Court Opinion

ID: 9548050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:56:48.215967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:25.777107
License: Public Domain

JOSEPH, J.,
dissenting.
While I agree generally with the tests applied by the majority in determining whether or not to admit "other crimes” evidence, I cannot agree that those tests were properly applied.
The relevancy of what might have happened in Klamath Falls on Saturday night to prove what happened in Merrill 18 miles away and half a day later is too attenuated. Its relevance, if any, lies almost entirely in its capacity to prejudice the defendant. If crime there was in Klamath Falls, it lay with the state to charge it and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
On the element of prejudice compared with need, the scale tilts nearly to vertical on the side of prejudice. As I view the other evidence, the need for the challenged evidence was mainly to shore up the accomplice, who had every reason to fabricate a tale of joint misadventure. Whether it was convincing should have nothing to do with its admissibility. That leaves the question of whether the evidence was "inflammatory,” and I would hold that, taken as a whole and not by some of the separate pieces, that is all it was.
I therefore respectfully dissent.