Court Opinion

ID: 9607036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:54:58.454126+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:36.822169
License: Public Domain

Prager, J.:
I respectfully dissent. Specifically, I disagree with the reliance by the majority on State v. Hampton, 215 Kan. 907, 529 P. 2d 127. Although I was with the majority in Hampton, upon reconsideration I now feel the result reached there was incorrect.
Great caution must be exercised with regard to the admission of other crimes evidence pursuant to K. S. A. 60-455 because of its highly prejudicial nature. Other crimes evidence has no probative value and hence is not admissible if the fact it is supposed to prove is not substantially in issue. (State v. Bly, 215 Kan. 168, 528 P. 2d *162397.) Here, the evidence was introduced and admitted to prove defendant’s intent, motive, and plan of operation. In my judgment none of them were substantially in issue in this case.
A defendant’s specific intent is not a genuine issue in a rape case. Other crimes evidence offered to prove intent, where intent is not substantially in issue, amounts to no more than showing the defendant’s disposition or inclination for bad conduct. This is clearly impermissible under the statute and our case law. (State v. Cross, 216 Kan. 511, 532 P. 2d 1357.) In the present case evidence of the defendant’s prior odious sexual conduct had no bearing on the matters in issue. In a rape case the burden is on the state to prove that the femal victim was overcome by force and subjected to sexual intercourse without her consent. It is her intent and state of mind which is of supreme importance. If the defendant voluntarily committed the act of forcible sexual intercourse his specific intent is immaterial. Defendant’s prior offenses have no probative value on the question of the victim’s consent. (See State v. Moore, [La.] 278 So. 2d 781; Lovely v. United States, [C. A. 4th, 1948] 169 F. 2d 386; Alford v. State, [Ark.] 266 S. W. 2d 804.) They only serve to show defendant’s bad character, his disposition or inclination which are outside the scope of 60-455. Put another way, simply because a man may have raped or attempted to rape other women in the past does not raise a reasonable inference that the woman in the case in question did not consent.
The evidence was also admitted for the purpose of proving defendant’s motive. Motive is not a real issue in the case at bar. Motive has been defined as "an inducement or state of feeling that impels and tempts the mind to indulge in a criminal act.” (M. C. Slough, Other Vices, Other Crimes: An Evidentiary Dilemma, 20 Kan. L. Rev. 411, 418, citing Wigmore, Evidence, 3rd Ed., §§ 117, 118, 396,, 397.) The only conceivable motive for rape is the desire for sexual gratification. Motive is irrelevant to the matters in issue in a rape case.
Plan of operation likewise was not a genuine issue in this case. Professor Slough states:
. . plan refers to an antecedent mental condition that evidentially points to the doing of the act or acts planned. Something more than doing similar acts is required to evidence design, as the object is not merely to negative an innocent intent, but to prove the existence of a definite project directed *163toward completion of the crime in question.” (20 Kan. L. Rev., supra at 419 quoting 2 Wigmore, Evidence, 3d Ed., § 300.)
In the instant case there is very little similarity between the crime charged and the other offenses admitted into evidence. Certainly they do not evidence any sort of preconceived pattern or plan of operation.
The majority opinion would seem to call for a conservative approach to the admission of other crimes evidence in all types of criminal cases except rape cases. Rape cases are apparently to be treated differently, with the door left wide open to almost anything in the way of other crimes evidence. 60-455 by its express language is not to be used as a tool for proving the defendant’s bad character or his disposition or inclination to commit crime. Rather, the statute allows admission of prior offenses only for the eight stated purposes. Admission of other crimes evidence is proper only after a determination that one of these elements is in issue and that its probative value outweighs the potential for prejudice. For the reasons set out above I have concluded that the admission of defendant’s prior offenses constituted prejudicial error. I would reverse the case and grant defendant a new trial.
Owsley, J., joins in the foregoing dissenting opinion.