Court Opinion

ID: 9694299
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:35:20.089628+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:58.087907
License: Public Domain

FERREN, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
The result of the decision today is to permit the prosecutor to charge Johnson with one murder, in the District of Columbia, but also — in order to help seal the case against him here — to present evidence to the jury that Johnson committed two other murders (for which there had not been convictions) in Maryland. In doing so, the court today upsets the fair administration of criminal justice in the District of Columbia, not only by reaching the result it does in this case but also by altering the long-established probative/prejudicial balancing test for admissibili*1111ty of “other crimes” evidence. Furthermore, even under the en banc majority’s newly announced standard, the trial judge erred as a matter of law, and thus abused his discretion, in ruling that the evidence of the Maryland murders of two young boys was more probative than prejudicial. I would reverse and remand for a new trial. Respectfully, therefore, I must dissent.
I.
I cannot help believing that the result here would be different if the majority had not adopted Fed.R.Evid. 403 — authorizing admission of “relevant” evidence unless the trial judge determines that “its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice” — as the appropriate balancing test for a trial judge to apply when considering the admissibility of “other crimes” evidence.1 In this jurisdiction, we have long followed the common law “exclusionary” approach to other crimes evidence represented by the Drew line of cases.2 Such evidence is “presumptively inadmissible.” 3 It cannot be shown to the jury unless the prosecutor proves that it falls within a recognized Drew exception, see supra note 2, and further demonstrates that its probative value for the government outweighs any prejudicial impact on the defendant.4 My colleagues now dilute and confuse the test for admissibility in several important ways by adopting a new formulation — Fed.R.Evid. 408 (modified)/404(b) (in part) — to replace Drew. I explain, first, why this rule is indeed new. I address, next, why I believe it is ill-advised.
A.
The majority says that the portion of Fed. R.Evid. 404(b) italicized below is “consistent with District of Columbia law.” Ante at 1100 n. 17. The federal rule provides in full: *1112Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) (1991 amendment) (emphasis added).5 The majority expressly rejects the balance of the rule (“provided ... trial”). See ante at 1100 n. 17. The majority then purports to “clarify” that this jurisdiction “will follow” Fed.R.Evid. 403, supra note 1, “regarding the admission of evidence generally,” ante at 1099, and thus will apply that rule to admission of other crimes evidence under £>rew/404(b) (italicized portion). See ante at 1100.6 As a result, the majority has created a new other crimes evidence rule. By combining adoption of Rule 403 (“substantially outweighed”) with Rule 404(b) (italicized portion), the majority maintains the traditional Drew exceptions, see supra note 5, but admittedly adopts a probative/prejudicial balancing test that is more burdensome on a defendant than this court’s traditional approach to other crimes evidence under Drew.
*1111Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show actions in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident, provided that upon request by the accused, the prosecution in a criminal case shall provide reasonable notice in advance of trial, or during trial if the court excuses pretrial notice on good cause shown, of the general nature of any such evidence it intends to introduce at trial.
*1112In sum, the majority has supplanted the Drew line of cases with a 403/404(b) approach which — as reflected in federal case law — is at odds in important respects with the law previously in effect in our local courts.
B.
The defects in the majority’s approach are serious. First, by only partially adopting the federal approach, the majority withholds an important protection. Fed.R.Evid. 404(b)— in the part that the majority declines to adopt — expressly conditions admission of other crimes evidence on a requirement that,
upon request by the accused, the prosecution in a criminal case shall provide reasonable notice in advance of trial, or during trial if the court excuses pretrial notice on good cause shown, of the general nature of any such evidence it intends to introduce at trial.
Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) (1991 amendment). The majority rejects this requirement without explaining why, see ante at 1100 n. 17, and thereby denies defendants a critical right to notice that the federal rules provide to compensate, at least in part, for a more relaxed approach to admissibility under Fed.R.Evid. 403/404(b) than our Drew, exclusionary approach has allowed. See Ford v. United States, 647 A.2d 1181, 1184-85 (D.C.1994) (leaving “to another day” decision whether to adopt Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) notice requirement); Lewis v. United States, 567 A.2d 1326, 1329 (D.C.1989) (“no specific rule” in this jurisdiction that “government provide advance notice of its intention to introduce Drew evidence”).
Second, the majority opinion does not otherwise make clear exactly what the new rule encompasses. Some federal circuits, for example, define the relevance of other crimes evidence rather narrowly under Fed.R.Evid. 404(b),7 whereas others see relevance far more broadly.8 Several federal circuits also require the prosecutors to make particularized proffers, and the trial courts to make on-the-record findings, in cases involving other crimes evidence,9 and at least one circuit has *1113reserved de novo appellate review of the question whether other crimes evidence falls within the scope of Fed.R.Evid. 404(b).10 We are not told which of these approaches the majority is adopting or rejecting — or why— and yet each can have significant bearing on the fairness of the admissibility decision.
Third, under the new regime, other crimes evidence will now be admissible unless the danger of unfair prejudice “substantially” outweighs probative value, a formulation that allows admission of evidence that to some extent is more prejudicial to the defendant than of probative value to the government.11 A respected treatise concludes that, under Fed.R.Evid. 403, “the discretion to exclude [other crimes evidence] does not arise when the balance between the probative worth and the countervailing factors is debatable; there must be a significant tipping of the scales against the evidentiary worth of the proffered evidence.” 22 Chaeles A WRIGHT & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr„ Federal PractiCe and Procedure § 5221, at 309-10 (1978) (footnote omitted) (emphasis added). Another respected author says that by adding the adverb, “substantially,” before the verb, “outweighed,” “Rules 404(b) and 403 may not only shift the burden to the defendant; they may do so with a vengeance.” Edward J. Imwinkelried, Uncharged Misconduct EviDENCE § 8:28, at 58 (1995). In Huddleston, moreover, the Supreme Court candidly recognized this lowering of the barrier against prejudicial other crimes evidence: “Congress was not nearly so concerned with the potential prejudicial effect of Rule 404(b) evidence as it was with ensuring that restrictions would not be placed on the admission of such evidence.” Huddleston, 485 U.S. at 688-89, 108 S.Ct. at 1501.
Fourth, the majority opinion purports to retain Drew’s traditional requirement that “the prosecutor has the burden of showing that the evidence falls within one or more of the recognized exceptions.” Thompson, 546 A.2d at 424 n. 18, quoted ante at 1100. The majority also suggests that the government has the burden of demonstrating that probative value is not substantially outweighed by prejudicial impact. See ante at 1101 (citing United States v. Conners, 825 F.2d 1384, 1390 (9th Cir.1987)). Such assurances provide little comfort, however, for under the new rule the government’s burden isn’t what it used to be.
In the first place, the government’s burden of persuasion is substantially reduced because, contrary to Drew’s “exclusionary” presumption, other crimes evidence is presumptively admissible under Fed.R.Evid. *1114403/404(b)’s “inclusionary rule.”12 This means that, in connection both with identifying an exception that allows admission in a particular case (e.g., identity, intent) and with weighing probative value against prejudicial impact, the government will make its prima facie showings more easily — and thus the burden of production will shift to the defendant more quickly — than under Drew. Furthermore, because the evidence will be admissible unless “substantially” outweighed by prejudice, the government’s burden will be further reduced; the burden of production will fall not only very quickly, but also especially hard, on a defendant who has to rebut the government’s minimal initial showings under a rule inherently designed to put the burden of persuasion on the defendant to demonstrate substantial prejudicial impact.13
The majority does not directly dispute this analysis. My colleagues no longer confirm this court’s long-standing rule that other crimes evidence is “presumptively inadmissible,” Robinson v. United States, supra note 3, 623 A.2d at 1238; they prefer a new, more neutral formulation: “[i]n all instances the proponent of the evidence must satisfy the court that it should be admitted.” Ante at 1101. Especially in light of federal court jurisprudence construing the rules the majority now adopts, the proponent’s burden, therefore, no longer will mean in this jurisdiction what it has meant under Drew. As Judge King candidly acknowledges, “the en banc court today has significantly softened any rule of presumptive inadmissibility[ ] that we may have previously applied in this context,” ante at 1107, especially because prejudice must “substantially” outweigh probative value before other crimes evidence meeting an identified Drew/404(h) exception is excludable.
The majority, in fact, acknowledges the potential significance of the change it now adopts: a likely increase in admissibility of other crimes evidence. According to the majority’s articulation of the difference between the exclusionary (Drew) and inclusionary (federal) approaches, respectively:
In close cases, at least, [the other crimes evidence] determination may be controlled by whether (1) admission is appropriate only where probative value exceeds prejudicial impact [Drew] or, conversely, (2) admission should be permitted unless prejudicial impact exceeds (or substantially exceeds) probative value [Rule 403], The difference is not merely semantic, as it may spell the difference between admission and exclusion.
Ante at 1098 (citation omitted) (emphasis added). The majority, therefore, admittedly makes it inherently easier under the new 403/404(b) approach than under Drew for the government to carry its burden when proffering other crimes evidence. See supra note 11.
C.
For three reasons, I very much disagree with the court’s shift to the federal formulation. First, as elaborated above, the majority’s new rule literally permits a judge to admit other crimes evidence that is more prejudicial to the defendant than of probative value to the government. Indeed, because the majority merely says the trial court “should” exclude other crimes evidence if the danger of unfair prejudice substantially outweighs its probative value, ante at 1104 & n. 19, my colleagues appear to leave the trial *1115judge with at least a modicum of discretion to admit such evidence even when prejudice does substantially outweigh probative value.14 The majority could foreclose that possibility by saying such evidence “shall” or “must” be excluded in such circumstances, but it chooses not to do so. It is therefore unclear how much, if at all, the majority modifies Fed. R.Evid. 403 for other crimes evidence. See supra note 11.
Even on the assumption that the majority has adopted a slightly modified Fed.R.Evid. 403 by substituting “should” for “may,” see supra note 11, I cannot accept the result. I agree, of course, with the majority’s implicit admission that a pure Fed.R.Evid. 403 approach to other crimes evidence would be too radical because it literally would allow admission of other crimes evidence with prejudicial impact that substantially outweighs probative value. But I am deeply concerned about a majority decision that, while recognizing the mischief possible under Fed.R.Evid. 403 as written, is willing nonetheless to modify the rule only very slightly, leaving the trial court with permission to admit other crimes evidence with prejudicial impact that exceeds its probative value unless the difference is “substantial.” In all its many pages the majority opinion never really tells us why. As best I can tell, the majority keeps the word “substantially” in the rule simply because the federal rules are commonly followed and because uniformity, abstractly, is a good idea. But the uniformity rationale melts away once the majority begins to fiddle with the rule’s text by eliminating the word “may,” see supra note 11, (just as it has severed and discarded part of Fed.R.Evid. 404(b)). Having crossed the Rubicon by rejecting parts of two federal rules, why does the majority accept, rather than excise, the word “substantially” without giving a clear, persuasive reason for doing so?
Second, by substituting the federal “inclu-sionary” rule for Drew’s common law “exclusionary” rule, this court’s decision today is flawed in other ways that leave a reader guessing about the impact: (1) the opinion leaves entirely unclear how the evidentiary burden of persuasion under the federal “in-clusionary rule” can nonetheless remain — as it purportedly does — on the government as under Drew; (2) the majority inexplicably declines to adopt important protections that the omitted language of Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) provides, as well as interpretations that various federal courts have supplied, to compensate for liberalized admissibility under the federal rules. Accordingly, the majority’s approach is only a partially formulated, and thus insufficiently explicated, change in our longstanding, workable rule.15
Third — as this point bears special emphasis — the government has not argued for this change. There is not one citation to Fed. R.Evid. 403 or 404(b) in the prosecutor’s brief, and the court has not sought supplemental briefing. So why is this court on such a self-generated frolic, unaided by the parties’ views? Why has this court simply decided on its own to make a profound change in the law, without asking for comments by the government and the accused, as well as for amicus curiae participation by the Public Defender Service?16 I believe the *1116majority acts precipitously, and thus imprudently, in adopting, sua sponte, an ill-defined change in this court’s approach to other crimes evidence — a change derived from partial adoption of the federal approach — without asking for help in identifying and evaluating all the consequences, overt and subtle.
In sum, by applying a modified Fed. R.Evid. 403 to permit admission of other crimes evidence unless “substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice”; by purporting to keep the burden of persuasion on the government while significantly lowering it to a point where the heavier burden is shifted to the defendant; by embracing one part and omitting another part of Fed.R.Evid. 404(b); by failing to discuss, let alone resolve, what critical judicial interpretations do and do not apply; and by declining to invite any participation whatsoever by the government and the defense bar to help the court understand all the implications of what it is doing; the majority invites conflicting interpretations of today’s en bane opinion, as well as extensive, costly, and time-consuming legal disputes as litigants struggle to understand and shape the court’s new rules pertaining to other crimes evidence.
The majority’s new approach does not reflect a principled change. It represents an unbalanced, inequitable move away from a longstanding, fair and workable rule for admission of other crimes evidence. The new formulation is a verbal invitation for Superior Court judges to relax the barriers against admissibility, which have now become rebut-table by a lesser showing: that prejudicial impact does not “substantially” outweigh probative value. I believe that any such shift increases the likelihood that highly prejudicial evidence of criminal propensity will be spread before the jury.17
II.
With all this said, I believe even the majority’s newly adopted test for exclusion of other crimes evidence is met here. The evidence from Crystal Brown’s Maryland Glassmanor Drive apartment was important to the government’s case because that apartment allegedly was the “production center,” ante at 1091, for the drug conspiracy with which Johnson was charged; because .45 caliber bullets and shell casings were found there which expert testimony linked to Carring-ton’s murder; and because a week after Car-rington’s murder, the police found on Johnson a 9mm. pistol which had been stolen from the apartment that same night. In short, this evidence tended to prove that very soon after Carrington had been killed, Johnson had been in the apartment where the police later discovered evidence of one of the guns that killed Carrington. I have no problem with admission of this evidence under either Drew or the Fed.R.Evid. 403/404(b) identity exception, as Judge Eilperin permitted in the separate trial of Johnson’s confederate, *1117Bruce Void. See Void v. United States, 631 A.2d 374, 378 (D.C.1993).
I do find erroneous, however, Judge Eilpe-rin’s admission in Johnson’s case of the additional evidence that the two young boys in Brown’s care had been murdered in the apartment. In Void’s trial, the judge ruled that such evidence was more prejudicial than probative. The judge observed, moreover, that the non-murder evidence admissible from the Maryland apartment against Void was even stronger, i.e., more probative, against Johnson because of Johnson’s direct link to the apartment through the stolen 9mm. gun the police had found on him. Id. at 381-82 n. 15. This observation accordingly made clear that any additional evidence from the Maryland scene explicitly confirming one or more “murders” would have been even less necessary to the government’s case against Johnson than against Void. Put another way, given the admissibility of the powerful burglary, guns, and shell casings evidence from the apartment, any probative value from adding the explicit “murder” evidence in Maryland, in order to prove the identity of Carrington’s killer, was marginal — especially in the Johnson case — when compared to the highly inflammatory, prejudicial impact of evidence that two small boys had been murdered in the apartment. See Willcher v. United States, 408 A.2d 67, 76 n. 9 (D.C.1979) (availability of other means of proof, and government’s need for evidence may affect probative value); Campbell, 450 A.2d at 431 (low probative value where government’s need for evidence was also low).
Although it has “no difficulty,” ante at 1093, concluding that the Maryland murder evidence was offered for a proper purpose, the en banc majority apparently finds it much harder to explain why it was not an abuse of discretion for the trial court to conclude that the prejudicial impact of the Maryland murder evidence did not substantially outweigh the probative value. The majority works hard to bolster the probative value and minimize the prejudice of the Maryland murder evidence by explaining what the defense could have argued and how the jury likely interpreted the evidence. See ante at 1094-1096. Judge Belson stresses that, in addition to the burglary evidence, “the use of the .45 at both places [Carring-ton’s murder scene and the Maryland apartment] showed almost incontrovertibly that the two events were connected.” Ante at 1094. How true! And how easily that connection could have been satisfied entirely, as in Void, by testimony that .45 caliber bullets and shell casings, linked by expert testimony to the gun that killed Carrington, had been found in the Maryland apartment.18 The majority never satisfactorily explains why the jury had to learn in addition that the bullets were found in the skulls of two small boys. The best the majority can do is to say that the murders would help the jury infer that if the burglars took time to kill the children, the children must have known them, so the killers must have been persons who frequented the apartment — including Johnson.
This, to say the least, is a very strained basis for admitting inflammatory child-murder evidence. In the first place, the testimony at trial suggested that the boys were killed in their sleep; there was no evidence supporting the idea that the boys ever saw the burglars. Furthermore, even if the boys did see the burglars, or the burglars feared the boys would wake up and see them, it is *1118just as likely that the burglars killed the boys because the boys would be able to provide the police with physical descriptions, whether they knew the burglars or not. In short, the probative value of this murder evidence for the purpose the majority proffers it is speculative at best, indeed a makeweight as I see it.
III.
There can be no question — as Void’s conviction itself demonstrates — that the government’s case did not depend in any way on the jury’s learning that the expended .45 caliber bullets from the gun that killed Carrington, found in the Maryland apartment where Johnson was shown to have been present, were found in the bodies of two sleeping boys. Moreover, of considerable independent significance, the jury did not merely learn of this bare fact; the jury learned about it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, in gruesome detail, as though Johnson also was on trial for the murders of two young boys in Maryland. Even if I did not believe the initial admission of the Maryland murders evidence was erroneous, I would order reversal of Johnson’s convictions because of the excessive, inflammatory, and thus entirely inappropriate use of the Maryland murder evidence throughout the trial. See Jones v. United States, 625 A.2d 281, 288 (D.C.1993) (abuse of discretion to allow presentation of excessive evidence pertaining to homosexual relationship); Hill, 600 A.2d at 63 (redundant and excessive use of other crimes evidence can be separate grounds for reversal).
I cannot accept the majority’s insistence that the government did not focus unduly on the Maryland murders. See ante at 1101— 1103. I am satisfied that the prosecutor’s repeated, graphic references to the boys’ murders must have diverted the jurors’ attention from the only murder case they were charged with deciding: Tyrone Carrington’s. The prejudice from this three-murder trial to achieve a one-murder conviction was palpable, as Judge Sullivan ably demonstrated in Part V of his now-vacated opinion for the division, which I set forth as an Appendix.
The majority faults defense counsel for making the situation worse (1) by failing to object to the way the prosecutor used the Maryland murder evidence in examining witnesses and (2) by cross-examining witnesses about that evidence. This argument overlooks, once again, that defense counsel had objected to all such evidence; that once the Maryland murders were in evidence, counsel had to do with that evidence what seemed best suited to the case at the time; and that the trial court had the ultimate, continuing responsibility, once alerted to the problem, to keep overly prejudicial other crimes evidence out of the case. See Jones, 625 A.2d at 287; cf. Hordge v. United States, 545 A.2d 1249, 1257 (D.C.1988) (“trial court has a continuing obligation to grant a severance if undue prejudice arises as a result of joinder at any time during trial”); Sousa v. United States, 400 A.2d 1036, 1040 (D.C.1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 981, 100 S.Ct. 484, 62 L.Ed.2d 408 (1979) (same).
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Judge Eilperin had it right in the Void case. The judge, and this court, have it wrong in this case, where the Maryland apartment evidence against Johnson — without the murder evidence — was stronger even than it was against Void. I see the majority in this case moving as a juggernaut not only sustaining erroneously admitted “other murders” evidence against Johnson but also wiping away, without the government’s even asking for it, a time-honored, balanced approach to admitting other crimes evidence only when the government can show it is demonstrably more probative than prejudicial. The majority now, in effect, has lowered the threshold of admissibility, which will be increasingly harder for the accused to defend, especially because probative value now must be “substantially” outweighed by prejudicial impact. I fear this is a subtle, but powerful, invitation for prosecutors to demonstrate the defendant’s guilt, at least in part, on the basis of criminal propensity evidence — a proposition that this court has heretofore held to be inconsistent with the presumption of innocence. See Thompson, *1119546 A.2d at 419. Again, respectfully — but emphatically — I dissent.19
APPENDIX
(From Judge Sullivan’s opinion for the division)
V.
At trial, the prejudicial effect of the evidence was further compounded by the amount of evidence presented on the two boys’ murders. Evidence of the shootings permeated the trial from the government’s opening statement to closing arguments. In the prosecutor’s opening statement, he revealed that a bullet exited one boy’s ear and that one boy was shot once and the other boy twice. He also stated during opening statement that when Crystal Brown returned to her apartment, she heard a moaning sound, thereafter discovering that her boyfriend’s son and her younger brother had been shot. This court has recognized the danger of references to other crimes evidence during opening statements. Day v. United States, 360 A.2d 483, 485 (D.C.1976) (“Evidence which comes within the Drew exceptions should not be mentioned in opening statement, nor should it be ruled admissible without a proffer of proof from the government out of the hearing of the jury.”). While the present case is distinguishable in that here there was a pretrial ruling allowing the evidence, the danger remains that references to other crimes during opening statements “irretrievably puts before a jury the fact that a defendant has been involved in [other] criminal activity.” United States v. Bailey, 164 U.S.App. D.C. 310, 505 F.2d 417, 420 (1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 961, 95 S.Ct. 1350, 43 L.Ed.2d 438 (1975).
Further, during the prosecutor’s opening statement and early in the government’s case-in-chief, a stream of references to the two boys’ murders focused the jury on the issue of whether appellant was a child killer as well as being a drug dealer and an alleged triggerman in the death of Tyrone Carring-ton. After opening statements, the government called Crystal Brown as its first witness, the woman who in one tragic evening, lost her boyfriend, her boyfriend’s son, and her younger brother. Though she testified at length about the drug operation in which she, Carrington, Void, and appellant were involved, she also testified about specific aspects of the boys’ murders and the break-in at her apartment. She discussed how, on the night of the murders, she had given the boys explicit instructions not to open the door for anyone and how she had tested them on this instruction in the past by appearing to leave and then returning to the door. She described the horrible scene she discovered upon returning to her apartment, finding Carrington’s son Carlos and her brother Calvin both shot in the head, with a gun lying on the floor in front of them. She testified that she did not try to hide the bag of cocaine in her dresser because her “first priority was to get some help for the kids.” She also stated that neither appellant nor Bruce Void attended the funerals or the wakes of the two boys, even though both men knew the boys and had played with them in the past. The government concluded its direct examination of Crystal Brown as follows:
Q. Ms. Brown, what happened to Carlos Carrington?
A. He was already dead when I got there.
*1120Q. And what happened to your brother, Calvin Moore, III?
A. He was pronounced dead about two days later.
MR. FRIEDMAN: I have no further questions.
THE COURT: All right. [L]et me give the jury a five-minute recess before we start the cross examination.
References to the boys’ murders continued throughout the trial. The Prince George’s County detective who responded to the scene of the boys’ murders testified on direct examination by the prosecutor as follows:
Q. Now, were any — Were there any bodies there when you got there?
A. There was one.
Q. And who was that, if you know?
A Carlos Carrington.
Q. How old is he?
A. I believe Carlos is 13 years old.
Q. Where was he?
A Laying on a bedroom floor wrapped in a blanket pulled over his head.
Q. And was he dead or alive?
A. He was dead.
Q. Was the other boy dead when you arrived?
A No. When I had arrived he had already been transported to the hospital. He was still alive at the time he was first found.
Later in the trial, another detective who was present during Carlos Carrington’s autopsy testified regarding the bullet recovered from the skull of Carlos Carrington and how the bullet was marked with the victim’s initials for identification purposes. Following that detective’s testimony, the government called the evidence technician who retrieved the shell casings from the scene of the boys’ murders:
Q. The one that was lying there, can you just briefly describe for the jury what you saw?
A. The young black male was lying there with a pillow that appeared to be folded over the top of his head and also had a blanket that was covering the rest of his body.
Q. Was there any sign of shots fired?
A. It appeared to be two bullet holes in the top of the pillow that was covering the left side of his face and there’s also some evidence of blood coming out of the pillow itself.
% $ # H* H* H*
Q. Did you find any sign of shots fired, any bullets there?
A. Yes, I did. I located three .45 caliber shell casings. Two of them were very close to the bloody area, blood spots, and one was just a short distance away towards the closet area, as I indicated with this line here (pointing).
Q. And did you find any slugs, any bullets?
A. Yes, I did. When we removed the pillow from the young man’s face and attempted to move him, we observed a large caliber bullet that was alongside his right ear in between the pillow and his face. And the second large caliber bullet was under the bloody — spots of blood areas, actually down underneath the carpet. I had to cut the carpet out, a square, and pull the carpet back and the bullet was lodged in the wooden floor.
The government also elicited testimony during its case-in-chief to the effect that one child could have awakened only to have been shot in the head immediately thereafter. In the government’s closing argument, the prosecutor stated:
Then you can conclude that one of the boys woke up, and the two boys were executed. They would have recognized William and Bruce, wouldn’t they? Yes. Yes. The same .45 that shot the second bullet into Tyrone Carrington put three bullets into the boys. That’s the point of all that evidence about the three shell casings there lying around the boys, one bullet out of one boy’s ear, one bullet out of one boy. The one who had the one in his ear, another bullet dug out of him in the autopsy in Maryland.
The government’s pervasive references to the boys’ deaths placed the forbidden issue of *1121the appellant’s criminal disposition squarely before the jurors, often through a graphic or otherwise unsettling testimony. Although the prosecutor’s use of the evidence was permissible in light of the motion judge’s ruling, the amount of evidence relating to the boys’ murders “was far more than necessary” to establish appellant’s identity as one of Tyrone Carrington’s killers. See Jones v. United States, 625 A.2d 281, 288 (D.C.1993); Hill v. United States, 600 A.2d 58, 63 (D.C.1991). We recognize that the prosecutor is not required to “sanitize the government’s evidence or make it appear less wrenching than it is,” Dixon, supra, 565 A.2d at 77, however, the evidentiary excess present in appellant’s case is a clear example of the type of prosecutorial overkill that we warned about in Jones, supra, 625 A.2d at 288. The cumulative effect of the evidence reinforced the prejudice to appellant by exaggerating the relevance of the two boys’ slayings to the crimes for which appellant was on trial. The prosecutor’s protracted use of the evidence created a trial within a trial: each reference to the children’s murders increased the likelihood that the jury would infer guilt of the crimes for which appellant was charged based upon the senseless murders of the two boys. Consequently, the evidentiary excess here virtually insured improper use of the evidence by the jury, despite limiting instructions to do otherwise.
Though jurors are presumed to follow the instructions administered to them, the admission of other crimes evidence is always problematic because “it is difficult, if not at times practically impossible, to avoid its use as predisposition evidence.” Groves, supra, 564 A.2d at 374. The improper inference of criminal propensity was present throughout the entire trial, and the impermissible prejudice to appellant in admitting, evidence of the boys’ murders was far beyond the curative scope of limiting instructions. “Cautionary instructions, such as the one[s] given in this case, are designed primarily to blunt permissible prejudice_ They cannot cure impermissible prejudice.” Williams v. United States, 382 A.2d 1, 7 (D.C.1978). Because the evidence should have never been allowed by the motions judge, we are not confronted with the issue of whether the limiting instructions given by the trial court effectively mitigated any “permissible” prejudice from properly admitted evidence. “In the face of seriously prejudicial evidence, curative instructions, particularly those buried within the charge-in-chief at the end of the trial, are of minimal worth.” Id. In the present case, it is precisely because the prejudicial effect of the evidence could not be minimized by limiting instructions that the evidence of the boys’ murders should have never reached the jury. As this court has noted, “one cannot unring a bell,” nor can “a drop of ink be removed from a glass of milk.” Thompson, supra, 546 A.2d at 425. Once the evidence of the boys’ murders was improperly admitted, the fundamental error was made and the trial irreversibly tainted. The manner in which the evidence was used by the government only magnified the error in admitting the evidence.

. Fed.R.Evid. 403 provides in full:
Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issue, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.

. Drew v. United States, 118 U.S.App. D.C. 11, 16, 331 F.2d 85, 90 (1964) (other crimes evidence admissible only when relevant to motive, identity, absence of mistake or accident, or common scheme or plan and "prejudicial effect [is] outweighed by the probative value"). Because, under Drew, other crimes evidence has been presumptively inadmissible since it tends to suggest a propensity to commit crime, rather than bearing directly on the crime charged, we have characterized this traditional Drew approach as an "exclusionary” rule. Holmes v. United States, 580 A.2d 1259, 1268 (D.C.1990) ("Since Rindgo [v. United States, 411 A.2d 373 (D.C.1980)], this court has explicitly elected to follow the exclusionary approach rather than the more permissive federal one.”); Thompson v. United States, 546 A.2d 414, 424 n. 18 (in contrast with federal " ‘inclusionaty rule,' " District of Columbia "follows the exclusionary rule under which the prosecutor has the burden of showing that the evidence falls within one or more of the recognized exceptions”).

. Robinson v. United States, 623 A.2d 1234, 1238 (D.C.1993) ("it has long been the rule in this jurisdiction that evidence of a defendant’s other crimes is presumptively inadmissible, with the burden on the prosecutor to rebut this presumption”).

. See, e.g., King v. United States, 618 A.2d 727, 730 (D.C.1993); Yelverton v. United States, 606 A.2d 181, 182 (D.C.1992); Hill v. United States, 600 A.2d 58, 63 (D.C.1991); (James) Johnson v. United States, 596 A.2d 980, 984 (D.C.1991), cert. denied, 504 U.S. 927, 112 S.Ct. 1987, 118 L.Ed.2d 585 (1992); Jefferson v. United States, 587 A.2d 1075, 1078 (D.C.1991); Parker v. United States, 586 A.2d 720, 724 (D.C.1991); Harper v. United States, 582 A.2d 485 488 (D.C.1990); Thompson, 546 A.2d 414, 420 (D.C.1988), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 944, 108 S.Ct. 331, 98 L.Ed.2d 358 (1987); German v. United States, 525 A.2d 596, 607 (D.C.1987); Rindgo v. United States, 411 A.2d at 376.

. See Drew, supra note 2, 118 U.S.App. D.C. at 16, 331 F.2d at 90 ("Evidence of other crimes is admissible when relevant to (1) motive, (2) intent, (3) the absence of mistake or accident, (4) a common scheme or plan embracing the commission of two or more crimes so related to each other that proof of the one tends to establish the other, and (5) the identity of the person charged with the commission of the crime on trial.”).

. In Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681, 688, 108 S.Ct. 1496, 1500-01, 99 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988), the Supreme Court said that when other crimes evidence is offered under Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) for a proper purpose, e.g., motive, intent, the Fed.R.Evid. 403 probative/prejudicial balancing test that generally applies to all evidentiary submissions also governs the admission of other crimes evidence.

. See United States v. Mora, 81 F.3d 781, 783 (8th Cir.1996) (four part test, including requirement that “bad act or crime is similar in kind and reasonably close in time to the crime charged”); United States v. Neely, 980 F.2d 1074, 1079 (7th Cir.1992) (same); United States v. Houser, 929 F.2d 1369, 1373 (9th Cir.1990) (same).

. See Huddleston, 485 U.S. at 687, 108 S.Ct. at 1500 (relevant evidence is "evidence that makes the existence of any fact at issue more or less probable”); United States v. Castiello, 915 F.2d 1, 4-5 (1st Cir.1990) (two part test; Rule 404(b) has "inclusive rather than exclusionary nature: should the evidence prove relevant in any way it is admissible, subject only to the rarely invoked limitations of Rule 403”).

. See United States v. Birch, 39 F.3d 1089, 1093 (10th Cir.1994) (“government must precisely articulate the purpose of the proffered evidence”); United States v. Manner, 281 U.S.App. D.C. 89, 94, 887 F.2d 317, 322 (1989) (trial court’s bal*1113ancing of probative value/prejudicial impact should occur on the record); United States v. Alfonso, 759 F.2d 728, 739 (9th Cir.1985) ("government ‘must articulate precisely the evidential hypothesis by which a fact of consequence may be inferred from other acts evidence’" (quoting United States v. Mehrmanesh, 689 F.2d 822, 830 (9th Cir.1982))).

. See United States v. Arambula-Ruiz, 987 F.2d 599, 602 (9th Cir.1993) (decision to admit other crimes evidence reviewable under abuse of discretion standard, but "the issue of whether the evidence falls within the scope of Rule 404(b) is reviewed de novo ").

. Fed.R.Evid. 403 says that relevant evidence "may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice." Supra note 1 (emphasis added). The federal rule, therefore, apparently gives the trial court discretion to admit evidence even when prejudice substantially outweighs probative value. Recognizing this possibility, the majority backs away from a pure Fed.R.Evid. 403 approach. My colleagues substitute "should” for "may” in Fed.R.Evid. 403 and thus tell trial courts that other crimes evidence "should be excluded” if probative value "is substantially outweighed” by the danger of unfair prejudice.
It is unclear from this change of language whether the majority thinks it is putting a strict limitation on the application of Fed.R.Evid. 403 to other crimes evidence or not; “should” is an advisory word, without the mandatory impact of “shall” or "must." If the majority believes it is not adding a strict limitation to Fed.R.Evid. 403, then it is massively changing the present other crimes evidence rule in favor of allowing admission of evidence having prejudicial impact that substantially outweighs probative value. If, on the other hand, the majority believes it is imposing a limitation — i.e., adopting a special "other crimes Fed.R.Evid. 403” or a "Fed.R.Evid. modified” by substituting "should” for "may” — then the majority implicitly acknowledges its willingness to modify the federal rule to meet local needs, and we now have a new, unique rule— Fed.R.Evid. 403 (modified)/404(b) (partial) — to control admission of other crimes evidence.

. See Groves v. United States, 564 A.2d 372, 375 n. 5 (D.C. 1989) ("Rule 404(b)’s policy of presumed admissibility differs significantly from this court’s approach to the admissibility of other crimes evidence”); Thompson, 546 A.2d at 424 n. 18 ("Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence is viewed as an 'inclusionaiy rule' under which other crimes evidence is admissible except when it tends to prove only criminal disposition."); Harris v. State, 324 Md. 490, 597 A.2d 956, 962 (1991) (under common law, exclusionary approach to other crimes evidence, as opposed to federal, inclusionary approach, the party offering the evidence has “the burden of demonstrating relevance other than criminal character, as well as the burden of demonstrating that the probative value substantially outweighs the potential for unfair prejudice”).

. See United States v. Culver, 929 F.2d 389, 391 (8th Cir.1991) ("It is defendant's burden [under 404(b)] to show the evidence clearly had no bearing on any of the issues involved.”); Imwink-elried. Uncharged Misconduct Evidence § 8:28, at 58 (wording of Fed.R.Evid. 403 "suggests that the defendant has the burden”).

. See supra note 11 (comparing majority's substitution of the word "should” for "may” in Fed.R.Evid. 403 when the trial court considers admission of other crimes evidence).

. Judge Belson comfortably cites the fact that a majority of the states have taken the federal route. See ante at 1099-1100 & n. 14. This in itself does not say whether the states abandoned a comprehensive, workable jurisprudence or merely adopted the federal rule for convenience; it does not indicate whether the states adopted Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) in whole or in part; it does not demonstrate whether the states have adopted interpretive protections that may narrow the range of admissibility; and it does not report whether the federal rule was adopted by the court or imposed by the legislature. The majority, therefore, cites companion states without offering assurance that this court is doing what others have done.

.The majority purports merely to "clarify,” not change, the probative value/prejudicial impact analysis applicable to other crimes evidence. See ante at 1099. It then cites "as authoritative,” ante at 1099, cases referring to Fed.R.Evid. 403 only as it concerns admission of facts and data underlying expert testimony, Reed v. United States, 584 A.2d 585, 591 (D.C.1990), and admissibility of expert testimony under the "ultimate issue rule,” Lampkins v. United States, 401 A.2d 966, 970 & n. 9 (D.C.1979). Neither case concerns other crimes evidence and Fed.R.Evid. 404(b). It is true, of course, that anyone is able to find occasional, unanalyzed references to Fed. *1116R.Evid. 403 and 404(b), used together, in this court’s opinions. See, e.g., Lee v. United States, 454 A.2d 770, 774 (D.C.1982) reh'g denied, 464 U.S. 1064, 104 S.Ct. 747, 79 L.Ed.2d 204 (1984) (bare citation to Fed.R.Evid. 403); Campbell v. United States, 450 A.2d 428, 430-31 & n. 3 (D.C.1982) (stating "District of Columbia practice is also generally consistent with Fed.R.Evid. 403”). I am satisfied, however, that the opinions of this court which actually have come to grips with the issues presented here have stressed that this jurisdiction’s probative value/prejudicial impact analysis differs significantly from the federal approach. See Holmes, 580 A.2d at 1267; Groves, 564 A.2d at 375 n. 5; Thompson, 546 A.2d at 424 n. 18. The en banc court, of course, has the power to change the existing law, but, when it does so, it should do so directly in the name of change, not so-called clarification.
In any event, however one should characterize what the court is doing today, the court acknowledges that the implications are significant. See ante at 1098-1099. The majority appears to recognize, moreover, that it should not act precipitously, without briefing and argument, when it considers, but rejects, Judge King’s proposal to adopt the primary rule of Huddleston, supra note 6, interpreting Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) (trial court need not make preliminary finding that similar act occurred; evidence only must be sufficient to allow jury to find, by preponderance of evidence, that similar act occurred). See ante at 1100 n. 18.

. One salutary feature of the majority opinion, as I see it, is in its indication that trial courts will now be accountable for giving special cautionary instructions limiting use of non-Drew other crimes evidence — see, e.g., Toliver v. United States, 468 A.2d 958 (D.C.1983) — when prejudice is apparent. See ante at 1097 n. 10.

. The majority apparently would require defense counsel not only to object to admission of other crimes evidence but also, as a fallback, to suggest how it should be sanitized for admission — some pieces in, other pieces out — if the court denies the motion to exclude it altogether. See ante at 1094 n. 6. I cannot agree; a blanket objection to admission of various related items of other crimes evidence should be sufficient to preserve a claim of error with respect to any piece of it. Cf. Hill v. United States, 600 A.2d 58, 64 (D.C.1991) (Ferren, J., dissenting) (unqualified objection to other crimes evidence constitutes objection to each witness and detail presented). After such objection, the trial court should independently weigh the probative value and prejudicial impact of each piece of evidence. In this case, therefore, when considering whether the trial court abused its discretion in weighing the probative value against the prejudicial impact of the other crimes evidence, this court should not lump together the variety of related other crimes evidence (e.g., entering the Maryland apartment, stealing the 9mm. pistol, discharging .45 caliber bullets, leaving shell casings, and murdering the children) into a single analytical "other crimes” category. See ante at 1094.

. I also respectfully dissent from the majority’s alternative, non-Drew holding in Part II. C., ante at 1096-1098, although, as I understand it, this part of the opinion does not purport to alter the law of this jurisdiction. Fundamentally, that discussion addresses what is commonly known as Toliver evidence, summarized in Toliver v. United States, 468 A.2d 958, 960-61 (D.C.1983) (approving admissibility of evidence that is "inextricably intertwined” with the crime, “intimately entangled," "relevant to explain the immediate circumstances,” "admissible '[t]o complete the story of the crime on trial by proving its immediate context.’ ”). I do not believe the government has established sufficient temporal, geographical, and logical links to deem the Maryland murders connected with Carrington’s murder within the meaning of Toliver. Furthermore, even if the Toliver link was established, probative value did not outweigh prejudicial impact. See Green v. United States, 440 A.2d 1005, 1007 (D.C.1982) (Toliver evidence admissible "when its probative impact outweighs its prejudicial value”). I also note, and respectfully dissent from, the majority’s relaxation of the probative value/prejudicial impact test for Toliver evidence by importing Fed. R.Evid. 403 into that analysis as well. See ante at 1101.