Court Opinion

ID: 9703476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:58:10.341216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:49.630784
License: Public Domain

TERRY, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I readily join my colleagues in voting to reverse the conviction, and I join also in most of Judge Ferren’s opinion for the court, especially part IY. But I have some *1244reservations about part III, in which I concur only as to the result.
I see no need to go into such a lengthy discussion of the nuances of the motive exception under Drew.1 For me it would be sufficient simply to say that appellant’s videotaped statement that he had engaged in drugs-for-sex liaisons with other women had absolutely no probative value, either under Drew or on any other theory, and that its admission was not harmless because it was so inflammatory. It is utter speculation to say, as the government does, that this statement “explains” what appellant meant when he said to Boddie that he had stabbed a woman “because she didn’t do what she was supposed to do.” Once the trial judge excluded Boddie’s testimony about what he thought appellant meant (a ruling which was plainly correct), the drugs-for-sex statement had to be excluded also because there was no demonstrable connection between it and the “supposed to do” remark. It obviously does not establish appellant’s motive in the same manner as the challenged evidence in Hill v. United States, 600 A.2d 58 (D.C.1991).2 Although the government is correct in arguing that a situation like that in Hill is not the only one in which Drew -type evidence is admissible to establish motive, I do not see any other acceptable rationale here for admitting the drugs-for-sex statement. That, I think, is all that we need to say.

. Drew v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 11, 16, 331 F.2d 85, 90 (1964).

. In Hill the defendant was charged with the murder of his former girl friend on September 4. Evidence that he had had a violent argument with her on May 19 was admitted under the motive exception recognized in Drew. We held that evidence of the argument in May, and of the hostile relationship that led to it, was admissible to prove that the defendant had a motive to kill the victim in September. "[T]he admissibility of evidence such as that at issue here depends on the identity of the parties, i.e., on the fact that the defendant had a motive to harm this particular victim, with whom he already had an established relationship.” 600 A.2d at 62 (citations omitted).