Court Opinion

ID: 9739000
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:07:08.191599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:09.613866
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in result).
Although I agree with affirming the convictions, I write to call the reader’s attention to my special writing in State v. Champagne, 422 N.W.2d 840, 844 (S.D.1988) (Henderson, J., specially concurring). Champagne is cited in the majority opinion for several precedential holdings.
These “prior crimes, wrongs, or bad acts” cases, i.e., admitting prior crimes or wrongs or bad acts to prove the crime at hand, must be distinguished and decided on each set of facts.
Admitting evidence of prior crimes, wrongs or bad acts is a matter of judicial discretion. It is not a matter, in every case, of automatic inclusion or automatic exclusion. A court must reflect, rather than rely on judicial reflex, when admitting or excluding this type of evidence. Rulings by the trial judge will depend on his/her assessment of the evidence. Cardinal to our consideration are the following digested cases. Relevancy does not automatically result in admissibility. US. v. Goodwin, 492 F.2d 1141, 1155 (5th Cir.1974). The prior conduct, to be admissible, must be similar. State v. Pedde, 334 N.W.2d 41 (S.D.1983). There must be a balancing, by the trial court, of the prejudicial effect versus the probative value. State v. Thomas, 381 N.W.2d 232, 237 (S.D.1986). The proffered evidence must be close in time rather than remote. Pedde, supra; State v. Johnson, 316 N.W.2d 652 (S.D.1982). This Court will not tolerate persuasion by illegitimate means and taking advantage, unfairly, of a criminal defendant. State v. Dokken, 385 N.W.2d 493 (S.D.1986). “The standard of review in this Court is whether the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the evidence.” State v. Bose, 324 N.W.2d 894, 895 (S.D.1982).*
*21Here, two fires were started to avoid financial collapse: (1) Igniting by wrapping cloth around the base of an iron turned on the high position, and (2) ignition by leaving a candle burning in a crawlspace of an attic. Klein was facing foreclosure. He had little financial resource. He could not meet his financial obligations. “Prior bad acts”, in close proximity to the time when he committed the crimes alleged in the information had a very direct bearing on motive, namely, convictions of theft by deception.
Where men isolate retarded women (using an official position of authority), as in State v. Willis, 370 N.W.2d 193 (S.D.1985), to sexually take advantage of them or physically abuse women establishing a pattern leading to murder, as in State v. Bradley, 431 N.W.2d 317 (S.D.1988), I have written opinions, for the majority of this Court, admitting evidence of prior bad acts or wrongs. See also, State v. Perkins, 444 N.W.2d 34 (S.D.1989). (pedophilia). I have written specially to admit prior bad acts or wrongs to protect innocent children from men who scheme or plan to isolate and sexually abuse young children/members of their family or friends. Champagne, supra, Roden v. Solem (Roden II), 431 N.W.2d 665, 670-1 (S.D.1988) (Both pedophilia cases). In those cases, admission of such evidence was within the discretion of the trial court.

 We also said in Rose, at 895-96: "In making such review we are bound by the rule that the question is not whether the judges of this court would have made an original like ruling, but rather whether we believe a judicial mind, in view of the law and the circumstances, could reasonably have reached that conclusion.” Rose, a unanimous decision, anteceded the present case by seven years. Rose was written by then Chief Justice Jon Fosheim with former *21Chief Justices Roger Wollman and Frances Dunn sitting on the Court, together with Justice Morgan, now our Senior Justice, and myself.