Opinion ID: 1676759
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: of the decedent's prior criminal record?

Text: At trial, Dokken sought to introduce evidence of Brandsgaard's four-year old convictions for simple assault and a firearms charge relative to the issue of who the aggressor was. The trial court denied this offer. We affirm the trial court's ruling in this respect, and hold our decision in State v. Padgett, 291 N.W.2d 796 (S.D.1980) dispositive of this issue. In Padgett, the defendant appealed his conviction for second-degree manslaughter. Specifically, he argued that he should have been permitted to introduce evidence, other than reputation, about the true nature of the victim in order to establish the fact that the victim had propensities toward violent behavior. Thus, Padgett attempted to introduce evidence of the victim's 1977 arrest report, an order committing him to the Human Services Center in Yankton in 1972, and a conviction on an assault charge which occurred in 1971. The trial court found that the 1972 committal proceeding and the 1971 assault conviction were too remote, and that the 1977 charge lacked probative value. In affirming the trial court's ruling, we stated that: Appellant has presented us with no persuasive authority that SDCL 19-12-4 (Rule 404(a) of the Federal Rules of Evidence) is not in accord with the majority rule that evidence of specific acts may not be used circumstantially to prove a victim's probable conduct on the occasion of the alleged crime, (citation omitted), nor to corroborate a defendant's theory that he was acting out of a reasonable fear for his own safety and in the reasonable exercise of deadly force in resisting the victim's attack. Id. at 799. In Padgett, this court adopted the majority rule that evidence of specific acts of violence or quarrelsomeness on the part of the victim are not admissible on the issue of self-defense. Accordingly, Brandsgaard's prior criminal record was properly excluded at trial.