Court Opinion

ID: 9849718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:44:59.751315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:25.314849
License: Public Domain

Fletcher, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
Because the prejudicial effect of showing a fictional version of crimes that the defendant did not commit outweighs the probative value of their similarities to the crimes he did commit, I dissent.
Prior to trial, the state filed a notice of its intent to present evidence of “logically related transactions” in the form of the movie Menace II Society. The movie is “an unsentimental and yet completely involving story of a young man who cannot see a way around his fate”; it “looks unblinkingly at a street culture that offers its members few choices that are not self-destructive.”5 The state sought to present as evidence the portion of the movie where two young, African-American males enter a store, confront an employee, rob and kill *602her and another person, and take the security videotape to conceal their identity. One reviewer described this segment as follows:
The movie opens as Caine[, the movie’s central character,] and O-Dog, his heedless, violent friend, enter a Korean grocery store to buy a couple of beers. The grocer and his wife, who don’t want trouble, ask them to make their purchase and leave. Caine and O-Dog engage in a little meaningless verbal intimidation, aware that because they are young and black they can score some points through the couple’s fear. “I feel bad for your mother,” the grocer says as they are about to leave. That is all O-Dog needs to hear, and he murders the grocer and then forces his wife to hand over the store’s security videotape before killing her, too.6
In its motion, the state sought to present the movie for the “limited” purpose of showing the defendant’s motive, intent, course of conduct, bent of mind, identity, preoccupation with the movie, and propensity to emulate the actor’s conduct; the state also contended that the movie would corroborate statements made by witnesses to Rushin’s crime. At a pre-trial hearing where the trial court viewed the movie scene, the state argued that Rushin’s case “is on all fours” with the movie because Rushin, like O-Dog, wore khaki pants, held his gun at a certain angle, and asked his victim for the store’s security tape. Rushin argued that the movie was not similar and that its only purpose was to substitute the pictorial image of the film’s shooting and robbing for the crimes at trial. When the defendant renewed his objections at trial, the trial court instructed the jury to consider the evidence only as it related to Rushin’s bent of mind or intent. The jury then viewed a portion of the movie, which the prosecutor stopped after the convenience store robbery was completed.
1. For a separate offense to be admissible as an independent act, the state must show that the accused committed the other act.7 The state did not attempt to show here that Rushin committed the robbery and murder in Menace II Society. Therefore, the trial court was correct in implicitly rejecting the movie as evidence" of a “similar transaction.”
2. In considering whether a jury should be allowed to view a movie showing similar crimes, trial courts should determine whether the probative value of the evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect. Among the factors to consider are (1) the purpose of the evidence; (2) the adequacy of the direct testimony; (3) the need for a visual image; *603(4) the time required to view the evidence; (5) the likelihood of jury confusion; and (6) the unfair prejudice to the defendants.8
A review of these factors shows that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the jury to view the opening scene of Menace II Society. The trial court and this Court state that the movie was admissible to show Rushin’s intent, bent of mind, and modus operands Although these are permissible purposes, the oral testimony of witnesses adequately described Rushin’s intent, state of mind, and methods. Witnesses testified that they watched the movie with Rushin, who had seen it at least five times; he was interested in the character who robbed the store and shot the victim; and Rushin talked with a friend about robbing a store. A high school classmate testified that after the murder Rushin told him he went in the store, pulled a gun, shot the lady in the neck, told her to “put the phone down, bitch,” and got the store videotape. Rushin told his classmate that he shot only one time because he had just one bullet in the gun’s chamber, having spilled the rest. In his custodial statement, Rushin admitted that he robbed the store, asked the victim to give him the store surveillance tape, and then shot the victim, although he claimed the shooting was an accident. In addition, the state introduced the actual store videotape that shows the victim at the counter and an arm raised holding a gun, thus providing a visual image that disputes Rushin’s accident defense. Given the adequacy of this oral and video testimony in describing how Rushin committed the crimes, the film was unnecessary to provide an additional visual image to prove intent, bent of mind, or modus operandi.9
The real purpose of the movie was to provide a more explicit visual picture of the state’s theory that Rushin committed crimes similar to the movie’s crimes. In contrast to the store videotape, which had only fuzzy black and white images and ended before the shooting, the movie presented a clear and colorful image of two senseless murders. The movie thus served as a dramatic state witness who blurred fact and fiction but who was not subject to cross-examination. Despite the trial court’s attempt to limit the purpose of the movie, the impressions generated by motion pictures are particularly difficult to limit.10 Because of the highly prejudicial nature of the film as evidence and the difficulty inherent in limiting its message solely to proper purposes, I conclude that the movie’s unfair prejudice to the defendant outweighed its scant probative value. Therefore, the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the state to present a portion *604of the movie to the jury.
Decided July 13, 1998.
Noel G. Perry, for appellant.
C. Paul Bowden, District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Elizabeth L. Jaeger, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Benham and Justice Sears join in this dissent.

 Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, Menace II Society, May 26, 1993 chttp:// www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert-reviews/1003/05/859427.html>

 Id.

 Williams v. State, 261 Ga. 640 (409 SE2d 649) (1991).

 See Beasley v. State, 269 Ga. 620 (502 SE2d 235) (1998).

 See Tolver v. State, 269 Ga. 530 (500 SE2d 563) (1998) (jury convicted Rushin’s co-defendant without having seen any portion of Menace II Society).

 See McCormick on Evidence § 214.