Court Opinion

ID: 9649007
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:40:34.559207+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:07.070401
License: Public Domain

Skoglund, J.,
¶ 17. concurring. I concur with the plurality opinion that the trial court abused its discretion by failing to weigh evidence under V.R.E. 403 when deciding whether prior crime evidence is admissible under V.R.E. 404(b). I write separately, however, because I would also find that the trial court erred in finding the testimony of the department store clerk and the closed-circuit video regarding past acts to be signature evidence admissible under V.R.E. 404(b).
¶ 18. Rule 404(b) is designed to exclude evidence of prior similar acts if the evidence is introduced to show that the defendant has a propensity to commit the charged offense. State v. Bruyette, 158 Vt. 21, 27, 604 A.2d 1270, 1272 (1992). Prior act evidence can be admitted, however, if it is relevant to prove a different, legitimate element in the case such as identity, intent, plan, or knowledge. State v. Cardinal, 155 Vt. 411, 414, 584 A.2d 1152, 1154 (1990).
¶ 19. When evidence of past acts is offered to prove identity, we require that it meet a strict relevance test to be admissible. Bruyette, 158 Vt. at 27, 604 A.2d at 1272. Identity must be a material issue before the jury, the prior act evidence must be logically relevant to the issue of identity, and the probative value of the evidence must outweigh its potential for prejudice. See id. at 27-29, 604 A.2d at 1272-73; State v. Winter, 162 Vt. 388, 392-400, 648 A.2d 624, 626-32 (1994); Sweet v. Roy, 173 Vt. 418, 434-42, 801 A.2d 694, 706-12 (2002). If identity is at issue in the case, the question for the court is whether the characteristics of the past act are so similar and idiosyncratic as to be earmarked the handiwork of the accused, in effect, to constitute the defendant’s signature. Bruyette, 158 Vt. at 27, 604 A.2d at 1273.
¶ 20. In Bruyette, we examined whether testimony of the defendant’s girlfriend about their prior consensual sexual conduct was relevant to identity and therefore admissible as signature evidence under Rule 404(b) when the specific sexual acts were distinct and substantially similar to those perpetrated on the victim of a sexual assault. Id. After establishing that identity was at issue because the victim was blindfolded during the assault, we noted that to admit the testimony as signature evidence, the pattern and characteristics of the prior act “must be so distinctive, in effect, to constitute the defendant’s signature.” Id. at 27, 604 A.2d at 1273. We further articulated the standard saying:
Although the prior acts of the accused and the charged acts do not have to be identical, they must possess common features that make it highly likely that the unknown perpetrator and the accused are the same person. Whereas a few common *547features that are unique may be sufficient, a larger number of them, less remarkable, but taken together, may also have significant probative value.
Id. at 28,604 A.2d at 1273.
¶ 21. Applying this rule, we held that “[w]hen the sexual acts are taken together with the specific statements that the girlfriend and the victim were forced to repeat, and the defendant’s frequent use of cocaine during the activity, the evidence strongly tended to show that defendant was the perpetrator.” Id. at 29, 604 A.2d at 1273. See also Sweet, 173 Vt. at 438-39, 801 A.2d at 709-10 (applying Bruyette in ease where evidence of past pattern of distinctive conduct and vandalism of mobile home park owner was admissible in ease brought by mobile home owner when identity of the perpetrator was at issue and the prior act was unique and sufficiently similar to the charged offense to make it highly likely that defendant and perpetrator were the same person).
¶ 22. We have emphasized that in order to admit signature evidence under Rule 404(b) “[t]he State has the burden to show precisely how the proffered evidence is relevant to the theory advanced, how the issue to which it is addressed is related to the disputed elements in the ease, and how the probative value of the evidence is not substantially outweighed by its prejudicial effect.” Winter, 162 Vt. at 393, 648 A.2d at 627. To hold otherwise would permit the State to use prior act evidence to identify the defendant as the perpetrator simply because he or she has, at other times, committed the same garden variety criminal act. This type of identification is based on nothing more than the forbidden inference of propensity. See 2 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein’s Federal Evidence § 404.22[5][c] (J. McLaughlin ed., 2d ed. 2003).
¶ 23. The prior act evidence offered by the State in this case was not signature evidence for two reasons. First, identity was not at issue in the case. As noted, we have consistently held that when prior acts are proffered as signature evidence, the identity of the perpetrator must be a material question before the jury. Whether the defendant was present at the scene was never in dispute here. The only question was whether the defendant committed the offense, and the prior act evidence was offered to illustrate the manner in which the offense could have been committed.
¶24. Second, although the prior act and the charged offense share some common features, there is nothing within the pattern or characteristics of the prior act that is so distinct that it constitutes the defendant’s “signature.” Neither the way in which the defendant followed the shopper and positioned himself in view of the child and not the parent, nor the manner in which he exposed himself, is in any way unique or idiosyncratic. There is also nothing unique about the act of getting only the child’s attention, as many other shoppers could have done so with solely benign intentions. Similarly, it is an unfortunate reality that nothing about the way the defendant exposed himself to and allegedly masturbated in front of the child is unusual or distinct. This type of conduct certainly does not constitute “signature” criminal behavior sufficient to identify the defendant as the perpetrator to the exclusion of others.
¶ 25. The prior act evidence offered by the State should not have been admitted as signature evidence in this case where identity was not at issue and the pattern and characteristics of the past acts were insufficiently distinct to identify the defendant as the perpetrator. On this basis, I would reverse the trial court’s ruling that the department store clerk’s testimony and the closed-circuit video were signature evidence admissible under V.R.E. 404(b).
*548¶ 26.1 am authorized to state that Justice Johnson joins this concurrence.