Court Opinion

ID: 9744358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:01:22.727112+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:48.737231
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion
Hunter, J.
I concur with one reservation. The majority opinion concludes that the Hughes’ testimony was admissible as evidencing a common plan or scheme. As authority the Court cites Pieper v. State, (1975) 262 Ind. 580, 321 N.E.2d 196. Pieper is not a common plan or scheme case. It belongs to the depraved sexual instinct genre. There can be no doubt that the Hughes’ testimony is not admissible under the depraved sexual instinct exception to the non-admissibility of other acts rule: the Hughes’ testimony reveals no sexual conduct, abnormal or otherwise, on the part of the appellant whatsoever.
The “common plan” exception to the rule of non-admissibility of other acts is not as broad as the majority holds, and the misapplication of this exception appears to be a recurring problem. See Loveless v. State, (1960) 240 Ind. 534, 166 N.E. 2d 864. The limited evidentiary use of other acts to show a common plan or design is readily gathered from WIGMORE ON EVIDENCE, § 304 (3d ed. 1940) discussing the distinction between the “common plan” and “intent” exceptions:
“Theory of evidencing Design or System. When the very doing of the act charged is still to be proved, one of the evidential facts receivable is the person’s Design or Plan to do it (ante, § 102). This in turn may be evidenced by conduct of sundry sorts (ante, § 234) as well as by direct assertions of the design (post, § 1725). But where the conduct offered consists merely in the doing of other similar acts, it is obvious that something more is required than that mere similarity, which suffices for evidencing Intent (ante, § 302). The object here is not merely to negative an innocent intent at the time of the act charged, but to prove a pre-existing design, system, plan or scheme, directed forwards to the doing of that act. In the former case (of Intent) the attempt is merely to negative the innocent state of mind at the time of the act charged; in the present case the effort is to establish a definite prior design or system which included the doing of the act charged as a *475part of its consummation. In the former case, the result is to give a complexion to a conceded act, and ends with that; in the present case, the result is to show (by probability) a precedent design which in its turn is to evidence (by probability) the doing of the act designed.
“The added element, then, must be, 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. Thus, where the act of passing counterfeit money is conceded, and the intent alone is in issue, the fact of two previous utterings in the same month might well tend to negative innocent intent; but where the very act of uttering is disputed — as, where the defendant claims that his identity has been mistaken — , and the object is to show that he had a general system or plan of working off a quantity of counterfeit money and did carry it out in this instance, the fact of two previous utterings may be in itself of trifling and inadequate significance. So, on a charge of assault with intent to rape, where the intent alone is disputed, a prior assault on the previous day upon the same woman, or even upon another member of her family, might have probative value; but if the assault itself is disputed, and the defendant attempts, for example, to show an alibi, the same facts might be of little or no value, and it might be necessary to go further and to show (for example) that the defendant on the same day, with a confederate guarding the house, assaulted other women in the same family who escaped, leaving the complainant as the only woman accessible to him for his purpose.” [Emphasis original.]
It is not possible to rationalize testimony about an incident which occurred on February 23, 1973, some three months after the date of the crime charged as establishing “a definite prior design or system which included the doing of the act charged as a part of its consummation.” But see Gears v. State, (1931) 203 Ind. 380, 180 N.E. 585 (in trial for grand larceny of 50 chickens on July 3, theft of chickens on July 7, attempted theft on July 10th, admissible to show plan to commit series of thefts).
In this case, appellant presented an alibi defense. His identity as the perpetrator of the offense was a question to be resolved. As we recently stated in Cobbs v. State, (1975) 264 Ind. 60, 338 N.E.2d 632, 634:
*476“Under the identity exception, evidence of other crimes is admissible if identity is at issue, and the other crimes are connected with the charged crime in such a way that proof of them naturally tends to identify the defendant as the one who committed the charged crime. 1 Underhill’s Criminal Evidence §210 (6th Ed. Herrick Rev. 1973). One application of this exception pertains to crimes involving a similar modus operandi. That is, when the marks common to charged and uncharged offenses set them apart from other offenses of the same general variety, evidence of the uncharged offense is admissible on the issue of identity. People v. Matson, (1974) 13 Cal.3d 35, 117 Cal. Rptr. 664, 528 P.2d 752. Compare Smith v. State, (1939) 215 Ind. 629, 21 N.E.2d 709, with Layton v. State, (1966) 248 Ind. 52, 221 N.E.2d 881.”
Appellant’s approach to the vehicle in which the Hughes were parked, the pretext used in getting Mr. Hughes out of the car, and forcing Mr. Hughes into the trunk of his auto were acts sufficiently distinctive to allow the jury to consider such actions in deciding that it was appellant who had earlier employed the Same method in carrying out the crimes charged in the affidavit. The record further discloses that the vehicles were parked in the same general area, and the approaches occurred about the same time of night.
Arguing for the admission of the Hughes’ testimony, the prosecutor referred the trial judge to several cases which state the general rule of non-admissibility of other acts and further state the exceptions to the rule, including the identification exception. While the prosecutor specifically believed the evidence would fall under the common plan exception, as the majority holds, I would affirm the admission of the evidence under the identity exception.
DeBruler, J., concurs.
Note. — Reported at 346 N.E.2d 591.