Court Opinion

ID: 9790663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:57:05.556695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:42.383794
License: Public Domain

DOOLING, J.
I concur. However, as applied to the facts of this case, I cannot agree with some of the sweepingly general language of the main opinion in considering the application of the exception to the general rule that evidence of other crimes is not admissible against a defendant in the trial of a criminal case. No rule is better settled than the one that proof of other crimes is generally not admissible. The exception is applied only when the evidence of other crimes tends to prove a material facts in the trial of the particular case. (People v. Peete, 28 Cal.2d 306, 315 [169 P.2d 924].) If the exception is too loosely or generally applied without the materiality of the evidence of other crimes to prove a material fact in the particular case being actually established the time may well *721come when the exception will for all practical purposes swallow up the rule.
As I read the main opinion it relies on two branches of the exception: 1. that evidence of other similar crimes committed in a particular or distinctive manner may be proved to establish a common plan, design or system and 2. that evidence of other crimes may be admitted to prove guilty knowledge and intent.
I cannot agree that under the evidence in this case the proof of the other sales was admissible to prove a common plan, design or system. The only thing in common in the crimes here proved is that they were all sales of marijuana. The sales to the officers were not made in the same manner at all as the sale to the minor with which the defendant Freytas was charged in this proceeding. They did not follow any common or distinctive pattern of operation. It is well settled that evidence of other similar crimes is not admissible to prove “criminal propensity on the part of the accused to commit the crime charged.” (People v. Westek, 31 Cal.2d 469, 476 [190 P.2d 9].) To hold that evidence of any sales of marijuana, however dissimilar the manner in which they were handled, may be admitted to show a common plan, system or design is to stretch and distort this exception to the point where there is no distinction between evidence to show common plan, design or system and evidence to show “criminal propensity on the part of the accused to commit the crime charged.” As so applied the exception has, in fact, already-swallowed up the rule. I therefore must dissent from the portion of the opinion which relies in this case on the exception based on proof of common plan, design or system.
I agree that in this case the proof of the other sales was material to prove knowledge and intent, for the following reason not developed in the main opinion. The complaining witness testified that she arranged to purchase “two tins” from Freytas and that a “tin” among marijuana users meant a tobacco can filled with marijuana. The word “marijuana” was not at any time used in her conversations with Freytas. It therefore became material to prove that Freytas understood the words “two tins” to refer to two tobacco cans containing marijuana and that that was what he intended to sell through his confederate, who made the actual delivery in his absence. The evidence of other sales of marijuana shortly before and after this transaction was material to prove that Freytas understood the words “two tins” as referring to marijuana, *722the commodity in which the evidence of the other sales shows that he was dealing at about that time. Whether proof of other sales may be introduced to prove knowledge and intent depends on the facts of the particular case. It should not be admitted where such knowledge and intent are otherwise so clearly established that they are not a real issue in the ease (People v. Spencer, 140 Cal.App.2d 97, 104 [294 P.2d 997]), but in this case for the reasons given I agree that the evidence was properly admitted.
A petition for a rehearing was denied March 21, 1958, and appellants' petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied April 17,1958. Carter, J., Traynor, J., and Schauer, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.