Opinion ID: 2637243
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Evidence of Uncharged Misconduct

Text: Over, objection, the court admitted evidence of three types of uncharged misconduct by defendant: (1) evidence regarding defendant's financial dealings with other women he had met at the fitness center shortly before Sara's death; (2) evidence of defendant's assault on Michelle T.; and (3) evidence of defendant's rapes of Teri B., Jodi D., and Kim V. In making its rulings, the court reviewed, and was guided by, our then recent decisions in People v. Ewoldt (1994) 7 Cal.4th 380, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757 ( Ewoldt ) and People v. Balcom (1994) 7 Cal.4th 414, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 666, 867 P.2d 777 ( Balcom) . The court also explained to the jury the limited use it could make of this testimony. Defendant contends the court erred in admitting this evidence. Evidence Code section 1101, subdivision (a), generally prohibits evidence of a person's character or a trait of his or her character when it is offered to prove his or her conduct on a specified occasion. Subdivision (b) of that section, however, provides: Nothing in this section prohibits the admission of evidence that a person committed a crime, civil wrong, or other act when relevant to prove some fact (such as motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake or accident, or whether a defendant in a prosecution for an unlawful sexual act or attempted unlawful sexual act did not reasonably and in good faith believe that the victim consented) other than his or her disposition to commit such an act. In general, we have explained that [t]he admissibility of other crimes evidence depends on (1) the materiality of the facts sought to be proved, (2) the tendency of the uncharged crimes to prove those facts, and (3) the existence of any rule or policy requiring exclusion of the evidence. ( People v. Carpenter (1997) 15 Cal.4th 312, 378-379, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 935 P.2d 708.) The main policy that may require exclusion of the evidence is the familiar one stated in Evidence Code section 352: Evidence may be excluded if its prejudicial effect substantially outweighs its probative value. Because substantial prejudice is inherent in the case of uncharged offenses, such evidence is admissible only if it has substantial probative value. .( Ewoldt, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 404, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757.) This determination lies within the discretion of the trial court. ( People v. Carpenter, supra, at p. 380, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 935 P.2d 708.) In Ewoldt, supra, 7 Cal.4th 380, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757, we discussed specific situations when evidence of uncharged crimes may be admitted under Evidence Code section 1101, subdivision (b): [E]vidence of a defendant's uncharged misconduct is relevant where the uncharged misconduct and the charged offense are sufficiently similar to support the inference that they are manifestations of a common design or plan. [¶] In determining whether evidence of uncharged misconduct is relevant to demonstrate a common design or plan, it is useful to distinguish the nature and degree of similarity (between the uncharged misconduct and the charged offense) required in order to establish a common design or plan, from the degree of similarity necessary to prove intent or identity. The least degree of similarity (between the uncharged act and the charged offense) is required in order to prove intent. [Citation.] `[T]he recurrence of a similar result ... tends (increasingly with each instance) to negative accident or inadvertence or self-defense or good faith or other innocent mental state, and tends to establish (provisionally, at least, though not certainly) the presence of the normal, i.e., criminal, intent accompanying such an act....' (2 Wigmore, [Evidence] (Chadbourn rev. ed.1979) § 302, p. 241.) In order to be admissible to prove intent, the uncharged misconduct must be sufficiently similar to support the inference that the defendant'probably harbor[ed] the same intent in each instance. [Citations.]' [Citation.] A greater degree of similarity is required in order to prove the existence of a common design or plan.... [I]n establishing a common design or plan, evidence of uncharged misconduct must demonstrate `not merely a similarity in the results, but such a concurrence of common features that the various acts are naturally to be explained as caused by a general plan of which they are the individual manifestations.' (2 Wigmore, supra, (Chadbourn rev. ed.1979) § 304, p. 249, italics omitted.) `[T]he difference between requiring similarity, for acts negativing innocent intent, and requiring common features indicating common design, for acts showing design, is a difference of degree rather than of kind; for to be similar involves having common features, and to have common features is merely to have a high degree of similarity.' ( Id. at pp. 250-251, italics omitted....) To establish the existence of a common design or plan, the common features must indicate the existence of a plan rather than a series of similar spontaneous acts, but the plan thus revealed need not be distinctive or unusual.... [E]vidence that the defendant has committed uncharged criminal acts that are similar to the charged offense may be relevant if these acts demonstrate circumstantially that the defendant committed the charged offense pursuant to the same design or plan he or she used in committing the uncharged acts. Unlike evidence of uncharged acts used to prove identity, the plan need not be unusual or distinctive; it need only exist to support the inference that the defendant employed that plan in committing the charged offense. [Citation.] The greatest degree of similarity is required for evidence of uncharged misconduct to be relevant to prove identity. For identity to be established, the uncharged misconduct and the charged offense must share common features that are sufficiently distinctive so as to support the inference that the same person committed both acts. [Citation.] `The pattern and characteristics of the crimes must be so unusual and distinctive as to be like a signature.' (1 McCormick [on Evidence (4th ed.1992) ] § 190, pp. 801-803.) ( Ewoldt, supra, 7 Cal.4th at pp. 401-03, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757, fn. omitted.) Applying these standards in Ewoldt, supra, 7 Cal.4th 380, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757, a prosecution for committing lewd acts on a child, we upheld the admission of prior uncharged lewd acts on the complaining witness and her sister. We held that the evidence was admissible to establish that the charged offenses were committed pursuant to the same design or plan used by defendant in committing the uncharged offenses. ( Id. at p. 386, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757.) In Balcom, supra, 7 Cal.4th 414, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 666, 867 P.2d 777, a prosecution for rape and robbery, we upheld the admission of a similar rape and robbery that the defendant later committed in Michigan against a different victim. We held that evidence tending to establish that, soon after the commission of the charged offenses of rape and robbery, defendant committed a rape and robbery in Michigan in a manner quite similar to the charged offenses, was admissible to demonstrate the existence of a common design or plan which, in turn, was relevant to demonstrate that defendant either employed or developed that plan in committing the charged offenses. ( Id. at p. 418, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 666, 867 P.2d 777.) The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the evidence in this case. Defendant discusses each act in isolation and argues it should not have been admitted. But each act did not occur in isolation but as part of a larger pattern, a pattern that was highly relevant to understanding what happened to Sara Weir. Viewed as a whole, this evidence shows a remarkably similar and consistent pattern. Defendant continually lied to and manipulated women including, in particular, women who, like Sara Weir, he befriended at the fitness center. As a specific example of the pattern, he continually led them to believe he came from a wealthy family. He did so consistently to obtain their property. The evidence shows he could be very charming and, at first, convincing. He also continually lured women to his home, where he robbed and raped them. Sara's death did not occur in a vacuum. She did not survive her encounter with defendant to tell her story. But, fortunately, many othersMichelle T., Teri B., Jodi D., Kim V., Leticia Busby, Helen Waters, Karrie Marshalldid survive and can tell their tales. Their testimony was critical to the jury's full understanding of the circumstances of Sara's death. The pattern their testimony established helped the jury to understand how and why Sara came to be in the apartment with defendant on that fatal occasion. (Her mother described her as naive and trusting; the jury could reasonably infer that she also believed defendant's stories and was lured to the apartment just like defendant lured other trusting women to his home.) It also helped the jury to understand what defendant intended when he assaulted and ultimately killed Saraboth to take her property and to rape her. Defendant first challenges the testimony of his financial dealings with other women he befriended at the fitness center. This testimony was, however, highly probative. From the evidence at trial, the jury could reasonably conclude that defendant took Sara's vehicle, which was found in Mexico after he was arrested when he was attempting to enter the United States from Mexico; at least two of her checks, which were found in his possession when he was arrested; and probably her purse, which was never found. Issues contested at trial, and indeed still in this appeal, were whether defendant formed the intent to take these items before or at the time he applied force or fear and, if so, whether the robbery was merely incidental to the murder. ( People v. Green (1980) 27 Cal.3d 1, 54, 61, 164 Cal.Rptr. 1, 609 P.2d 468.) The evidence of defendant's financial dealings with other women showed that defendant continually sought to obtain property from the women, and that virtually nothing that he did to obtain property was an afterthought. This pattern strongly suggested that defendant took Sara's property pursuant to a common plan rather than merely as an after thought. Defendant specifically challenges the admissibility of the testimony of Leticia Busby and Karrie Marshall. Although their testimony was not quite as probative as the other evidence, it was also not particularly prejudicial. Evidence that defendant attempted to borrow Busby's credit card, albeit unsuccessfully, was a manifestation of a common plan to obtain money from the women he met at the fitness center, which, in turn, helps show that his taking of Sara's property was not merely an afterthought. Similarly, Marshall's testimony showed he was continually manipulating the women he met at the center. The jury could reasonably infer that defendant was attempting to be alone with Marshall in her apartment. This was a variation of the usual pattern in which defendant lured women to his home. The likely explanation for this variation is that Michelle T. had just excluded him from her apartment, so he had no home of his own to use. We see no abuse of discretion in admitting this evidence. Defendant also specifically challenges the admissibility of Damon Stalworth's testimony that defendant cashed two personal checks at the restaurant Stalworth owns that were in someone else's namepossibly Teri B.'sand that later bounced. This testimony, however, was just more of the same pattern. The jury could reasonably infer defendant's possession of two of Sara's checks when he was arrested was part of that pattern. This testimony was also admissible. Evidence of defendant's assault on Michelle T. just a few days before he stabbed Sara Weir to death in the same apartment was also admissible as part of the pattern of deception followed by violence. Moreover, as the trial court recognized, it was highly probative on the issue of identity, particularly in conjunction with the assault and rape of Teri B. Sara's body was found in the apartment defendant had shared with Michelle. The jury could reasonably infer that she had been stabbed to death inside that apartment. Evidence that a few days before this stabbing defendant violently assaulted inside that same apartment two different women he had also befriended at the fitness center was evidence of common features that are sufficiently distinctive so as to support the inference that the same person committed both [indeed, in this case, all] acts. ( Ewoldt, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 403, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757.) It would have been a remarkable coincidence if, shortly after defendant violently assaulted two women he befriended at the fitness center, some different person happened to use that same apartment to assault another woman defendant had befriended at the fitness center. The rapes of Teri B., Jodi D., and Kim V., were similarly admissible. All three showed a remarkably similar patterndefendant convinced his victims that he was wealthy, he lured them to his home, and then he raped and robbed them. The jury could reasonably infer from this evidence that defendant harbored similar intents to rape and to robwhen he similarly lured Sara to the apartment and ultimately killed her. The assault of Teri B. was especially probative, on identity as well as intent. Not only did defendant rape a woman he befriended at the fitness center in the apartment where Sara's body was later found, but he also used what the jury could reasonably find was the same weapon a pair of scissors that was conveniently at hand. These circumstances were distinctive indeed. Defendant contends there was not enough evidence that he intended to rape Sara to warrant admission of evidence of the other rapes. As we explain below, the overall evidence, including the evidence of the other rapes, was sufficient to permit the jury to find defendant intended to rape Sara. (See pt. II.B.3.) No reason appears for the trial court to have excluded any of this evidence. We also conclude the trial court acted within its discretion in finding the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by the potential for undue prejudice. As explained, the evidence had substantial probative value; indeed, it was critical to the jury's full understanding of the circumstances surrounding Sara's death. Moreover, none of the other misconduct was particularly inflammatory compared to Sara's murder. ( Ewoldt, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 405, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757.) We see no error. Defendant also argues that admitting this evidence violated his federal due process rights. (See McKinney v. Rees (9th Cir.1993) 993 F.2d 1378.) We need not decide to what extent, if any, evidence solely going to character might violate due process (cf. People v. Falsetta (1999) 21 Cal.4th 903, 921-922, 89 Cal.Rptr.2d 847, 986 P.2d 182), for, as explained, here the evidence of defendant's prior misconduct was highly probative on several issues at trial. ( People v. Steele (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1230, 1246, 120 Cal.Rptr.2d 432, 47 P.3d 225.)