Court Opinion

ID: 9655603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:17:38.129716+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:20.595507
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). At oral argument the state urged this court to overrule, not distinguish, State v. Tarrell, 74 Wis. 2d 647, 247 N.W.2d 696 (1976). The state is correct that Tarrell cannot be distinguished and that it is misleading to trial courts and to counsel for this court to keep alive the rule of law set forth in Tarrell regarding prior crime evidence.
The majority is correct that identity was an issue in Tarrell and is not an issue here. But in Tarrell the court did not approve the admission of prior crime evidence because the evidence proved identity. The court admitted the evidence in Tarrell because the evidence was relevant to plan, motive, and intent. In Tarrell the court stated that the trial court “considering all the sexual incidents... found that they might establish a general plan or system of conduct or that they might establish a motive or intent to perform an act such as the one charged. . . . [T]he separate acts . . . demonstrated a propensity to act out his sexual desires with young girls and had a logical connection with the charged offense. They tended to show a general scheme or motive.” Id. at 658.
*733In this case, the state initially argued that the evidence of other acts was admissible for the purpose of proving the defendant’s plan or scheme to rape innocent women who came within his control. The court of appeals rejected the state’s argument relying on the definition of plan set forth in State v. Spraggin, 77 Wis. 2d 89, 99, 252 N.W.2d 94 (1977), which is as follows:
“Evidence showing a plan establishes a definite prior design, plan, or scheme which includes the doing of the act charged. As Wigmore states, there must be ‘such a concurrence of common features that the various acts are materially to be explained as caused by a general plan of which they are the individual manifestations.’ ”
The court of appeals is correct. This court’s two definitions of “plan and scheme,” one in Tarrell and the other in Spraggin, cannot co-exist. The court’s definition of plan in Tarrell is tantamount to its saying that a defendant’s prior sexual acts may be used to allow the jury to infer that because the defendant previously committed such acts, he probably is guilty now.
I agree with the state. The objectionable language in Tarrell should be withdrawn because the court erred in holding the prior acts evidence admissible in Tarrell.
I also believe that the same rules regarding admissibility of other crimes evidence should apply to all cases, whether they involve sex crimes or other kinds of crimes. No one has suggested why we should treat sex crimes differently. State v. Tarrell, 74 Wis. 2d 647, 665-66, 247 N.W.2d 696 (1976) (Abrahamson, J., dissenting).
I am authorized to state that Justice Heffeman joins in this concurrence.