Court Opinion

ID: 9559323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:26:40.975691+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:43.858180
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE METCALF:
(concurring).
I concur in remanding the cause for a new trial.
In State v. Searle, 125 Mont., 467, 239 Pac. (2d) 995, 997, evidence of other similar crimes was offered and refused. The prosecution continued to parade witnesses before the jury offering- to prove like offenses. In the majority opinion Mr. Justice Angst-man concedes that even if the evidence were admissible, it was misconduct to repeatedly continue to offer evidence of the same nature and have repeated rulings excluding it. A detrimental impression is left with the jury and the defendant is deprived of the right of cross-examination. But this court rejected that ground for reversal and chose to declare that evidence of other crimes is inadmissible. The language Mr. Justice Angstman chose is terse, concise and unequivocal. “Since a new trial must be had other questions require consideration and particularly whether evidence of other similar offenses was or is admissible. The rule in this state is that such evidence is incompetent and the court properly ruled against its admissibility. State v. Sauter, 125 Mont., 109, 232 Pac. (2d) 731.”
In the dissenting opinion I pointed out that this unqualified statement was “a flat declaration that evidence of other crimes is not admissible for any purpose.”
That conclusion was the basis for the dissent. Mr. Justice Angstman then on his own behalf chose to interpret his opinion as applying only to sex crimes, and distinguished State v. Sauter, 125 Mont., 109, 232 Pac. (2d) 731, on the same grounds. In speaking for the majority of the court, Mr. Justice Angstman promulgated an unqualified rule and then in disagreeing with the opinion he had expressed, he personally qualified the rule.
As pointed out in the dissenting opinion in State v. Searle, 125 Mont., 467, 239 Pac. (2d) 995, the fact that State v. Sauter, 125 Mont., 109, 232 Pac. (2d) 731, was a sex crime was immaterial. The evidence of other offenses was not excluded on that basis. In concurring with Mr. Justice Angstman’s dissent, I did *330not understand the dissent to be directed solely at sex crimes. It was my opinion that State v. Sauter called for an application of the so-called exceptions to the general rule.
Nor is there any justification for treating sex crimes any differently than any other crimes, except in the case of a showing of predisposition. Evidence of a perverted character of the defendant so that he has a predisposition to commit a sex crime should be excluded if it is not admissible to show motive, intent, plan, etc. Such a showing of predisposition would be tantamount to attempting to prove that.the defendant must have committed the crime because he is a bad man and has a tendency to commit crime. That kind of evidence is abhorred in any civilized judicial system. But with this exception, and it is not a true exception at all, it is just more apparent in the case of sex crimes. Evidence of the commission of other offenses should meet the test of relevancy and be admitted or excluded upon the basis outlined in my dissent in State v. Searle, supra. I am prepared to return to the rule that I believe to have been the law of this state prior to the Searle decision. But I never consented to one rule for sex criminals and a harsher rule for other criminals and do not do so here. The distinction made by Mr. Justice Angstman between sex crimes and other crimes is invalid and illogical and his conclusion cannot reasonably be drawn from the language of the decisions.
Under the present rules of evidence the evidence of the  other offense allegedly committed by defendant Hale should have been excluded and its admission is grounds, for a new trial.