Court Opinion

ID: 9649008
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:40:34.563012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:07.072394
License: Public Domain

Allen, C.J.
¶ 27. (Ret.), Specially Assigned, dissenting. I would not reverse defendant’s conviction on the grounds identified by the majority and therefore dissent.
¶ 28. Defendant offers virtually no support for his claim that the court erred by failing to conduct a balancing test under V.R.E. 403 before admitting evidence of defendant’s prior bad act. Defendant’s argument on appeal consists solely of the following sentence: “Furthermore, the trial court never viewed the testimony in light of V.R.E. 403, as did Judge Burgess, who found that its prejudicial effect was not outweighed by any probative value.” This is clearly inadequate briefing, and I would not address this claim. See V.R.A.P. 28(a)(4); Johnson v. Johnson, 158 Vt. 160, 164 n.*, 605 A.2d 857, 859 n.* (1992) (Supreme Court will not consider arguments not adequately briefed).
¶ 29. More importantly, to the extent the court is required to conduct a Rule 403 balancing test prior to admitting evidence under V.R.E. 404(b), the record demonstrates that such balancing occurred. Before trial, the State gave notice pursuant to V.R.Cr.P. 26(c) of its intent to introduce evidence that defendant had engaged in the same type of activity four weeks earlier in another department store. The evidence consisted of testimony from an employee at the store and a closed circuit videotape. The court conducted the Rule 403 balancing before trial and in a written opinion concluded that this evidence should be excluded on Rule 403 grounds absent a claim by defendant that the allegation against him was “incredible” or “until developments at trial make the introduction of the other bad acts imperative, or unless the defense otherwise opens the door to its admission.”
¶ 30. Defense counsel later opened the door to admission of this evidence by implying that it would have been impossible for defendant to expose himself to the victim given the close physical presence of the child’s mother. The State moved to introduce defendant’s prior bad act to rebut this insinuation. The videotape of defendant’s earlier act showed how defendant used store shelves to shield his activity from the mother’s view. Defendant objected on propensity grounds but did not raise a Rule 403 objection. The court admitted the prior bad act as signature evidence, explaining that “the argument has been made to the jury where the mother being right there, you know, it couldn’t happen that way but, in fact, here’s a tape that tells me this is precisely what happened — it has happened before and how this person has done it. So for that reason I am going to find that that’s admissible.” Thus, the record reflects that the court engaged in the Rule 403 balancing test before trial and defendant later opened the door to the admission of this evidence.
¶ 31. The majority erroneously concludes that the trial court’s failure to conduct a Rule 403 balancing test warrants reversal of defendant’s conviction. However, this Court has conducted the balancing test itself in cases where the probative value and prejudicial effect are evident from the record. In State v. Derouchie, 153 Vt. 29, 35, 568 A.2d 416, 419 (1989), for example, we concluded that the trial court had exercised its discretion under Rule 403 based on the trial court’s statement that it was “going to let in the cocaine evidence.” We concluded that the record did not indicate that the prejudicial effect of the admitted evidence “so overweighed the probative value that the evidence should have been excluded as a matter of law.” Id. As in Derouchie, the record here amply demonstrates that the probative value of the admitted evidence outweighed its prejudicial effect, particularly in fight of de*549fendant’s insinuation that this incident could not have occurred in the mother’s presence. Defendant has not met his heavy burden of establishing that the trial court withheld its discretion or exercised it on grounds clearly untenable or unreasonable. See State v. Parker, 149 Vt. 393, 401, 545 A.2d 512, 517 (1988).
¶ 32. Finally, to the extent this alleged error should be addressed at all, I believe our review should be for plain error rather than abuse of discretion because defendant did not object on Rule 403 grounds at trial. A defendant cannot claim error in the admission of evidence unless he has made a timely and specific objection during trial. V.R.E. 103(a)(1); State v. Fisher, 167 Vt. 36, 43, 702 A.2d 41, 45 (1997). “The objection must have been made at the time the evidence was offered or the question was asked, and objection on one ground does not preserve the issue for appeal on other grounds.” Fisher, 167 Vt. at 43, 702 A.2d at 45-46 (internal citations omitted); see also 2 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein’s Federal Evidence §§ 403.02[l][b], 404.23[5][e] (J. McLaughlin ed., 2d ed. 2003) (trial court’s decision to admit evidence under F.R.E. 404(b) generally subject to review for abuse of discretion, but if no objection made at trial to claimed evidentiary error, review will be for plain error only). To preserve a Rule 403 objection to the admission of evidence under Rule 404(b), a party must raise a specific objection during trial. Federal courts addressing the same issue under the Federal Rules of Evidence have reached a similar conclusion. See Reporter’s Notes, V.R.C.P. 1 (“Federal cases interpreting the Federal Rules are an authoritative source for the interpretation of identical provisions of the Vermont Rules.”); see also United States v. Gomez-Norena, 908 F.2d 497, 499-501 (9th Cir. 1990) (objection on F.R.E. 404(b) grounds did not preserve claim of error under F.R.E. 403); United States v. Manso-Portes, 867 F.2d 422, 426 (7th Cir. 1989) (objection to evidence premised on F.R.E. 404(b) did not preserve objection under F.R.E. 403); United States v. Sandini, 803 F.2d 123, 126-27 (3d Cir. 1986) (objection that evidence was “irrelevant” did not preserve claim of error under F.R.E. 403 or F.R.E. 404).
1133. The need for a timely and specific objection is particularly relevant where, as here, the judge who presided at trial did not consider the pretrial motion concerning the admissibility of defendant’s prior bad act. See State v. Senecal, 145 Vt. 554, 558, 497 A.2d 349, 351 (1985). In Senecal, we concluded that a defendant had waived his claim that the court erred in denying his motion to suppress where defendant failed to object at trial to the admission of the evidence that he had earlier sought to suppress. Id. at 557-58, 497 A.2d at 351. We explained that defendant’s failure to object would not have resulted in a waiver of his claim had no new facts been adduced at trial and had the same judge presided at trial as had decided the motion to suppress. Id. at 558, 497 A.2d at 351. However, because the trial judge had not ruled on defendant’s earlier motion, the trial judge “never had an opportunity to consider the defendant’s objection to, the evidence.” Id. We stated that, “[pjarticularly since pretrial rulings are tentative and subject to revision, it cannot be said that objection at trial would have been a useless performance or would not have served to further apprise the court or the State of [defendant’s] claim.” Id. (citations, internal quotation marks, and ellipses omitted). Thus, because defendant failed to object at trial, our review was for plain error only. Id.; see also Morrisseau v. Fayette, 164 Vt. 358, 363-64, 670 A.2d 820, 824 (1995) (“[I]n criminal cases, we require defendants to seek a ‘horizontal appeal’ of pretrial rulings made by a different judge so that the trial judge is not put in error by another judge’s ruling.”); State v. Jewell, 150 Vt. 281, 282, 552 A.2d 790, 791 (1998) (“Failure to *550object to the admission of evidence at trial that was earlier the subject of a motion to exclude will constitute a waiver where a different judge presided at trial than decided the motion.”).
¶ 34. In this case, the pretrial judge decided that evidence concerning defendant’s prior bad act was not admissible on Rule 403 grounds unless defendant opened the door to its admission at trial. The trial judge later ruled that the evidence was admissible because defendant had implied that he could not have committed the charged act. In the absence of a Rule 403 objection at trial, defendant may not now raise this claim of error on appeal. This Court has consistently held that to preserve an issue for appeal a party must “present the issue with specificity and clarity in a manner which gives the trial court a fair opportunity to rule on it.” In re White, 172 Vt. 335, 343, 779 A.2d 1264, 1270 (2001) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The purpose behind the preservation rule “is to ensure that the original forum is given an opportunity to rule on an issue prior to our review.” Id. at 343, 779 A.2d at 1270-71. Holding that a “propensity” objection under Rule 404 is sufficiently specific to alert a trial judge to conduct a Rule 403 balancing test flies in the face of our precedents on preservation. Defendant failed to raise a Rule 403 objection at trial, and the court’s admission of this evidence does not rise to the level of plain error. See State v. Pelican, 160 Vt. 536, 538, 632 A.2d 24, 26 (1993) (“Plain error exists only in exceptional circumstances where a failure to recognize error would result in a miscarriage of justice, or where there is glaring error so grave and serious that it strikes at the very heart of the defendant’s constitutional rights.”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).