Opinion ID: 2545369
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Evidence of the defendant's 1992 battery.

Text: The second distinct question raised by this issue is whether the trial court erred in allowing evidence of the defendant's 1992 battery of his wife to be used as evidence regarding the murder charge and denying a limiting instruction which would have limited the evidence regarding that battery to the current battery charge. The trial court determined that the 1992 battery was admissible under K.S.A. 60-455 in order to show the defendant's motive or intent and gave a limiting instruction based on PIK Crim.3d 52.06 limiting consideration of the evidence to motive or intent. K.S.A. 60-455 provides: Subject to K.S.A. 60-447 evidence that a person committed a crime or civil wrong on a specified occasion, is inadmissible to prove his or her disposition to commit crime or civil wrong as the basis for an inference that the person committed another crime or civil wrong on another specified occasion but, subject to K.S.A. 60-445 and 60-448 such evidence is admissible when relevant to prove some other material fact including motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity or absence of mistake or accident. Three requirements must be met in order to introduce evidence under K.S.A. 60-455: (1) The evidence is relevant to prove one of the facts specified in the statute; (2) the fact is a disputed, material fact; and (3) the probative value of the evidence outweighs its potential prejudice. If the requirements for admission are met, the scope of appellate review is limited to whether the trial court abused its discretion. State v. Mitchell, 262 Kan. 434, 441, 939 P.2d 879 (1997). The defendant's theory of defense was that the discharge of the shotgun was an accident. He was charged with first-degree premeditated murder. Thus, the defendant's motive and intent were disputed material facts. The only question is whether the defendant's action 5 years prior to the incident was probative on that issue and, if so, whether the probative value outweighed the prejudice of admitting the evidence. The defendant's striking of Bonnie 5 years earlier was directly related to his possible motive and intent regarding the shooting of Bornholdt. Although remote in time, the 1992 battery of his wife demonstrates his reaction to his wife's affair and further serves to explain his later reaction to seeing his wife and the victim talking to one another, thus showing his possible motive and intent to harm the victim. The trial court determined that the probative value of the 1992 battery outweighed the prejudicial effect of the evidence. The danger, of course, is that the jury could decide that because the defendant struck his wife 5 years earlier, he is a bad person and, thus, was likely to have intentionally rather than accidentally shot the victim. However, the connection between the 1992 battery, the promise of his wife not to talk with the victim, the recent domestic battery of his wife, and the shooting of Bornholdt support the trial court's conclusion that the probative value of the evidence on motive and intent outweighed any prejudicial effect upon the defendant. We conclude that the trial court's decision that the evidence was more probative than prejudicial is not a decision with which no reasonable person would agree. Moreover, the trial court gave a jury instruction limiting consideration of the 1992 incident to motive and intent. Thus, under our standard of review, the trial court did not err.