Court Opinion

ID: 9756406
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:27:15.627305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:21.643645
License: Public Domain

THOMPSON, Judge,
concurring.
¶ 32 I agree with the majority’s opinion. I write separately to express my disagreement with certain dicta in this court’s opinion in State v. Garcia, 200 Ariz. 471, 28 P.3d 327 (App.2001), upon which Vega relies. In Garcia, the defendant was jointly tried for the molestation of numerous victims, and extensive “bad act” evidence of uncharged sex acts involving the various victims was admitted without Arizona Rule of Evidence 403 (Rule 403) balancing and without Arizona Rule of Evidence 404(c) (Rule 404(e)) findings. 200 Ariz. at 472, ¶ 1, 28 P.3d at 328. The defendant was convicted on some charges as to two of the victims, and we reversed, noting the absence of Rule 403 consideration by the trial court. Id. at 473, ¶ 7, 28 P.3d at 329 (“[t]he trial court ... did not undertake a 403 analysis ____”). In response to the state’s argument that the evidence of uncharged incidents was admissible pursuant to State v. Garner, 116 Ariz. 443, 569 P.2d 1341 (1977), we held that “[n]othing in [the Gamer line of] eases relieves the need to consider, uncharged act by uncharged act, whether the probative value of the particular evidence over-balances its potential for unfair prejudice.” Garcia at 477, ¶37, 28 P.3d at 333. *32However, the opinion also, erroneously and unnecessarily in my view, proceeded to require Rule 404(c) consideration and findings with regard to “Garner” evidence, that is, evidence of prior sexual behavior with the same victim. Id. at 479, ¶ 45, 28 P.3d at 335.
¶ 33 Treatment of the evidence of general sexual aberration was the subject of State v. McFarlin, 110 Ariz. 225, 517 P.2d 87 (1973), and State v. Treadaway, 116 Ariz. 163, 568 P.2d 1061 (1977), and is codified in Rule 404(c). Garcia, 200 Ariz. at 476, ¶28, 28 P.3d at 332. Evidence of a prior similar act, committed by the defendant upon the same victim, raises “a different question than that presented by either McFarlin, or Treadaway.” Garner, 116 Ariz. at 447, 569 P.2d at 1345 (citations omitted). The Garner type of bad act evidence is admitted for the purposes other than bad character posited by Rule 404(b), such as “proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident.” Our supreme court cited a California ease for “the correct rule:”
“[EJvidence of other offenses is admissible if material to the proof of the crime charged (citation omitted), to show motive, intent or knowledge (citation omitted), and to show a common plan or scheme (citation omitted). In eases involving sex crimes, evidence of other not too remote sex offenses with the prosecuting witness is admissible to show a lewd disposition or the intent of the defendant towards the prosecuting witness.”
Id. (quoting People v. Sylvia, 54 Cal.2d 115, 4 Cal.Rptr. 509, 351 P.2d 781, 785 (1960)).
¶ 34 The citations omitted from the Gamer court’s recitation of the rule from People v. Sylvia help to illustrate the nature of the exception recognized in these cases. For example, the holding in People v. Piascik, 159 Cal.App.2d 622, 323 P.2d 1032 (1958), is that evidence of the manufacture of false drivers’ licenses was admissible at the defendant’s trial for a fraudulent check cashing scheme. Id. at 1035. Evidence that the defendants had wire-tapped the victim’s home preparatory to them attempt to murder him with a bomb was deemed admissible as showing a conspiratorial scheme and not inadmissible character evidence in People v. Kynette, 15 Cal.2d 731, 104 P.2d 794, 802 (1940), overruled on other grounds by People v. Sharer, 61 Cal.2d 869, 40 Cal.Rptr. 851, 395 P.2d 899 (1964). Similarly, a prior Arizona case noted in Gamer allowed evidence of prior sex acts as to the same victim as showing a “system, plan or scheme to engage in sexual aberrations.” State v. Finley, 108 Ariz. 420, 421, 501 P.2d 4, 5 (1972) (citation omitted). Thus, Gamer-type evidence of pri- or incidents with the same molestation victim7 are admitted pursuant to the same Rule 404(b) analysis that allowed evidence that a defendant, prior to having his wife murdered, had severed the brake line of her car, see State v. Mills, 196 Ariz. 269, 274, 995 P.2d 705, 710 (App.1999), and evidence in a murder ease of the defendant’s prior assault on his victim, see State v. Gulbrandson, 184 Ariz. 46, 61, 906 P.2d 579, 594 (1995).
¶ 35 These 404(b) non-character uses of the evidence are completely distinct from the purposes for admitting the Treadaway-type evidence of sexual aberration: to show emotional propensity to perversion, or as Rule 404(e) has codified the principle, “a character trait giving rise to an aberrant sexual propensity ____” In fact, the distinct uses are mutually exclusive to the extent that Gamer-type evidence is admissible only when it does something other than prove a character trait of a defendant, and Treadaway-type evidence is admissible only when it does prove the pertinent character trait.
*33¶ 36 Therefore, in my view, the holding in State v. Garcia is limited to its conclusion that, on its facts, the trial court there committed reversible error in admitting evidence of uncharged sex acts by the defendant against his victims without the requisite Rule 403 balancing of probative value and prejudice. Here, admission of the single prior act against the older girl was properly admitted pursuant to Rule 404(b).

. While the majority correctly notes in paragraph eleven that "[t]he State, however, does not explain on appeal how Gamer might have allowed the jury to consider evidence of the beach incident in considering the charges against Vega involving the younger girl,” the supreme court has, in State v. Van Winkle, 106 Ariz. 481, 478 P.2d 105 (1970), allowed evidence that Van Winkle had molested the victim’s older sister "as showing a system, plan, or scheme.” Garner, 116 Ariz. at 447, 569 P.2d at 1345. Van Winkle in turn cites several previous cases, including Taylor v. State, 55 Ariz. 13, 97 P.2d 543 (1940), allowing, as evidence of "a system, plan and scheme” bad act testimony from persons other than the charged victim in child sex cases. Van Winkle at 483, 478 P.2d at 107.