Opinion ID: 2211561
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sufficient Similarity

Text: The majority's new rule removes the prosecutor's burden of weaving a logical thread linking the prior act to the ultimate inference. Rather than follow our established law in this area, it adopts California's sufficient similarity test provided in Ewoldt. However, under the facts of this case, it fails to carry even this light burden. Ewoldt explains that to establish a common plan, the common features must indicate the existence of a plan rather than a series of similar spontaneous acts, but the plan need not be distinctive. Ewoldt, supra at 403, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757. In this case, the majority points to three common features among the uncharged and charged acts. First, the alleged victims had a father-daughter relationship. Second, the victims were of similar age at the time of the abuse. Third, defendant played on his daughters' fears of breaking up the family to silence them. Op., p. 902. The problem with such common features is that they include the very elements of the uncharged and charged crimes. Defendant was convicted of CSC I pursuant to M.C.L. § 750.520b(1); MSA 28.788(2)(1). That statute provides that defendant is guilty if he engages in sexual penetration with another person, that other person is at least thirteen but less than sixteen years of age, and any of the following: (i) the actor is a member of the same household as the victim; (ii) the actor is related to the victim by blood or affinity to the fourth degree; (iii) the actor is in a position of authority over the victim and used this authority to coerce the victim to submit. In this case, both victims were between the ages of thirteen and sixteen at the times of the offenses, the majority's second similarity. Defendant was a member of the same household as both victims, and defendant was related by either blood or affinity to both victims, the majority's first similarity of a father-daughter relationship. Finally, as a father or stepfather he was in a position of authority over both victims and arguably used it to get them to submit, which is the majority's third similarity of use of threats. [22] It is obvious that the preceding logic will do great damage to the law of evidence if the prosecutor is allowed to introduce the very elements or nature of a prior crime in order to show that the defendant committed a later crime. Any second offender of a charged or uncharged similar crime will have his prior acts disclosed to the jury in order to prove a plan. There is no longer a requirement that the prosecutor show a permissible intermediate inference to prove any material fact. Similarities instantly show a plan, and use of a plan shows that defendant committed the crime at issue. Moreover, the majority has shown nothing to indicate that the common features of the charged and uncharged crimes indicate[d] the existence of a plan rather than a series of similar spontaneous acts under the Ewoldt test. Id. at 403. 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757. Rather, the facts indicate that defendant spontaneously took advantage of an opportunity to rape his daughter while they were alone in the house. No facts show that he manipulated the situation in order to get his daughter alone in the house as part of a plan to later attack her. The threat that she would break up the family appears to have been an afterthought to cover up the crime after it occurred rather than part of an overall common plan to commit CSC I. Finally, no facts link the prior acts against defendant's stepdaughter to a plan to rape defendant's daughter ten years later. The majority has failed to even show the impermissible series of spontaneous acts. While it is alleged that defendant committed a series of similar acts against his stepdaughter, the instant offense is remote in time and cannot be considered a part of that series. Instead, the instant offense is nothing more than a similar act in that it too is a CSC I offense.