Court Opinion

ID: 9606124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:47:20.141713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:33.061726
License: Public Domain

ROSE, Justice,
dissenting, with whom McCLINTOCK, Justice, joins.
In discussing the admissibility of the pri- or shooting incident by the appellant, the majority analyzes the admissibility under both Rules 403 and 404(b), W.R.E.
The majority first addresses Rule 404(b) and argues that the evidence of a prior and unrelated shooting was admissible to show intent and lack of mistake in the shooting which is the subject of this appeal. The argument is that the experience of the prior incident, in which a person was killed, gave the appellant a thorough knowledge of what one is supposed to do after accidentally shooting someone. From this the majority reasons that the appellant’s flight after the second shooting, despite his expertise about what to do after an accidental shooting, belies his claim of accident with respect to the second shooting and thus causes the *189testimony to be admissible under the exceptions outlined in Rule 404(b). I am unable to agree with this analysis.
I agree that the defendant’s flight had probative value, but evidence of that flight was admissible without bringing up the earlier shooting. The majority states:
“ . . . As a matter of common sense and human nature, a person does not leave an accident victim dead or injured without making a report or calling for assistance. . . . ”
Assuming, arguendo, this observation to be sound, it has the effect of undercutting the rationale of the majority for allowing evidence of the earlier shooting. I would urge that if it is a matter of common knowledge that one is supposed to summon medical or police personnel upon an accidental shooting, as the majority contends, then it is fatuous to argue that a prior shooting should be admissible to show that the defendant knew what one was supposed to do when an accidental shooting occurred.
In addition, the two shooting incidents were dissimilar. The victim of the first shooting, although she ultimately died, survived long enough to make manifest the urgent need for medical help. In the shooting at bar, the appellant testified that the victim died immediately and thus there was no need to obtain medical help.
Since I am unable to accept the majority’s rationale that the prior shooting had probative value in proving intent or lack of mistake, I fail to see how the prior shooting was admissible under Rule 404(b). In addition, since I am not persuaded that the prior shooting had probative value, I have no difficulty in concluding that the trial judge abused his discretion in determining, under Rule 403, that the probative value of the fact of the prior shooting was not outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.
The danger of prejudice was that the jury would punish the appellant for the prior shooting even if it had doubts about the guilt of the appellant with respect to the crime for which he was standing trial. Since I am unconvinced that the prior shooting had any probative value, I think it was patently improper to admit the evidence and thereby submit the defendant to the above-discussed danger of prejudice. While it may be argued that the danger of prejudice may have been speculative, this danger, in my judgment, outweighed the nonexistent probative value of the prior shooting.
It is possible — but this, too, is only speculation — that the State, on appeal or at trial, could have developed a more viable argument that the prior shooting had probative value in proving intent or absence of mistake. However, the argument presented by the State fails to persuade me that there was any probative value in the fact of the prior shooting. Accordingly, I would have reversed.