Opinion ID: 1770392
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Legal Principles to Present Facts

Text: Under these principles, the evidence of the only-somewhat similar other drug offenses was not admissible to prove either intent or guilty knowledge with regard to the present offense, the only purposes for which offered. The unambiguous eyewitness testimony offered by the state is to the effect that the offender sold hashish to the state undercover agent, fully knowing that the substance sold was an illegal drug. The requisite general criminal intent is established by mere proof of the voluntary distribution. State v. Banks, 307 So.2d 594 (La. 1975). Thus, in the absence of a defense that the act was done without knowledge of the illegality of the substance, intent or knowledge were not genuine matters at issue. State v. Slayton , State v. Gaines , and State v. Clark , cited above. Nor did defendant's plea of not guilty, without more, make evidence of extraneous offenses admissible to prove intent or guilty knowledge. State v. Clark and State v. Moore , cited above. To permit the exceptionally-permitted evidence of extraneous offenses, the evidence must indicate that these are real and genuine matters at issue, independent of the defendant's general claim of innocence posed by his plea of not guilty. `The mere theory that a plea of not guilty puts everything material at issue is not enough for this purpose. The prosecution cannot credit the accused with fancy defenses in order to rebut them at the outset with some damning piece of evidence.' State v. Moore , cited above, at 278 So.2d 785-86. The defendant's defense was not that the act was done without intent or guilty knowledge. It was that no act at all had occurred. The effect of the state's evidence of other crimes was not to prove the prerequisite intent or knowledge for the offense. It was instead to prove that the offense itself occurred, because: If the defendant had dealt in marijuana on three other occasions, then the undercover's uncorroborated testimony that he dealt in it on the present occasion (the only offense charged) must be true. The evidence is inadmissible for such purpose. As we stated in State v. Gaines , cited above, at 340 So.2d 1294: These statutes [La.R.S. 15:445, 446] and the jurisprudence construing them rest on the proposition that if the sole relevance of other acts is to prove the defendant's criminal disposition, then the evidence is inadmissible character evidence. Although it can be effectively argued that evidence of other offenses is inadmissible because it is irrelevant to any issue in the trial for the crime charged, it can also be argued that this character evidence is relevant to guilt generally, because, having committed this kind of crime before, the defendant is at least capable of the criminal activity charged. Under either analysis, however, the evidence has been uniformly excluded due to the fact that the evidence presents an inordinate risk of prejudice. The prejudice results from various factors, among which are: (1) the strong possibility that the jury will be unduly swayed in its determination of guilt merely because the defendant is a `bad man', (2) the possibility that the evidence may confuse the jury in collateral issues and detract their attention from the main issue of the defendant's guilt for the crime charged,   . Therefore, accepting the argument that this evidence is highly relevant, the evidence is nonetheless excluded, not because it fails to tend to prove the defendant's guilt, but because it does it too well and thereby deprives the `bad man' of the fair trial and benefit of the presumption of innocence and the State's burden of proof.    Authorities Cited in State's Supplemental Brief The scholarly and persuasive supplemental brief of the state contends that the cited Louisiana decisions have unduly narrowed the admissibility of other-crimes evidence. Cited to us are 2 Weinstein's Evidence, 404[8]-[10] (1975) and McCormick on Evidence, Section 190 (2d ed. 1972). Nevertheless, in our opinion, these authorities support the exclusion in the instant case of the evidence of the other crimes. Weinstein, for instance, notes that othercrime evidence is never admissible to prove the evidential hypothesis that a man with such a defect of character is more likely than men generally to have committed the act in question. p. 404-40. To prove criminal intent, it is true, evidence of another crime which tends to undermine defendant's innocent explanation for his act will be admitted p. 404-50but here, the defendant does not defend by an innocent explanation for an act, he denies any act at all occurred. Again, Knowledge is properly in issue [only] when defendant's claim is that he was unaware that a criminal act was being perpetrated, p. 404-52but the examples illustrated by the footnote citation all concern instances where by way of affirmative defense the defendant claimed an innocent explanation for an undoubtedly unlawful act (see our decision in State v. Slayton , cited above, for this distinction); unlike the present, where the defendant denies any act at all took place. In short, the other-crime evidence is not admissible unless it tends to prove or disprove a proper consequential fact at issue in the case. 2 Weinstein, p. 404-42. Even then, the probative force of the othercrime evidence must be assessed, p. 404-46, with the evidence to be excluded if unfairly prejudicial with relation to its probative value, Id. at Section 404[10]. The threshold issue posed by Weinstein is whether the other-crime evidence is probative to the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action. Federal Rule of Evidence 401. Here, the only fact sought to be proved by the other-crime evidence is that Frederick indeed committed the present crimehowever skillfully the prosecutor in brief attempts to characterize the evidence as probative of Kelly's credibility or of the police competence in securing evidence by an unwitnessed buy or of the necessity of such other evidence due to the lack of corroborating witnesses. The other-crime evidence was thus not admissible for any recognized purpose, such as the ten illustrative examples set forth by McCormick, pp. 448-50. Indeed, it falls within the prohibited inadmissible evidence described by McCormick, p. 447: The rule is that the prosecution may not introduce evidence of other criminal acts of the accused unless the evidence is substantially relevant for some other purpose than to show a probability that he committed the crime on trial because he is a man of criminal character. Evidence of other crimes is thus inadmissible where, as here, it is introduced to prove that the accused committed the present crime because he had committed similar or other crimes in the past.