Court Opinion

ID: 9756109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:07:29.584539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:14.727234
License: Public Domain

GATES, Judge,
dissenting:
The majority upholds the lower court’s admission of evidence of an alleged prior rape1 on the basis that a nearly identical method or a common scheme, plan, or design was established. It relies on the following similarities to determine the logical connection between the crimes is present:
“. . . They both followed a chance meeting in a public place with young girls who responded to an offer of assistance and were lured to an apartment where they *377were prevented from leaving. In each case he pressed a sharp blade to their throat, ordered them to disrobe, threatening that if they screamed, he would kill them. In contrast to the viciousness of the assaults, he eventually allowed them to leave and immediately upon their departure, fled the scene.”
The majority further supports its conclusion on the grounds that (1) the evidence of the prior incident was introduced to rebut the defense of consent; and (2) the jury would not be greatly prejudiced against the defendant because the proffered evidence was not decisive in light of the Commonwealth’s case.
While recognizing that, in some respects, the two rapes were similar, they cannot be said to represent such “a concurrence of unusual and distinctive facts,” Commonwealth v. Peterson, 453 Pa. 187, 307 A.2d 264 (1973), “as to be like a signature,” McCormick on Evidence § 190 (2d Ed. 1972).
Numerous dissimilarities existed here including: (1) the rape charge occurred in Pennsylvania while the other occurred in Florida; (2) the events were two months apart; (3) initial contact with the one assailant occurred in center city Philadelphia while the other meeting occurred on a beach; (4) different ruses were used to lure the victims to an apartment in one case and to a house in the other; (5) the weapons used were not identical; (6) in the Florida rape, the assailant spoke about an Alan Leonard from Alabama, who was “out to get” the victim or her family, no similar story was told in the other; (7) the Florida rape involved shaving the victim’s pubic hair and sodomy, but there were no such incidents in the Pennsylvania rape; (8) one victim was detained for twenty hours, the other for only three hours; (9) the Florida incident involved ten or more acts of sexual intercourse, but only three acts in this case; and (10) the assailant in Pennsylvania called a cab and gave the prosecutrix fare to return home, the other did not.
Because of the significant dissimilarities, no logical nexus exists here, and thus, evidence of the prior rape is inadmissi*378ble. The perversity of allowing evidence of a crime other than the one being heard is not only the want of probative connection between the two crimes, but the obvious prejudicial effect such testimony has upon a jury. It is bound to sway a jury to believe that the accused is a criminal and, therefore, most likely committed the crime for which he is being tried. Evidence of this kind raises collateral issues and diverts the attention of the jury from the crime being charged. Moreover, we allow that proof of another offense will more often than not be taken by the jury as justifying a condemnation of the defendant irrespective of his guilt of the offense charged. See Commonwealth v. Boulden, 179 Pa.Super. 328, 116 A.2d 867 (1955). In sex cases courts have been more liberal in the admission of evidence of other crimes. This fallacious reasoning prevails despite the statistics that sex offenders, as compared with other types of criminals on parole, are by far the least likely to be returned to prison for repetition of the same kind of crime. 179 Pa.Super. at 342, n.2, 116 A.2d 867, 873.
Nor are we impressed with the Commonwealth’s argument that proof of the commission of the crime of rape in Florida two months earlier is evidence of the “state of mind” of the appellant at the time of the incident in Philadelphia. “The state of mind that will permit the admission of an unrelated crime is the state of mind at the time of the commission of the offense as shown by the acts or words of the defendant so close in time to the alleged offense as to have bearing upon his state of mind at that time. Defendant’s conduct over the years cannot be shown to prove he has a depraved or wicked state of mind generally.” Commonwealth v. Boulden, 179 Pa.Super. 328, 341, 116 A.2d 867, 873 (1955).
I feel comfortable in my conclusion that it was error to allow the jury to hear about this alleged Florida episode when we consider the rules relating to the joinder and severance of the same or similar offenses for trial.
The American Bar Association project on minimum standards for criminal justice relating to joinder and severance *379§ 2.2 would give a defendant the absolute right of severance. The standards provide: “Whenever two or more offenses have been joined for trial solely on the ground that they are the same or similar character, the defendant shall have a right to a severance of the offenses.” The enactment of such a rule would obviate many of the present difficulties encountered, not only in joinder and severance cases, but in cases involving evidence of prior criminal conduct on the part of the accused, especially where, as here, the prior criminal conduct has not been adjudicated.
In Pennsylvania it is well-settled that the trial judge has discretion to grant or refuse severance upon timely motion by a defendant charged in the same information (or separate informations consolidated for trial). However, the guidelines for the exercise of this discretion are not clear except in those cases where such offenses arose out of the same transaction, occurrence, or episode. See Commonwealth v. Campana, 452 Pa. 233, 304 A.2d 432, vacated and remanded, 414 U.S. 808, 94 S.Ct. 73, 38 L.Ed.2d 44 (1973), on remand, 455 Pa. 622, 314 A.2d 854 (1974).
I am of the opinion that if both of these alleged rapes occurred in the City of Philadelphia but separated both as to place and substantial time, such as in this case, it would have been an abuse of discretion not to grant a defendant’s motion to sever the cases for trial. The offenses here did not evidence a common scheme, plan or design sufficient to meet the “other crimes” test nor did they arise out of the same criminal transaction, occurrence or episode. I am of the opinion that these crimes are separate and distinct and that proof of one has no probative value in the trial of another. Consequently, it would have been prejudicial error to join them for trial.
The potential prejudice to appellant is obvious. The cross-examination of the prosecutrix suggests the defense of consent. He may well have wished to testify with respect to these charges. However, his right to testify may well be chilled by the facts and circumstances surrounding the Florida incident. Cf. Commonwealth v. Bighum, 452 Pa. 554, 307 *380A.2d 255 (1973). Of course the contrary may be true as well. In either event, he did not testify and the record does not disclose his reasons, apart from his constitutional right not to do so. Nonetheless, the injection of the Florida incident in this case created a trial within a trial requiring the appellant to meet a charge of which he had no notice and perhaps made it impossible to refute. Additionally, it raised collateral issues that had the tendency to divert the attention of the jury from the crime being charged. Thus I conclude that the introduction of the alleged prior offense had the potential effect upon the jury of justifying a condemnation of the appellant, irrespective of his guilt of the offense charged.
The majority is probably correct that this evidence is not decisive in light of the victim’s testimony and the appellant’s inculpatory statement. The case was simply overtried by the Commonwealth. But hard cases make bad law. The majority is setting precedent for subsequent cases which will not be so hard. I sense, and would like to join, the majority in deciding this case. But that is not the role of an appellate court. We should deal with principles of law, apply precedent where it exists and setting it where it does not. For these reasons I dissent and would order a new trial.

. Appellant was not tried or convicted for this rape in the state of Florida where it was supposed to have occurred.