Court Opinion

ID: 9699576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:34:22.294436+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:53.371253
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(concurring).
I am unable to agree that “generally evidence of crimes other than the one for which the defendant is being tried is not admissible, [with] certain well-defined exceptions . . . .” Ante at 90. The traditional “rule” of exclusion is so riddled with vague and overlapping “exceptions” that it would be more enlightening and more candid to say that the “exceptions” have become the rule and the traditional “rule” is an exception. *594Therefore, in my view, “‘[e]vidence of other offenses may be received if relevant for any purpose other than to show a mere propensity or disposition on the part of the defendant to commit the crime.’ ” Commonwealth v. Boykin, 450 Pa. 25, 33, 298 A.2d 258, 262 (1972) (concurring opinion of Roberts, J., joined by Jones, C. J.); accord, Fed.R.Evid. 404(b).
However, evidence of prior offenses is subject, as is all relevant evidence, to exclusion if its probative value is outweighed by “the danger that the facts offered may unduly arouse the jury’s emotions of prejudice, hostility or sympathy.” McCormick’s Handbook of the Law of Evidence § 185, at 438-39 (2d ed. E. Cleary 1972) (footnote omitted). Accord, Fed.R.Evid. 403. Furthermore, in my view, if such evidence is admitted, the defendant is entitled upon request to a limiting instruction charging the jury that it is not permitted to draw the inference from the evidence of other offenses that the defendant by character was predisposed to commit the crime charged. See 1 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 13, at 300-01 (3d ed. 1940); McCormick, supra § 59, at 135-36.
In this case, the evidence of the other crimes committed by appellant was clearly relevant for purposes other than to show his propensity or disposition to murder William Bogier. Any account of the murder of Bogier that did not include appellant’s other criminal acts would be incomplete and confusing. Therefore, I conclude that the probative value of placing before the jury the “whole story,” including appellant’s other crimes, outweighed the risk of prejudice, or at least the trial court could reasonably have so concluded. Appellant did not request a limiting instruction, nor did he specifically object to the absence of such an instruction from the court’s charge. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 1119(b); cf. Commonwealth v. Johnson, 457 Pa. 554, 559, 327 A.2d 632, 635 (1974). Accordingly, I agree that appellant’s contention that the ad*595mission of the evidence of his other offenses was reversible error is without merit.
Because I agree that appellant’s other claims are either without merit or not preserved for appellate review, I concur in the result.