Court Opinion

ID: 9583624
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:40:39.778799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:23.891910
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with my brethren as to Division 2 but conclude differently as to Division 1.
The defense was that Davis was stabbed by the woman Munson (who did not testify); she was in the altercation which led to the melee. Defendant and his witnesses testified that she stabbed Davis at the same time she stabbed defendant’s brother in the back. Defendant denied to the police that he had stabbed Davis.1
The law is: “The general character of the parties and especially their conduct in other transactions are irrelevant matter unless the nature of the action involves such character and renders necessary or proper the investigation of such conduct.” OCGA § 24-2-2. This is true even though character evidence is logically relevant. “Character is circumstantial evidence of conduct and state of mind ... A person is more likely to act in accord with his character than contrary to it.” Waters v. State, 248 Ga. 355, 366 (283 SE2d 238) (1981). The reason that it is legally irrelevant is that the probative value is outweighed by the danger of prejudice. This general rule has an express additional statutory application in criminal cases when the defendant testifies. If he does, then “no evidence of general bad character or prior convictions shall be admissible unless and until the defendant shall have first put his character in issue.” OCGA § 24-9-20.2
Of course, in this case, the evidence of defendant’s prior conviction was not in response to defendant having put his character in issue. It was tendered and admitted during the state’s case-in-chief, *328when defendant’s character was not in issue. No door had been opened to be met with facts related but contrary to the good picture a defendant would be trying to paint of himself. Thus the question is whether the nature of this criminal prosecution for aggravated assault involved defendant’s character and made necessary or proper evidence of the earlier conduct. OCGA § 24-2-2. The court admitted it, cautioning the jury that the law allows evidence of similar offenses “where knowledge, motive, intent, good or bad faith, or identity or any other matter dependent upon a person’s state of mind are involved in material elements in the offense for which he is on trial. The court will instruct you that [the conviction and sentence] will be admitted for that purpose only, so far as it bares(sic) upon his state of mind or motive. And it’s not direct evidence of the fact that he did or did not commit this particular offense.”
The court was correct that the evidence is legally relevant, that is, admissible even though it incidentally puts defendant’s character in issue, if it is “ ‘substantially relevant for some other purpose than to show a probability that (the defendant) committed the crime on trial because he is a man of criminal character.’ ” Walraven v. State, 250 Ga. 401, 407 (297 SE2d 278) (1982), quoting McCormick on Evidence. Not every independent crime is admissible, however. It must meet two conditions, as the majority states. Walraven, supra at 408.1 agree that the prior conviction meets these two prerequisites.
The problem is that the evidence did not meet the overriding and more elementary prerequisites; it was not introduced to serve a valid purpose. “Purposes for which evidence of previous criminal acts might be offered, other than to show criminal character, include: Motive; intent; absence of mistake or accident; plan or scheme, of which the crime on trial is a part; and identity.” Walraven, supra at 408. Bent of mind and course of conduct are other legitimate purposes, when in issue. Kilgore v. State, 251 Ga. 291, 297 (305 SE2d 82) (1983). The purpose here was to show propensity; the implied theory was that since defendant did it before, he did it this time too. Propensity means inclination or bent or tendency. Webster’s New Inti. Dictionary, 2nd ed. Thus, evidence of the nature of defendant’s character was aimed at.
It might be argued that this tends to show identity, that among all the people involved in the fracas, it was defendant who knifed Davis because he had done a similar thing before. But any prior conviction could be said to tend to identify defendant as the one who committed the crime for which he is on trial, because he has exhibited criminal behavior before, especially where the earlier conduct is similar. However, it is not in this sense that the evidence is admissible when there is an issue of identity. The necessity of proving identity was the purpose for which evidence of prior criminal conduct was per*329mitted in Kilgore v. State, supra at 296. The court reasoned: “Since Kilgore was intertwined with Carden in the death of Norman, evidence that Kilgore killed Carden because ‘he knew too much’ helps identify Kilgore as the perpetrator of the murder of Norman.” Id. at 298. See also State v. Johnson, 246 Ga. 654 (1) (272 SE2d 321) (1980), where the main issue was identity. The police officer had recognized defendant as the same person who had sold drugs to him on two other occasions. Thus the established identification of defendant in those incidents was connected to the credibility of the officer’s recognition of defendant on the occasion in question. Here, evidence was admitted that Hunter assaulted one McCoy with a knife over two years earlier and served time for it.
Decided December 5, 1985
Rehearing denied December 19, 1985
John W. Sheffield III, for appellant.
John R. Parks, District Attorney, R. Rucker Smith, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
Two of the state’s witnesses had positively identified defendant as the perpetrator. His presence and participation in the event were not at issue. The dispute at trial was over who did the stabbing, defendant or Ms. Munson or maybe even some third party. No connection was shown between either of the two witnesses and the prior incident so as to make their testimony more credible with respect to identification of defendant as the knife-wielder. And the prior crime was not connected to this one; they were two entirely separate and unrelated events. The state was apparently satisfied with the testimony of the two witnesses, the victim and his brother, because it did not seek to add anything more in this regard. Even if it could be argued that the prior conviction was necessary or proper to establish identity, that is not what it was offered for and that is not what the jury was limited to in considering it. Instead, as argued in effect by the state out of the jury’s hearing, it was offered to show defendant’s character or at least violent aspects of it. The jury instruction did not confine the jury’s consideration of it to a permissible and specific purpose which was in issue. Nor would the evidence be relevant to show what the state of mind of defendant was at the time of this offense or a motive for committing it. See Walraven, supra at 408. The court erred in allowing it and in giving a catch-all directive, as the legal relevancy of the unconnected crime had not been established nor its admission justified.

 The prior conviction in issue here had resulted in a sentence on March 18,1982 of ten years, to serve four with the balance on probation. Defendant later testified that he had been released on April 21, 1984.

 The statute provides another exception, but it does not figure here.