Court Opinion

ID: 9714024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:28:56.592411+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:22.748612
License: Public Domain

ROBINSON, J.,
concurring.
After no small degree of hesitation and reflection, I have decided that I am able to join the Court’s opinion without reservation. However, I wish to offer a few brief words of commentary on that opinion’s holding with respect to the issue of joinder pursuant to Rule 8(a) of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure.
The Court’s opinion quite correctly declares that this is “a troubling and admittedly close case.” Nevertheless, decisions have to be made even with respect to close cases, and I believe that the decision made in this case is correct when one takes into account all the relevant factors. While the lapse in time between the incidents charged is extraordinarily lengthy in this case,14 the striking similarity between what was alleged to have transpired in each instance is evident when one considers several other Rule 8(a) factors. This similarity has sufficed (although just barely) to convince me that the joinder of offenses in this case did not constitute an error of law. In plain English, I believe that the Court rightly holds that the remoteness in time is,15 in this case, outweighed by the following other factors that are properly grist for the judicial mill in the Rule 8(a) context:
(1) The fact that, in each instance, sexual contact with- a minor was involved.
(2) The fact that, in the words of this Court’s opinion, “[t]he location of each offense was a bedroom of a family home * *
(3) The fact that, again in this Court’s words, “the victims both were young girls who were blood-relatives of defendant [and] defendant used his position of trust as a family member to control both victims ⅜ *
(4) The fact that “hand-to-genital contact was engaged in with respect to both victims.”
Before concluding, I wish to indicate that, while I ultimately have become persuaded that the Court’s Rule 8(a) holding is correct with respect to the specific facts that this case presents, the issue of joinder vel non always merits careful reflection. As is true with respect to so many other issues, Judge Learned Hand provided wise guidance concerning the issue of joinder. In United States v. Lotsch, 102 F.2d 35 (2nd Cir.1939), he wrote as follows:
“There is indeed always a danger when several crimes are tried together, *40that the jury may use the evidence cumulatively; that is, that, although so much as would be admissible upon any one of the charges might not have persuaded them of the accused’s guilt, the sum of it will convince them as to all.” Id. at 36.
Having set forth these few additional thoughts, I am pleased to concur in the Court’s opinion.

. As the Court notes, the offenses at issue "occurred some sixteen to twenty-one years apart.”

. Although Rule 8(a) of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure does not textually point to remoteness in time as a factor to be taken into account, it is nonetheless a factor that in actuality is taken into account. See, e.g., State v. Day, 898 A.2d 698, 704 (R.I.2006) (noting, while addressing a Rule 8(a) argument, that the crimes at issue "occurred within close proximity in downtown Providence, within a two month time span, * * * and the victims were close in age * * *(emphasis added).