Court Opinion

ID: 9663384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:37:08.122811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:48.847827
License: Public Domain

Boslaugh, J.,
dissenting in part.
I dissent from that part of the opinion which holds that the evidence concerning the defendant’s prior offense was not admissible.
The opinion states that evidence of the prior theft cannot be said to have been introduced to show the defendant’s intent at the time of the recent theft because intent is inferred from the words and acts of the defendant and the facts and circumstances surrounding his conduct. On that theory, evidence of prior acts could never be admissible as proof of intent. The rule is to the contrary.
The general rule is that evidence of similar offenses is admissible where an element of the crime charged is motive, a particular criminal intent, or guilty knowledge. State v. Franklin, 194 Neb. 630, 234 N.W.2d 610 (1975). The rule was codified when Neb. Rev. Stat. § 27-404(2) (Reissue 1985) was adopted.
It is clear that intent is a material element of theft by unlawful taking or disposition. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-511(1) (Reissue 1985).
In State v. Stewart, 219 Neb. 347, 351, 363 N.W.2d 368, 371 *18(1985), we stated:
We have previously dispelled the erroneous notion that Rule 404(2) of the Nebraska Evidence Rules (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 27-404(2) (Reissue 1979)) contains pigeonholes for admission of evidence pertaining to “other acts.” Rule 404(2) of the Nebraska Evidence Rules is an inclusionary rule permitting the use of relevant, specific acts for all purposes except to prove character of a person in order to show that such person acted in conformity with character. Thus, Rule 404(2) permits evidence of other acts if such acts are relevant for any purpose other than to show a defendant’s propensity or disposition to commit the crime charged. State v. Craig, ante p. 70, 361 N.W.2d 206 (1985).
In State v. Hitt, 207 Neb. 746, 749, 301 N.W.2d 96, 99 (1981), we stated:
It is competent for the prosecution to put in evidence all relevant facts and circumstances which tend to establish any of the constituent elements of the crime with which the accused is charged, even though such facts and circumstances may prove or tend to prove that the defendant committed other crimes.
The rationale for the rule that evidence of other acts is admissible as proof of intent is stated in 2 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein’s Evidence ¶ 404[12] at 404-84, 404-87 (1986), as follows:
Criminal intent has been defined “as that state of mind which negatives accident, inadvertence or casualty.” Consequently, evidence of another crime which tends to undermine defendant’s innocent explanation for his act will be admitted; “the oftener a like act has been done, the less probable it is that it could have been done innocently.” Repetition affords an “opportunity for reflection and for foresight of the consequences,” so that even if defendant did not possess the requisite intent initially, it may be inferred that after being involved in a number of incidents, he must have arrived at a mental state inconsistent with innocence by the time of the charged act.
In 2 J. Wigmore, Evidence in Trials at Common Law § 302 at 241 (J. Chadbourn rev. 1979), the theory of the rule is stated as *19follows:
In short, similar results do not usually occur through abnormal causes; and the recurrence of a similar result (here in the shape of an unlawful act) tends (increasingly with each instance) to negative accident or inadvertence or self-defense or good faith or other innocent mental state, and tends to establish (provisionally, at least, though not certainly) the presence of the normal, i.e., criminal, intent accompanying such an act; and the force of each additional instance will vary in each kind of offense according to the probability that the act could be repeated, within a limited time and under given circumstances, with an innocent intent.
As the majority opinion indicates, the defendant in this case, when confronted about the missing deposits, claimed that “[t]he bank must be wrong, because I made last weekend’s deposit on Monday.” In my opinion, evidence of the defendant’s prior offense was admissible as proof of motive, intent, plan, and absence of mistake or accident.
Hastings, J., joins in this dissent.