Opinion ID: 2314882
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: B: Common Scheme or Plan

Text: Under much the same reasoning, the trial court did not err in admitting the other crimes evidence to prove common scheme or plan. In Ali, supra, where appellant was charged with committing sexual offenses against one child and the trial court admitted evidence of uncharged sexual abuse against that child's younger sister, we stated that common scheme or plan evidence is inadmissible unless the proponent specifically identifies the contested element of the charged crime which the common scheme or plan evidence inferentially proves. 520 A.2d at 310-11 (emphasis deleted). Just as the other crimes evidence was properly admitted to prove motive because motive inferentially demonstrated the identity contested by appellant, so was the evidence admissible to prove a common scheme or plan because the common scheme or plan evidence inferentially proved the perpetrator's identity: the existence of the [plan to inflict injury] raised the probability of the appellant's participation [in the charged offenses] by setting him apart from other persons who had no such plan to shoot Curry. Id. at 312. The commentary relied upon by the Ali court is consistent with this concept: while that commentary states that the crimes must be mutually dependent or different stages of the plan, it also asserts that the underlying theory of logical relevance is strikingly similar to the ... motive cases [, where] the uncharged act evidences the motive or emotion that impels the charged crime as well; the charged and uncharged crimes both are effects of the same cause, a motive such as hostility toward the victim of both crimes. E. IMWINKELRIED, UNCHARGED MISCONDUCT EVIDENCE § 3:20, at 51 (1984 and 1990 Supp.). The evidence of the drug operation, burglary, and uncharged shootings flowing from them offered the jury the inference of a specific plan in the accused's mind which interconnect[ed] the uncharged and charged acts, and thus the other crimes evidence was not presented to show the accused's propensity to commit a series of similar but discrete bad acts. Ali, supra, 520 A.2d at 311. Rather, the ultimate inference generated by [the] other crimes evidence ... [was] the defendant's greater likelihood of guilt on a contested issue in the case. Id. The evidence was thus properly admitted under the common scheme or plan exception to Drew. See, e.g., Hackney v. United States, 389 A.2d 1336 (D.C.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1132, 99 S.Ct. 1054, 59 L.Ed.2d 95 (1979) (where identity of murderer at issue, evidence of a series of murders to cover-up original murder would have been properly admitted at separate trials). See generally IMWINKELRIED, supra, §§ 3:20-3:23, ch. 3. It is important to note as well that consideration of the common scheme or plan here is markedly different from the situation in Ali, where the uncharged incident of sexual abuse was against a different person than the complainant in the charged crime [8] and where the issue was not whether the defendant or someone else committed the crime but whether the crime was committed at all by defendant. [9] Here, where there was no significant dispute that the assaults occurred, the issue was whether Hazel committed them; the prior incidents directly related to that issue, involving as they did the identical parties. Thus, unlike the situation in Ali, where the events involved discrete acts of misconduct and similar but non-interlocking crimes, 520 A.2d at 310, 312, the events here may fairly be viewed as mutually dependent and evidencing a true plan in the defendant's mind; viz., to commit harm upon Curry. Otherwise put, it is not the case here that the uncharged collateral acts are simply unconnected to the historical events of the charged crimes.... Id. at 310. To the contrary, all the evidence of the uncharged crimes, including the drug operation and burglary, was connected historically; each crime or bad act was a piece of the puzzle of appreciating appellant's plan to engage in the charged acts. Thus, each of the other crimes comprised an organic link in the story of the charged crimes, such that without the predecessor crime, each successor crime would probably not have taken place. [10] In the circumstances here, the evidence was therefore admissible under the common plan or scheme exception to Drew as probative particularly of appellant's identity.