Court Opinion

ID: 9473389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:28:33.773055+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:30.117202
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree that the law in this circuit seems to allow the government to introduce other-crimes evidence, in its case-in-chief, merely if the crime in question is one requiring specific intent. I have some doubts about the defensibility of that rule; it would seem to me more appropriate to follow the general rule that, as evidence of intent, other crimes are never admissible unless intent has been disputed or called into question. But this is not my reason for writing separately. Rather, I have two reservations about the way the rule has been implemented in this case.
In the first place, the rule should not be so understood as to make the admissibility of other-crimes evidence automatic where the crime is one of specific intent. Even if we adopt the fiction that intent is always in question in such cases, such evidence is only admissible if it is really introduced to show intent The government must show the relevance of the evidence to the question of intent. It cannot simply flood the courtroom with other-crimes evidence on the grounds that the crime was one of specific intent.
The second point is that our rule governs the evidence admissible in the case-in-chief. The admission of the evidence here is justified as being in rebuttal. But the majority says that there was sufficient evidence to prove intent initially, and the defendant did not dispute the intent evidence; he maintained that he did not commit the crimes. Unless the government set about to introduce new evidence on each element of the crime after his denial, there is abundant reason to be cautious here. For evidence of other crimes proves that the defendant is a criminal, and for that reason it cannot be used unless there is preponderant need to use it to prove some other, legitimate point. I would argue, therefore, that where the government has not been able to get the evidence in during its case-in-chief, it should not be allowed to do so in rebuttal, unless in actual rebuttal of some particular point made by the defendant.
Here, I agree that the evidence in question would have been admissible, in any event, under several other categories of exception to the other-crimes rule — as the majority argues — and therefore I do not think the trial judge abused his discretion.