Court Opinion

ID: 9478471
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:49:51.960048+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:26.808014
License: Public Domain

COFFIN, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I write separately only to signal my concern that the court’s opinion (slip op. at 147) might be construed as authority for admitting Rule 404(b) “other bad acts” evidence whenever intent is in issue. Of course intent is most commonly in issue as an essential element of a crime. If the mere existence of this issue justified the admission of prior bad acts, the general bar against propensity evidence would be swallowed up. See, e.g., Thompson v. United States, 546 A.2d 414, 420-23 (D.C.App.1988). Our precedent, United States v. Rubio-Estrada, 857 F.2d 845 (1st Cir.1988), was a classic case of past acts of dealing in drugs which were relevant to a present defense of lack of knowledge. So also was Huddleston v. United States, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 1496, 99 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988). In my view the contested evidence in this case was properly admitted solely under the exception allowing such evidence to show a common pattern or scheme, not because intent is an element of the crime.