Court Opinion

ID: 9463912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:20:02.011204+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:21.528340
License: Public Domain

FAY, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring.
While joining in the majority opinion and the result, I do not agree with all portions thereof. It is not clear to me that the use of an alias or fictitious name on a lease, in the absence of any evidence of “intent to injure or defraud”, could be the basis for criminal charges under the laws of Alabama. Consequently, I do not join in the discussion equating the “lease evidence” as evidence of other crimes.
However, the possible prejudice inherent with such evidence, coupled with the argument advanced by the prosecutor as to such evidence, required the giving of a strong cautionary instruction and the absence of such amounts to “plain error”. Certainly defense counsel pointed out his position with numerous objections. If the government was serious in the position taken on appeal, that such evidence was not evidence of other crimes, but rather proper evidence for use by the handwriting expert, it should have requested such an explanation to the jury and not referred to the “lease evidence” as was done in final argument.
In all other respects, I concur.