Court Opinion

ID: 9733152
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:55:14.610342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:27:02.316502
License: Public Domain

AMUNDSON, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
This is not your typical sexual abuse case wherein the credibility of one victim and credibility of the defendant are the critical issues to be resolved by the jury. In this case, the defendant was charged with seven counts of sexual contact with a child under sixteen years of age and two counts of attempted sexual contact with a child *295under sixteen years of age. These counts covered conduct alleged to have occurred over a period of time beginning in October, 1987, and ending in March, 1990. There were five different victims named in the charges filed who all testified regarding the alleged incidents.
In other words, State had incorporated into the charge evidence of other bad acts allegedly committed by this defendant against the other four victims, which could be used to prove motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident, under SDCL 19-12-5. The record does not reflect any objection being filed by defendant to exclude any testimony by the victims under the first part of the above-mentioned statute.
There has been a profusion of decisions written in numerous jurisdictions on the subject of prior bad acts. This court has dealt with this issue in a multitude of cases and continues to have appeals filed on a regular basis where this issue again is the focal point. In our recent decision of State v. Chapin, 460 N.W.2d 420 (S.D.1990), we again confirmed that the rule contained in SDCL 19-12-5 is one of inadmissibility and that the exceptions contained therein should not be allowed to totally absorb this premise. The purpose behind this rule is that a defendant should not be convicted on evidence of mere propensity to act in a particular manner.
The general exclusion of evidence of other crimes or wrongs in criminal prosecutions rests on sound policy and constitutional concerns. Introduction of evidence that the defendant committed other crimes and unwholesome acts may lead jurors to return a verdict of guilty for reasons other than finding all the elements of the alleged crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Although reasonable doubt of guilt exists on this occasion, the jury might conclude the defendant is a “bad man,” who deserves punishment regardless of his innocence of the crime charged and warrants imprisonment to prevent future maleficent acts. Such results defeat the letter and policy of substantive criminal law mandating conviction based upon a non-vague concrete statute; instead, jurors have found the defendant guilty based upon past unsavory acts without necessarily violating any criminal statute in the process. Alternatively, and just as improperly upon learning that the accused committed other crimes or wrongs, jurors might infer that the defendant has a propensity to commit crimes and probably committed this crime as charged.
Patterson, Evidence of Prior Bad Acts: Admissibility Under the Federal Rules, 38 Baylor L.Rev. 331, 332-33 (1986).
In Chapin, we advised that the proper procedure to be followed when requesting the allowance of bad acts evidence is to identify the specific exception providing for admission, and establish why the evidence is relevant to an issue or ultimate fact in dispute in the case.
In United States v. Mothershed, 859 F.2d 585 (8th Cir.1988), the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a conviction based in part upon the use of a ten-year-old conviction and held as follows:
We have not been aided in our review of the relevancy issue in this case by the ‘laundry list’ approach taken at trial. Rather than name the particular issue on which this conviction was relevant, it appears that the government simply read the list of issues for which prior bad acts can be admitted under Rule 404(b) [SDCL 19-12-5]. This is not in itself a basis for reversal, but it is a practice we discourage. ‘Rather than making a broad reference which merely restates the components of the rule, the district court should specify which components of the rule form the basis of its ruling and why.’ United States v. Harvey, 845 F.2d 760, 762 (8th Circuit 1988). We expect the same from the proponent of the evidence.
Mothershed, 859 F.2d at 589. Submission of this type of evidence is critical for an appropriate and informed review of such an issue on appeal. If not specified, it is difficult for a reviewing court to determine the relevancy to the material issue in dispute *296for which it is tendered as proof. A simplistic approach to the admission of bad acts evidence is warned against in 22 C. Wright & K. Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure:
Particularly to be deplored is what might be called the ‘smorgasbord’ approach to analysis of other crimes evidence in which the court simply serves up a long list of permissible uses without any attempt to show how any of them are applicable to the case at hand. ... What is to be avoided is the mere listing of possible uses in the hope that at least one will seem to the reader to be applicable to the facts of the instant case.
Section 5240 at 479 (1978). The record in this case reflects a laundry list requesting admission of the plethora of bad acts evidence with little rationale for why it is applicable or needed in the case. This court has to guard against the smuggling of bad acts evidence into the record to show mere propensity to the jury, no matter how it is labeled by the prosecution. In the instant case, the prosecution jumped out of the starting gate with this bad acts evidence and obviously led wire-to-wire in this prosecution based on the verdict.
There is no question that the trial court concluded that the testimony of this legion of witnesses would be relevant to prove opportunity, common scheme or plan, motive, intent and absence of mistake or accident in this case. Notwithstanding this conclusion, I find the record lacking as to the need for this evidence on these issues, even if they are contested elements to be proven by the State in this case, which is certainly questionable in this writer’s mind. As previously stated, the prosecution had five witnesses to present in its case-in-chief, but chose to place this defendant in a position where he had to defend against numerous other incidents covering twenty-plus years.
In State v. Yager, 236 Neb. 481, 461 N.W.2d 741, 752 (1990), Justice Shanahan stated as follows in his dissent:
‘There is no presumption that such other-crimes evidence is relevant_ Otherwise, of course, the accused might be convicted because of his participation in the other crimes rather than because he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crime alleged.’ United States v. Manafzadeh, 592 F.2d 81, 86 (2nd Cir.1979). See, also, United States v. Hodges, 770 F.2d 1475, 1479 (9th Cir.1985):
‘[T]he defendant must be tried for what he did, not for who he is. Under our system, an individual may be convicted only for the offense of which he is charged and not for other unrelated criminal acts which he may have committed. Therefore, the guilt or innocence of the accused must be established by evidence relevant to the particular offense being tried, not by showing that defendant has engaged in other acts of wrongdoing.’
All the other acts of wrongdoing which State was allowed to use in this case were to show that defendant was a bad person and had been a bad person for a long time. The admission of this evidence allowed the defendant to be judged on the basis of innuendo from conduct for which he was not on trial for, nor charged with.
This decision could easily be the final gulp in the total swallowing of this rule by its exceptions. In order to avoid such a result, I would reverse and remand for a new trial.
Although I dissent on Issue I, I concur with the majority on Issue II.