Opinion ID: 1907814
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: A. The Pretrial Other Crimes Motion and Ruling

Text: Prior to trial, Johnson moved to bar the government from eliciting evidence of other crimes, focusing particularly on evidence of the killing of the two boys. [3] The government successfully opposed the motion. At trial, the evidence of the Maryland slayings was admitted. In moving before trial to exclude the evidence, Johnson urged application of the strictures against other crimes evidence laid out in Drew, supra . Johnson asserted that the evidence was inadmissible because the government had not established, by clear and convincing evidence, that Johnson was connected with the other crimes, as required under Drew and its progeny. Alternatively, appellant argued that the danger of prejudice presented by the admission of the evidence outweighed its probative value and that it should be excluded on that ground. The government sought admission of the evidence of the Maryland killings under two separate theories. First, the government asserted that, assuming that Drew rules were applicable, they were satisfied here because it proposed to use the evidence to prove the identity of the accused, a recognized exception to Drew. This was true, argued the government, because the killers of the children and Carrington were almost certainly the same. Supporting this assertion, the government pointed to the significant chronological and evidentiary links between the two crimes, the inference that whoever entered the Maryland apartment knew what they would find (knowledge rather uniquely held by Void and Johnson), and the fact that the boys knew Void and Johnson, thus providing the two with a special reason to kill the boys to prevent identification. The government urged that the second prong of Drew was satisfied because the danger of prejudice was outweighed by the probative value of the evidence. Also, in response to an argument by co-defendant Void, whose case had not yet been severed, the government insisted that the evidence could not be sanitized by, for example, telling the jury only that the same gun that killed Carrington had been used in the apartment, rather than telling them that bullets from that gun were removed from the bodies of the two children. The government's second argument for admission was that the evidence fell outside the special rules of Drew because it was direct proof of the narcotics conspiracy. In this regard, the government relied exclusively upon the argument that the grand jury had listed the Maryland killings as overt acts of the conspiracy, and thus the government had to prove that they occurred. The government did not use as a fallback the argument that the evidence of the Maryland acts was direct proof of Carrington's murder and therefore was admissible even apart from the argument that it proved an overt act of the conspiracy. The motions court found that the Drew requirements were satisfied. It held that, by the proffered evidence, the prosecution had established clearly and convincingly that Johnson committed the uncharged crimes. Evidence that the same person committed both crimes was powerful, according to the court. The court also ruled that the evidence was admissible regardless of Drew because it was directly relevant to the conspiracy, inasmuch as it proved one of the overt acts of the conspiracy. The motions court also found that the probative value of the evidence outweighed its prejudicial effect.