Opinion ID: 345511
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admissibility of Evidence of Prior Similar Offenses

Text: 8 Beechum argues on appeal that the trial court erred in admitting the credit cards into evidence and in allowing the prosecutor to cross-examine appellant regarding that evidence. Because we reverse on the admissibility of the cards, we need not reach the propriety of the prosecution's cross-examination. 2 Moreover we need not decide if the prosecutor's asking a witness on direct examination whether Beechum had explained his possession of the silver dollar, where the prosecutor specifically addressed his question to Beechum's post-Miranda warning conduct and knew that question would elicit a negative response, constituted plain error under Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976). 3 See United States v. Stevens, 538 F.2d 1203 (5th Cir. 1976).
9 We focus on the two Sears, Roebuck credit cards that the trial court admitted as evidence of prior similar offenses. Evidence of crimes or wrongs, not charged in an indictment is, of course, inadmissible at trial unless it falls within one of the exceptions to this general rule. We have repeatedly noted that the general rule is just and wise in that it minimizes the grave danger that a jury will infer guilt of the charged offense from evidence of the prior offense or bad act or will seek to punish the defendant for the prior offense regardless of his innocence of the charged offense. See United States v. San Martin, 505 F.2d 918, 921 (5th Cir. 1974); United States v. Goodwin, 492 F.2d 1141, 1150 (5th Cir. 1974). 10 We have carved out exceptions to the general rule in order to serve limited prosecutorial and judicial purposes. These exceptions are narrowly construed lest they swallow the general rule. See United States v. Miller, 500 F.2d 751, 762 (5th Cir. 1974) rev'd on other grounds, 425 U.S. 435, 96 S.Ct. 1619, 48 L.Ed.2d 71 (1976). The general rule and its exceptions are now codified in Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence. 4 Among the exceptions that allow a court to admit evidence of other offenses is that related to intent. That is, evidence of extrinsic offenses, misconduct, or acts similar to that charged may be probative of the defendant's intent to commit the charged offense. The intent exception to the general rule is apposite to the evidence in question here. Beechum was found with the silver dollar that had been placed in the test envelope. If he intended to turn in the silver dollar to his supervisor, he was innocent of the crime charged. 11 Finding an applicable exception to the general rule against the admission of other crimes evidence is, however, only the beginning of the inquiry. In recent cases applying Rule 404(b) we have repeatedly adhered to the framework for determining admissibility developed in our prior case law. For example, we delineated that approach in United States v. Taglione, 546 F.2d 194 (5th Cir. 1977): 12 Before an exception to the general rule may be invoked, the trial court must be satisfied that several prerequisites have been met: (1) there is plain, clear and convincing evidence of a prior similar offense, (2) the prior offense is not too remote in time, (3) intent is a material issue in the instant case, and (4) there is substantial need for the probative value of the evidence. 13 Id. at 199. Similarly, United States v. Myers, 550 F.2d 1036 (5th Cir. 1977) and United States v. Bloom, 538 F.2d 704, 708 (5th Cir. 1976), both cases applying Rule 404(b), denominate these criteria as threshold prerequisites that must be satisfied before the trial court may admit other crimes evidence. 5 See United States v. San Martin, 505 F.2d 918, 921 (5th Cir. 1974). 14 Our disposition of Beechum's appeal turns on the government's failure to satisfy the first of these threshold prerequisites, which we shall refer to as the Broadway rule. The requirement that the prosecution prove by plain, clear and convincing evidence the similar physical ingredients of the prior offense is a rule firmly fixed in the jurisprudence of this circuit. 6 Before exploring in greater depth the development and rationale of this rule, it will be useful to summarize its application to the case at bar. 15 The prosecution plainly, clearly and convincingly established only that Beechum possessed two credit cards not in his name. Broadway and its progeny establish the principle that only when the physical elements of the charged offense are matched by similar physical elements of the conduct alleged to comprise the extrinsic offense, and the latter elements are proved convincingly, may evidence of the extrinsic offense be admitted at trial. Construing Broadway as a per se rule, then, a showing merely that Beechum possessed two credit cards in others' names failed to establish the congruent physical elements of the charged offense. That is, Beechum was charged with possession of a stolen coin, but the government failed convincingly to establish that the credit cards had been stolen. 16 Alternatively, even assuming Broadway were no longer a per se rule, the rationale behind Broadway would still compel the exclusion of the other crimes evidence under the circumstances of this case. The policy question is whether the logical inference from Beechum's mere possession of the credit cards to Beechum's unlawful intent to possess the silver dollar is sufficiently strong to outweigh the prejudice involved. In the absence of evidence that the credit cards were stolen, considering the ease with which the truth of that fact could have been ascertained in this case, we would conclude that the probative value of the other crimes evidence was outweighed by its potential prejudicial impact. 17 We shall first examine Broadway itself, then analyze the rationale for analytically discrete elements of the Broadway test. We shall then apply the rule to the circumstances of the case at bar. Finally we shall assess the current vitality of the rule in light of Congressional adoption of the Federal Rules of Evidence.
18 The first full exposition of the plain, clear and convincing test is found in United States v. Broadway, supra, 477 F.2d at 995. 7 In Broadway, we reversed the conviction of a defendant at whose trial the court erroneously admitted evidence of prior offenses introduced to show intent or guilty knowledge. The defendant was charged with transporting in interstate commerce a falsely made and forged security (a money order) in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2314. His defense was that he did not know that the money order he presented for payment had in fact been stolen or forged. 19 The prosecutor introduced two additional money orders from the same series as that which the defendant had tendered. The three money orders were part of a group of two hundred blank money orders that had been reported missing three weeks before defendant's charged offense. The two additional orders were also payable to the defendant and bore an endorsement similar to that upon the money order defendant sought to cash. A handwriting expert testified that all three endorsements had been made by the same person. 20 The prosecutor, however, failed to present evidence that anyone had tried to cash the additional money orders or had otherwise caused them to be transported in interstate commerce. This rendered the other crimes proof deficient with respect to an essential element of the charged crime of violating § 2314. Id. at 995. We reversed because the essential element of transporting, which would have been established by proof that Broadway had cashed the other checks, thereby placing them in the flow of commerce, had not been clearly and convincingly proved. This, it was felt, destroyed the requisite degree of similarity between the extrinsic acts and the charged offense. We held that 21 When proof of an assertedly similar offense is tendered to establish necessary intent, the other offense proved must include the essential physical elements of the offense charged, and these physical elements, but not the mental ingredients of the offenses must be clearly shown by competent evidence. 22 Id. at 995. 23 To be sure, we did not hold in Broadway that the prosecution was obliged to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant's guilt of the prior offense as a condition precedent to its admission. After all, similar act evidence is admissible to prove intent and for other purposes not because it may indicate the commission of a crime but in spite of that fact. 2 Wigmore, Evidence § 305 (3d ed. 1940). 8 24 Rather, Broadway holds that the prosecution must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant committed extrinsic acts that are similar to the acts forming the basis of the offense charged. The Broadway rule may be broken down analytically into three separate elements, each describing a necessary condition for the admission of other crimes evidence. Although in practice these elements tend to merge, it is useful to keep the distinctions in mind. 25 The first condition is the level of similarity between the physical components of the extrinsic and charged offenses. The second element of the Broadway rule is the standard of proof with respect to these physical components. The putatively similar physical components of the extrinsic offense must be proved clearly and convincingly by competent evidence. A third condition, implicit in Broadway but expounded in later cases, is the requisite similarity between the mental elements of the prior and charged offenses. It is usually as difficult to prove the mental element of the prior offense as it is to prove the mental element of the charged offense, which, of course, the prior offense is introduced to establish in the first place. Consequently, the mental element of the prior offense need not be clearly proved but may be inferred by the trier of fact from the totality of the circumstances. Id. at 995 n. 5. Nevertheless, there must be some basis for an inference of similarity between the mental elements of the extrinsic and charged offenses. 9 26 We shall be concerned only with the first two of these principles.C. The Nature of Other Crimes Evidence and the Broadway Rule
27 The very nature of the inductive leap from past act to present intent renders critical the degree of similarity between the prior and the charged offenses. Congruence between the essential physical elements of the prior and charged crimes is essential to the validity of the logical inference. Once the court is persuaded that the inference may validly be drawn and outweighs possible prejudice, it properly leaves to the finder of fact whether the strength of the inference is such as to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant's intent in the charged offense. The inherent uncertainty in the inference, however, as well as the grave risks of prejudice occasioned by evidence of extrinsic offenses makes imperative that the prosecutor first prove convincingly that the prior offense is a suitable point of departure for the logical leap to the present. 28 The essential feature of other crimes evidence is that it rests on what Dean Wigmore terms the doctrine of chances. 2 Wigmore § 302 (3d ed. 1940). See Weiss v. United States, 122 F.2d 675, 683 (5th Cir.), cert. denied 314 U.S. 687, 62 S.Ct. 300, 86 L.Ed. 550 (1941). The prior commission of similar acts reduces the possibility that a conceded act of dispute intent here Beechum's possessing the silver dollar was performed with innocent intent. It is thus not any causal or otherwise factual link between the prior and charged offenses that supports the inference, but merely their similarity. Courts must as a consequence stringently apply criteria for determining what counts as similar. 29 For example, suppose that a defendant, having shoved a customs officer, is on trial for wilfully interfering with the officer's performance of his duties. The government asserts that defendant's assault on the officer was unprovoked. The defendant claims that he did not mean to shove the officer. The government introduces as a prior similar offense the defendant's aggravated assault upon a bartender in order to show that defendant intended to assault the customs officer. Although the defendant's assault upon a bartender did not result in a conviction, let us say that the government convincingly proved that it took place. 30 It might be suggested that the evidence ought to be admitted because the prior offense illustrates that our defendant did not likely stumble accidentally against the customs officer. For any man sufficiently bellicose to assault a bartender, a customs officer is probably fair game. The flaw in this argument is, of course, that other crimes evidence may not be used to prove character or disposition, but only to prove (e. g.) intent; here the two situations are insufficiently similar to allow us to infer intent to strike the officer from the defendant's prior assault on a bartender. We properly adhered to a strict standard of similarity in the case from which this hypothetical was taken, United States v. Sanchez, 482 F.2d 5 (5th Cir. 1973). In ruling that the prior offense was inadmissible we said: We are not persuaded that the charge against appellant of assault on a bartender is evidence of an intent to forcibly assault . . . a federal officer . . . Id. at 8. 10 31 On the other hand, suppose that the defendant had shoved customs officers twice before at other border checkpoints. Although the conclusion that he intended to assault the customs officer on the occasion charged is by no means certain, we might view the prior and charged offenses as sufficiently similar to allow the jury to make the inference if it choses to do so. 11 Our reasoning is simple. The defendant might unintentionally have shoved one customs officer, but the likelihood that he would shove two or three accidentally is sharply reduced. We might, to be sure, have an unusually clumsy fellow, but the odds are we do not. Hence we think the inference from past act to present intent sufficiently strong to compensate for the potential prejudice. 32 It must be seen that the entire strength of the inference rests on the similarity between the prior and the charged offense. 12 There is no independent connection between these events, as in cases involving a common pattern or scheme, and no causal relation between the two, as in cases involving a prior crime adduced to prove motive. Rather, like cases involving a prior offense adduced to prove identity through modus operandi, the strength of the inference depends solely on the number and significance of features common to the prior and charged crime. 13 Consequently one must insist strictly on criteria of similarity. 33 By the same token, however, we must not demand perfect identity between the prior and charged offenses or impose mechanical requirements that lose sight of the underlying purpose of the rule. Broadway's requirement that the essential physical elements of the charged offense be matched by physical elements of the prior conduct allows a surprising degree of flexibility to this end. 34 Suppose, for example, there were separate crimes for stealing from the mails and stealing government checks from the mails. It would be foolish to prevent evidence of a prior offense of stealing government checks from being introduced in a prosecution for stealing private checks from the mail. Common sense tells us that intent to commit the latter may be strongly inferred from firm evidence that defendant has committed the former offense. 35 Broadway was clearly not intended to preclude the admission of such evidence. Rather, there must remain in the trial court some discretion to determine the level of generality at which to apply the Broadway rule. In other words, given the above hypothetical we would simply say that the fact that one statute specifies government checks does not make the latter element an essential physical element of the offense for purposes of determining similarity between prior and charged offenses. 36 We thus abstract from the prior and charged offenses a level of generality at which similarity will retain substantial probative value. This reasonable construction of the Broadway rule is precisely that which we have accorded it in the past. For example, in United States v. Shadletsky, supra, a state court conviction for selling liquor without a license was held properly admitted to show intent with respect to the charge of failing to pay a special tax required by federal law of retail dealers in liquor. 491 F.2d at 678. Both offenses presented essential physical elements of (1) selling liquor (2) without complying with the particular government-imposed condition precedent to that activity in one case a license, in the other a tax. That a person who sold liquor failed to pay the costs of obtaining a license under circumstances that suggest his omission was intentional represents evidence from which it may validly be inferred that the same person's failure to pay the required liquor tax was probably not inadvertent. 37 We need not, under the circumstances of this case, engage presently in such subtleties. It should be clear beyond cavil that in a prosecution for possessing a silver dollar stolen from the mails, a prior offense in which the defendant possessed two credit cards stolen from the mails would be sufficiently similar to generate a valid inference of unlawful intent to commit the charged offense. It should be equally clear, however, that absent a sufficient showing that the credit cards had been stolen, and possibly an additional showing that they had been stolen from the mails, the prior offense is insufficiently similar to the charged offense. The next issue, then, is to determine what counts as a sufficient showing of the prior offense.
38 Given the critical importance of similarity between the prior and the charged offense when mental state is an issue, it would be surprising indeed had Broadway not established a relatively strict standard of proof for the ostensibly similar elements of the prior offense. As we have noted, Broadway stands for the proposition that although the mental elements of the prior crime may be inferred from the totality of the circumstances by the finder of fact, the congruent physical elements of the prior offense must be clearly and convincingly shown by competent evidence. 477 F.2d at 995, 995 n. 5. Before evidence of a prior offense is given to the jury, the trial judge should conduct an independent examination of the proffered evidence to determine whether it satisfies this standard. Id. at 995. 39 In Broadway, we might have allowed the jury to infer the missing element of defendant's cashing the two extrinsic money orders. We might have observed that because defendant had endorsed the money orders, it was obvious that he had tried to cash them. Instead, having determined that transporting the securities was a requisite element of similarity, this court found the proffer deficient because encashment was not convincingly demonstrated. 40 In United States v. Vosper, supra, 493 F.2d at 436-38, the court applied the Broadway plain, clear and (convincing) test to exclude evidence of a prior offense. At a trial for conspiracy to commit bank robbery, evidence that the defendant had been under surveillance because suspected of committing prior bank robberies, that the defendant had been near the scene of a prior robbery, and that the defendant had been seen in the company of the man who carried out the charged robbery was inadmissible to show intent and common scheme. 14 In United States v. Taglione, supra, 546 F.2d at 199, the court invoked the plain, clear and convincing test and, apparently in applying it, held inadmissible evidence of a prior offense. The defendant, Taglione, had earlier been observed transporting a stolen painting to an undercover buyer. Robbery charges were filed against Taglione but were later dropped. 15 On appeal from Taglione's conviction for extortion, this court held that the prior offense was inadmissible not only because it would have been insufficiently similar even if it had been proved, as by a conviction, but also because it was not as a matter of fact proved. 41 Although none of these cases delineates precisely the clear and convincing standard, the parameters of the standard are not difficult to make out. On the one hand, we cannot require the prosecutor to prove the essential physical elements of the prior offense beyond a reasonable doubt, although when the defendant has been convicted of the prior offense this standard will be met as a matter of course. On the other hand, the importance to the logical inference of similar physical elements requires that we be reasonably certain that those elements existed. Requiring the prosecutor clearly and convincingly to prove those elements of the prior offense steers a reasonable middle course. 42 When evidence of the prior offense is the record of a final conviction, the problem of proof is less troublesome. The conviction is presumed valid, and the defendant bears the burden of showing that the conviction would likely fall to collateral attack because of some fundamental defect, such as the involuntariness of his guilty plea. See United States v. Shadletsky, 491 F.2d at 678. 16 43 When the evidence of prior acts is not that of a final conviction, however, the government must do more than adduce some evidence of the prior occurrence. It must prove clearly and convincingly each congruent physical element of the putative similar offense.