Court Opinion

ID: 9579541
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:56:03.362084+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:34.799660
License: Public Domain

GARDEBRING, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In this case, the state offered evidence of appellant’s prior conviction for possession of crack cocaine to establish identity and “involvement with drugs.” The trial court admitted the eva-*125dence, over appellant’s objection, reasoning that “you must possess before you can sell drugs.” This is a truism, but if it is sufficient justification for admission of the previous incident in this ease, it would provide the basis for admission of any prior drug-related activity by any defendant charged with any later drug-related crime. I am not prepared to broaden the boundaries of admissible Spreigl evidence to allow such a result.
While this court has not insisted upon an absolute identity between the prior offense and the charged offense, we have required some similarity between the two crimes and some characteristics which distinguish the prior misconduct from every similar incident of misconduct committed by other individuals. In State v. Landin, 472 N.W.2d 854 (Minn.1991), we said “[In cases where] Spreigl evidence is offered to establish identity, the Spreigl offense must be similar to the charged offense either in time, location or modus operandi.” Id. at 859. See also State v. DeWald, 464 N.W.2d 500, 502-03 (Minn.1991). In State v. Eling, 355 N.W.2d 286, 292 (Minn.1984), the prior crime was similar to the charged crime in that each involved a pharmacy robbery in which the defendants ordered the victims to lie on the floor, demanded “Class A drugs” and ordered the victims “not to push the button.” In State v. Hudson, 281 N.W.2d 870 (Minn.1979), we allowed admission of prior robberies which had occurred only five days before and in which the perpetrator used the same words used in the charged offense.
In contrast, in this case, the state identifies two “similarities” of time and location between the July 1991 incident and the current charged offense: they were “close” in time, occurring some fifteen months apart, and they were both in St. Paul. Even the state can identify no distinguishing modus operan-di, other than that both incidents involved several pieces of crack cocaine packaged in a plastic bag and displayed in the seller’s hands. These characteristics are indistinguishable from the characteristics of virtually every street sale of cocaine in the city and can hardly be said to be relevant to the only disputed issue in this case, the identity of the perpetrator. The state’s own witnesses testified to the wide-spread use and sale of crack cocaine, that sellers commonly hold the bags of crack in their hands to show the buyers, and that the prevalent method of packaging in such sales is in small quantities, wrapped in plastic bags. It is well settled that when the admissibility of Spreigl evidence is unclear, the accused must be given the benefit of the doubt and the evidence rejected. State v. Titworth, 255 N.W.2d 241, 246 (Minn.1977).
Minnesota R.Evid. 404(b) forbids the admission of evidence the only relevance of which depends on the inference that “disposition” points directly to criminal behavior. The Spreigl evidence offered here is exactly such evidence. To conclude otherwise, I believe is intellectually dishonest. This court has not previously allowed the admission of such evidence, and it should not do so here.
Finally, I note that this case illustrates the irony of the Spreigl process. In State v. DeWald, 464 N.W.2d at 504, we directed trial courts to withhold a decision on the admission of Spreigl evidence until the state has presented its case and to admit the evidence only where the state’s case is “weak.” The trial court here identified it as “the ultimate weak case,” presumably because, as the state acknowledges, Cogshell’s conviction turned on the uncorroborated identification of a single witness made nine weeks after the transaction. Indeed, any link between the crime and the appellant was first made by a confidential informant who may or may not have been reliable. It is highly ironic that only in a case where the evidence is weak, and thus the risk of prejudice is high, do we grant trial court’s the option of admitting marginally relevant and questionably reliable evidence to bolster the state’s faltering position.
Although we grant trial courts considerable discretion with regard to evidentiary rulings, I conclude that admission of the Spreigl evidence here was an abuse of discretion; the evidence should not have been admitted. Further, while such an evidentiary ruling is also subject to the harmless error analysis, I believe the decision was not harmless in this case, given the weakness of the state’s ease. I would reverse and remand the matter for a new trial.
*126Page, J., joins in the dissent of Gardening, J.