Court Opinion

ID: 9750727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:27:41.167758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:19.953532
License: Public Domain

P ashman, J.,
dissenting. I cannot subscribe to the result reached by the majority in this case. To hold that a defendant may be convicted of the crime of breaking and entering with intent to steal when in fact he never possessed such intent “not only defies logic and sound public policy, [but] also runs counter to dictates of prior easelaw and the policies enunciated by our Legislature in the new criminal.code.” State *466v. Stasio, 78 N. J. 467, 490 (1979) (Pashman, J., dissenting). I therefore dissent for the reasons expressed in my dissenting opinion in State v. Stasio, 78 N. J. 467 (1979), decided this day.
Moreover, I disagree with the majority’s holding that the admission of two 9-year-old convictions unrelated to the offense with which the defendant was charged did not constitute error. My conclusion in this regard is based substantially upon the grounds expressed in the well-reasoned and exhaustive opinion of the Appellate Division majority, State v. Atkins, 151 N. J. Super. 555 (App. Div. 1977). In State v. Kociolek, 23 N. J. 400 (1957), we clearly held that the admission of “other crimes” evidence
* * * [“] is limited to facts which are so connected with the subject in controversy as to make it apparent that the party had a common purpose in both transactions”; “on the trial of a criminal charge it is not relevant to show that the defendant has committed other similar crimes which are not connected in any way with the one in question.”
[Id. at 418 (quoting from Bullock v. State, 65 N. J. L. 557 (E. & A. 1900) (emphasis supplied)]
There is no contention here that the past crimes were part of a common plan or scheme. Thus, their use was for the sole purpose of showing that the alleged current ofíense “sprung from the same vicious disposition” as the earlier crimes. Therefore, they were not admissible. Kociolek, supra, 23 N. J. at 419 (quoting from State v. Raymond, 53 N. J. L. 260, 264 (Sup. Ct. 1891). See also State v. Sands, 76 N. J. 127 (1978).
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the Appellate Division and remand for a new trial.
Clifford and Handle®, J.J., concurring in the result.
For reversal — Chief Justice Hughes and Justices Mountain, Sullivan, Clifford, Scheeibeb and Handle® — 6.
For affirmance — Justice Pashman — 1.