Opinion ID: 2314882
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: A: Motive/Identity

Text: With respect to the motive exception, appellant contends that since his defense was misidentification, intent and state of mind were not contested issues, and the use of Drew evidence of motive as probative of his intent was error. See Thompson v. United States, 546 A.2d 414, 423 (D.C.1988) [6] (evidence of other crimes to prove intent not admissible where intent is not controverted in any meaningful sense). This argument understates the nature of the motive exception. We have permitted the introduction of Drew evidence to prove motive in circumstances very similar to those of the instant case. See Hill v. United States, 600 A.2d 58 (D.C.1991); Green v. United States, 580 A.2d 1325 (D.C.1990). In Hill, we held admissible evidence of an appellant's uncharged assault on the victim, and the victim's subsequent complaints against him, to prove his motive to commit the charged murder of the same victim four months later. We said that where `the accused denies that he committed the act,' as in this case, `the prosecutor is permitted, as part of his effort to prove that the particular accused did commit the act, to prove that the accused had a motive for killing the deceased.' Hill, supra, 600 A.2d at 61-62 (quoting Collazo v. United States, 90 U.S.App.D.C. 241, 247, 196 F.2d 573, 578, cert. denied, 343 U.S. 968, 72 S.Ct. 1065, 96 L.Ed. 1364 (1952)). In Green, relied upon by Hill, we upheld the admission of evidence that, during the month preceding the charged offenses (including murder), the appellant had assaulted the decedent with a knife when she refused to resume a relationship with appellant, tried to break into her home, and made threatening phone calls. On appeal, the appellant argued that the testimony was irrelevant to any controverted issue because appellant's defense was misidentification [7] and his counsel had conceded for the record that whoever committed the charged crimes had done so deliberately. We distinguished Thompson, supra, finding the evidence admissible not only to prove motive, but also because it was highly relevant to the unquestionably contested issue of identity. We said: This court has held that where the identity of the decedent's murderer is drawn into issue, evidence of prior altercations of a substantive and violent nature between the accused and the decedent is probative provided such incidents are proved by something other than hearsay. Green, supra, 580 A.2d at 1328. Although Green analyzed the admissibility of the evidence under the separate Drew exceptions of motive and identity, it implicitly recognized the relevance of the motive exception, not because motive was an element of the crime or a controverted issue as such, but rather because proof of motive inferentially proved identity, an actually controverted material issue or element. See Hill, supra, 600 A.2d at 61-63. Indeed, Green states specifically at the end of the opinion that leading commentators on the law of evidence, as well as our own court, have recognized the relevance of motive as a means to establish identity. 580 A.2d at 1328 (citing McCORMICK ON EVIDENCE at 562 (3d ed. 1984) and WRIGHT & GRAHAM, FEDERAL PRACTICE & PROCEDURE, § 5240 at 480 (1978 ed.)). As McCORMICK states, the evidence of motive may be probative of the identity of the criminal and the second (larger plan), third (distinctive device), and sixth (motive) [grounds of admissibility of other crimes] seem to be most often relied upon to show identity. McCORMICK, supra, at 562-63; see also Bartley v. United States, 530 A.2d 692, 702 (D.C.1987) (Mack, J., dissenting) (The introduction of independent crimes is justified if, and only if, proof of the motive or scheme proves the perpetrator's identity, intent, or his commission of the charged crime by means of the following legitimate inference: the evidence of the motive or scheme increases the probability of a defendant's participation in the charged crime by setting him apart from others who had no such motive or scheme). Here, just as in Green and Hill, identity was a specifically identified contested element of the charged crime which [motive] evidence inferentially proves. Ali v. United States, 520 A.2d 306, 310-11 (D.C.1987) (emphasis deleted). The trial court here similarly found the motive evidence to be highly probative ... as to the identity of the perpetrator. Moreover, several other cases in this jurisdiction have upheld the admission of motive evidence in similar circumstances. See, e.g., Young v. United States, 515 A.2d 1090, 1095 (D.C.1986) (evidence of uncharged attempted armed robbery perpetrated by appellant and accomplice properly introduced to prove motive for appellant to murder accomplice a month later in light of appellant's belief that he had been abandoned by [the accomplice] both then and on the night of the murder); Bigelow v. United States, 498 A.2d 210, 213-14 (D.C.1985) (evidence that carrying a stash of money, assuming it proved the crime of drug-dealing, admissible to prove motive for possessing gun in trial for carrying pistol without a license because relevant to prove that appellant [who asserted misidentification defense,] and not the other persons in his car, possessed the pistol); United States v. Bobbitt, 146 U.S.App.D.C. 224, 228, 450 F.2d 685, 689 (1971) (threat to victim twelve years before charged shooting admissible to prove motive, i.e., to show that hostility to the deceased was intense enough to lead to shooting and that it was defendant who reached for pistol, not deceased; The prior relationship between the parties is obviously material in determining what motive the defendant might have had to shoot decedent. Here, where there was other evidence that there had been `bad blood' between appellant and the deceased, ... continuing over a period of years, the judge did not abuse his discretion in admitting evidence of a prior threat with a shotgun). We therefore conclude that the evidence of the other crimes here was properly admitted under the motive exception to Drew. We can see no abuse of the trial court's discretion in its findings that the other crimes evidence directly related to the bad blood motive here, was relevant to the contested issue of appellant's identity in committing the charged crimes, and was more probative than prejudicial.