admission of evidence of convictions Casey received in 1995 for theft of property and unauthorized use of a credit card violated the general exclusionary rule of Rule 404(b), Ala. R. Evid. We reverse and remand.
The State presented evidence that, in December 2000, police officers found stolen tools, stereo equipment, and compact discs in Casey's girlfriend's apartment, where Casey often stayed, and in Casey's girlfriend's car, which Casey often drove. As his defense, Casey argued that he did not have control of the apartment or the car and that he did not have knowledge of the stolen items therein or knowledge of their stolen character.
For the declared purpose of proving identity and criminal intent and knowledge, the State offered a case action summary of convictions Casey received in 1995 for theft of property and unauthorized use *617 of a credit card. Over Casey's objection, the trial court admitted the case action summary. Neither the case action summary nor any other evidence detailed any facts about the prior convictions. The trial court gave this "limiting" instruction about the prior convictions:
The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the evidence of Casey's prior convictions was admissible to prove "that he had knowledge of the presence of the stolen items [found in his girlfriend's apartment and car] and [that] he intended to exercise control over those items." The Court of Criminal Appeals did not hold that the evidence of Casey's prior convictions was admissible to prove his identity as the perpetrator of the charged offenses. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the limiting instruction by the trial court explained the probative value of the prior collateral act evidence and removed the danger of prejudice to the defendant. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that any error in the admission of the prior collateral act evidence was harmless because the jury did not find Casey guilty of all of the charged offenses.
Section 13A-8-16(a), Ala.Code 1975, provides:
(Emphasis added.) Section 13A-8-2 defines theft:
Property acquired by theft would be "stolen property." § 13A-8-1(12), Ala.Code 1975.
The exclusionary rule, Rule 404(b), Ala. R. Evid., provides:
Long before the adoption and effective date of Rule 404(b) on January 1, 1996, the exclusionary rule was explained and followed in our caselaw. The adoption of Rule 404(b) did not abrogate our prior caselaw on the exclusionary rule. Hunter v. State, 802 So. 2d 265 (Ala.Crim.App. *618 2000). Our caselaw explains the purpose of the exclusionary rule:
Garner v. State, 269 Ala. 531, 533-34, 114 So. 2d 385, 386-87 (1959)(some citations omitted; emphasis added). This Court also said, in Harden v. State, 211 Ala. 656, 658, 101 So. 442, 443 (1924):
In Mason v. State, 259 Ala. 438, 66 So. 2d 557 (1953), a robbery case, this Court opined:
259 Ala. at 441, 66 So. 2d  at 559 (citations omitted; emphasis added). Similarly, in Hunter v. State, 802 So. 2d 265 (Ala.Crim.App.2000), the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the admission of evidence that the defendant had committed a prior collateral robbery into the trial of robbery and assault charges against the defendant violated the general exclusionary rule. The Court of Criminal Appeals said:
802 So. 2d  at 269.
Likewise, "[s]cienter is an element of proof necessary to sustain a conviction of receiving stolen property, but scienter may be inferred by the jury from the facts and circumstances of the entire transaction." Wilson v. State, 361 So. 2d 1167, 1170 (Ala.Crim.App.1978). Explaining the exclusionary rule in a receiving-stolen-property case, Karr v. State, 491 So. 2d 1073 (Ala.Crim.App.1986), the Court of Criminal Appeals said:
491 So. 2d  at 1075 (some emphasis original; some emphasis added). In Karr, the defendant was indicted and tried for first-degree receiving stolen property for his purchase of lumber from a certain thief, John Pate, who had purported to purchase the lumber with a worthless check. Over the defendant's objection, the trial court allowed testimony from Pate to the effect that, a year before the charged offense, Pate had sold the defendant other lumber which Pate had also obtained with a worthless check. On appeal of the defendant's conviction, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that Pate's testimony to his previous dealing with the defendant was admissible to prove the requisite scienter in the defendant for the charged offense of receiving stolen property, "from the same thief," Pate. Id.
The consistent converse of Karr is the case of Stephens v. State, 53 Ala.App. 371, 300 So. 2d 414 (1974), which controls the case now before us. In Stephens, the defendant was indicted, tried, and convicted of receiving stolen guns from two thieves, who are named in the opinion. During the trial, and over the defendant's objection, the State introduced evidence that, on another occasion, the defendant had bought other stolen guns from other thieves. Concluding that the admission of such testimony was reversible error, the Court of Criminal Appeals held:
Stephens, 53 Ala.App. at 372-73, 300 So. 2d  at 415. Accord Sledge v. State, 40 Ala.App. 671, 122 So. 2d 165 (1960), to precisely the same effect because the collateral bad act supplied the defendant with no knowledge that would have contributed to the knowledge or intent to be proved against him in the case being tried.
In the case now before us, the admission of evidence of Casey's 1995 convictions violates the general exclusionary rule *621 of Rule 404(b). The record, which contains none of the factual specifics of the defendant's prior convictions, discloses no logical connection between his prior theft or his prior unauthorized use of a credit card and his knowledge of the presence, ownership, or stolen character of any of the items he was being tried for receiving in the case now before us. That is, the defendant's mere knowledge that the property he previously had been convicted of stealing or the credit card he had previously been convicted of using without authority belonged to some other persons would not, in the absence of some evidence of connecting facts, supply the defendant with knowledge of the presence, ownership, or stolen character of items found five years later in his girlfriend's apartment and car and would not enable him to differentiate between items there which were stolen and items there which were not stolen. In other words, the record reveals no identity or connection between what the defendant knew or learned in his prior crimes and what he knew or learned about the items in his girlfriend's apartment or car.
Likewise, except for the tendency, condemned by Rule 404(b), "to show action in conformity therewith," the record before us discloses no logical connection between what the defendant intended with the property or the credit card of his prior convictions and what, if anything, the defendant intended with the myriad of items, stolen and not stolen, in his girlfriends's apartment, in her car, or indeed in any of the places the defendant might have frequented. That is, the record discloses no identity or connection between the defendant's intent in his prior crimes and his intent in his girlfriend's apartment or car or his intent anywhere else, except to the extent of the suggestion, forbidden by Rule 404(b), that, since he had harbored the dishonest intent that constituted essential elements of his prior crimes, he must have harbored the dishonest intent that constituted essential elements of the crimes charged in the case now before us.
Karr, supra, is instructive, and Stephens and Sledge, supra, are analogous and controlling. In Karr, the defendant's prior bad act of buying stolen lumber from "the same thief" and the defendant's prior knowledge or acquisition of knowledge that that lumber had been stolen supplied him "reasonable grounds to believe" that the lumber he later bought from that "same thief" was stolen. Thus the prior bad act logically tended to prove the scienter that is an essential element of receiving stolen property. § 13A-8-16(a). Conversely, in Stephens, the defendant's prior bad act of receiving stolen guns from two thieves, and the defendant's knowledge or acquisition of knowledge that those guns had been stolen, did not supply him with knowledge that other sellers of other guns the defendant later bought were also thieves who had stolen the latter guns. Accord, Sledge, supra. So, in the case now before us, the defendant's prior convictions, admitted into evidence without any particularized facts to connect them with the offenses being prosecuted, did not logically tend to prove scienter within any of the exceptions to the exclusionary rule now embodied in Rule 404(b).
"[B]efore the reviewing court can affirm a judgment based upon the `harmless error' rule, that court must find conclusively that the trial court's error did not affect the outcome of the trial or otherwise prejudice a substantial right of the defendant." Ex parte Crymes, 630 So. 2d 125, 126 (Ala.1993) (emphasis omitted)." `The basis for the [exclusionary] rule lies in the belief that the prejudicial effect of prior crimes will far outweigh any probative value that might be gained from them. Most *622 agree that such evidence of prior crimes has almost an irreversible impact upon the minds of the jurors.'" Ex parte Cofer, 440 So. 2d 1121, 1123 (Ala.1983), quoting C. Gamble, McElroy's Alabama Evidence § 69.01(1) (3d ed.1977), also quoted in Hobbs v. State, 669 So. 2d 1030, 1032 (Ala.Crim.App.1995).
Ex parte Cofer, 440 So. 2d  at 1124. "`The tendency of such evidence [of another and distinct crime] to work great injury to the accused renders its admission reversible error, unless it is brought within one of the exceptions recognized by law.'" Hinton v. State, 280 Ala. 48, 52, 189 So. 2d 849, 850 (1966).
The only tendency of the defendant's prior convictions was the purpose prohibited by Rule 404(b), "to show action in conformity therewith"  that is, to show that, since the defendant dishonestly acquired property in 1995, he dishonestly acquired other property in 2000. The erroneous admission of the defendant's prior convictions into evidence substantially increased the likelihood that he would be convicted on at least some of the numerous counts then being tried, as he was.
The "limiting" instruction given by the trial court to the jury did not ameliorate the prejudicial effect of the erroneous admission of the defendant's prior convictions. Indeed, the instruction contradicted itself and exacerbated the prejudice. While the trial judge told the jurors they could not consider the prior convictions "as evidence that [the defendant] committed the now-charged crimes," the trial judge, in the same breath, told the jurors they could consider the prior convictions "as evidence of the elements of knowledge and intent" (emphasis added) of the now-charged crimes, and thus, in legal and practical effect, that they could consider the prior convictions "as evidence that [the defendant] committed the now-charged crimes." In other words, considering the prior convictions as evidence of the elements of "the now-charged crimes" is the same as considering the prior convictions as evidence of the commission of "the now-charged crimes."
The defendant's prior convictions were inadmissible and prejudicial. Thus, the convictions now before us must be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
HOUSTON, LYONS, HARWOOD, and WOODALL, JJ., concur.
SEE, BROWN, and STUART, JJ., dissent.