Opinion ID: 1907814
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Purpose for Admission other than Predisposition

Text: We have no difficulty concluding that the trial court could reasonably have concluded that the evidence was not offered to prove predisposition to commit the charged homicide. To begin with, the prosecution stated that it was offering the evidence to prove the principal contested issue in the case, identity, and carefully laid out just why this evidence was integral to proof of identity. [4] The very detail of this presentation  it included each of the central facts connecting the two incidents  lent force to the prosecution's assertion that it was not offering the evidence to prove predisposition to commit a crime. [5] It is possible, of course, to advance a pretextual purpose for admission of evidence which bears wholly or primarily on predisposition, Thompson v. United States, 546 A.2d 414, 419-20 (D.C.1988), but the record supports the conclusion that the prosecution was not disguising the purpose of the evidence here. In addition, our reading of the record reveals no instance in which the prosecution or its witnesses explicitly or implicitly suggested to the jury that it conclude that the other crimes evidence evinced a predisposition to commit the charged crime.