Court Opinion

ID: 9541046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:22:04.851538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:27.786196
License: Public Domain

*477O’Connor, J.
(dissenting). The court holds that the judge properly admitted over objection evidence that the defendant had engaged in sexual acts with the victim’s younger brother. I believe this holding to be ill-advised and unsupported by our case law. Because I cannot conclude that the admission of this evidence was harmless, I dissent.
Evidence of other crimes is inadmissible to prove commission of the crime charged, if the only relevance of the evidence is to prove criminal disposition. Commonwealth v. Stone, 321 Mass. 471, 473 (1947). The rationale for this rule is that while such evidence may be marginally probative, “there is the danger that, because a defendant appears to be a bad man capable of, and likely to commit, such a crime as that charged, a jury might be led to dispense with proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he did actually commit the crime charged. Moreover, it is not fair that a defendant in the course of a trial should be called upon to defend himself against accusations not set forth in the indictment.” Id. See McCormick, Evidence § 188 (2d ed. 1972).
Relevant evidence of other crimes may be admissible if its relevance does not depend upon showing criminal disposition. Commonwealth v. Schoening, 379 Mass. 234, 242 (1979). Commonwealth v. Baker, 368 Mass. 58, 85-86 (1975). Commonwealth v. Murphy, 282 Mass. 593, 598 (1933). For instance, “[i]n trials of indictments for larceny by obtaining money or property by false pretences it has been held, as bearing on the defendant’s intent, that his criminal conduct on another occasion is admissible, provided it is reasonably near in time and so connected with the crime charged in the indictment as to show unity of plot and design and that it was part of a common plan or scheme to defraud.” Commonwealth v. Baker, supra at 85-86, quoting from Commonwealth v. Stone, supra at 473-474.
In Commonwealth v. Gallison, 383 Mass. 659, 673 (1981), the defendant claimed error in the trial judge’s denial of her motion to sever two charges for which she was on trial, assault and battery on one of her children and man*478slaughter of another. The issue was whether evidence that the defendant physically abused and neglected her son would have been admissible in a separate trial for manslaughter of her daughter. Id. at 673. Evidence of out-of-court statements by the defendant showed that the daughter had become critically ill, the defendant failed to seek medical help and death resulted. Id. at 666-667. The defendant’s attitude toward the daughter was crucial to the issue of recklessness, and we held that the evidence of the defendant’s conduct toward her son would have been admissible as bearing on the defendant’s lack of concern for her daughter’s well being. Id. at 672-673. We viewed the evidence as probative of an ongoing course of conduct, id. at 1275, fitting within the “common scheme” principle of Commonwealth v. Schoening, supra at 242, and Commonwealth v. Cutler, 356 Mass. 245, 248 (1979). Commonwealth v. Gallison, supra at 673.
Although the line of distinction may be fine, I do not believe that our holding in Commonwealth v. Gallison, supra, logically compels us to conclude that the evidence of other crimes is admissible in this case, and unless so compelled, I would not hold evidence with such prejudicial impact to be admissible. We determined in Gallison that evidence of a mother’s disinterest in the welfare of her three year old son was sufficiently probative of her disregard for the welfare of her two year old daughter to justify its admission. That determination does not require us to hold that evidence of a person’s perverted sexual interest in a little boy is sufficiently probative of the same disposition toward the boy’s sister to justify admission of that evidence to prove the person’s state of mind, and by that to prove commission of the act essential to the crime. In Gallison, evidence of the other crime was not admitted to prove the defendant’s commission of the criminal act, as the majority would permit here.
This court has held that “when a defendant is charged with any form of illicit sexual intercourse, evidence of the commission of similar crimes by the same parties ... if not *479too remote in time, is competent to prove an inclination to commit the act charged in the indictment . . . and is relevant to show the probable existence of the same passion or emotion at the time in issue” (emphasis added). Commonwealth v. Machado, 339 Mass. 713, 715 (1959), quoting from Commonwealth v. Bemis, 242 Mass. 582, 585 (1922). However, in Commonwealth v. Welcome, 348 Mass. 68 (1964), we held that the rule of Machado was not to be extended to acts involving different victims. In Welcome, we held inadmissible in a trial for indecent assault and battery on a child under fourteen evidence that the defendant had assaulted other young girls. Id. at 70-71. Previously, in Commonwealth v. Ellis, 321 Mass. 669, 670 (1947), which, like Welcome, is indistinguishable from the present case, we held it was error to admit in a statutory rape trial evidence that the defendant molested a “somewhat older” sister, stating, “The only effect of [the testimony regarding the older sister] was to show that the defendant was a lewd man, and to lead the jury to believe that a man of his character would be likely to commit the crime charged. Where misconduct of a defendant has no relevancy except to provide a basis for such an argument, it may not be shown. . . . It is to be noted that the evidence in question had no tendency to show a lecherous disposition toward the younger child named in the indictment.” Ellis, supra at 670.
It is clear that in Commonwealth v. Gallison, supra, this court did not intend to overrule Commonwealth v. Welcome, supra, or Commonwealth v. Ellis, supra, or to cast doubt upon the viability of the general rule requiring exclusion of evidence of other crimes to show criminal disposition. We should not do so now. The only effect of showing that this defendant sexually abused the victim’s brother is to show that he is a lewd person who would be likely to commit the crime with which he is charged. The majority holding undermines, if it does not destroy, a time honored, salutary rule that “[f] airness to a defendant in a criminal case requires . . . that the commission by him of an independent crime cannot ordinarily be shown as evidence tend*480ing to show the commission of the crime charged.” Commonwealth v. Stone, supra at 473.
The evidence was of a highly prejudicial nature. I cannot say that its admission had no bearing on the jury’s verdict. I would reverse the judgment of conviction and remand for a new trial.