Court Opinion

ID: 9727361
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:32:24.829563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:36.630740
License: Public Domain

KAUS, P. J., Concurring.
Obedient to the Supreme Court’s decisions in People v. Thomas (1978) 20 Cal.3d 457, 464-467 [143 Cal.Rptr. 215, 573 P.2d 433], and People v. Pendleton (1979) 25 Cal.3d 371, 376-378 [158 Cal.Rptr. 343, 599 P.2d 649], I concur.
The rule of the common law, codified in section 1101 of the Evidence Code, is that evidence of other crimes is not admissible where the proof shows only the defendant’s propensity or disposition to commit the crime charged. In People v. Zackowitz (1930) 254 N.Y. 192, 197 [172 N.E. 466]. Chief Judge Cardozo noted that the effect of this rule is that “[in] a very real sense a defendant starts his life afresh when he stands before a jury, a prisoner at the bar.” Reasonable persons may fret over the wisdom of permitting an incorrigible scoundrel to “start his life afresh” when charged with the umpteenth repetition of some particular offense.1 In any event, in California they need not worry if the accused is charged with a sexual offense and the other offenses were not too remote in time, were similar to the offense charged and committed with or upon persons similar to the prosecuting witness. (People v. Thomas, supra, 20 Cal.3d at p. 465.) This is our rule, although by statute we must and by case law we should follow the orthodox common law rule as recognized by Cardozo.
*458What worries me is not so much the rule announced in Thomas, as the fact that we now have two irreconcilable lines of cases on the admissibility of other offenses to show conduct on the occasion under scrutiny, where the other offenses prove no relevant issue except the defendant’s disposition. I had thought that after much confusion in the cases, the law on the subject was finally settled in People v. Haston (1968) 69 Cal.2d 233 [70 Cal.Rptr. 419, 444 P.2d 91], where the Supreme Court made it clear that evidence of other crimes is only admissible where it is relevant to a contested issue in the litigation. (Id., p. 244.) Further, Haston pointed out that where so-called modus operandi evidence is admitted on á contested issue of identity, the modus operandi must be distinctive indeed. (Id., p. 246.) In footnote 22 of the Haston opinion the Supreme Court specifically disapproved or overruled about seven cases, but indicated clearly that the list was not exhausted.
Any lingering doubt that Haston applied in so-called “sex cases” was dissipated in People v. Thornton (1974) 11 Cal.3d 738, 755-756 [114 Cal.Rptr. 467, 523 P.2d 267].)
Assuming that the court truly meant all it said in Haston and Thornton, three cases which were impliedly overruled in footnote 22 of Haston had to be People v. Ing (1967) 65 Cal.2d 603, 612 [55 Cal.Rptr. 902, 422 P.2d 590]; People v. Kelley (1967) 66 Cal.2d 232, 238-243 [57 Cal.Rptr. 363, 424 P.2d 947], and People v. Cramer (1967) 67 Cal.2d 126, 129-130 [60 Cal.Rptr. 230, 429 P.2d 582], Each one of those cases clearly violates the later dictates of Haston and Thornton: Ing and Cramer because they admit modus operandi evidence on nonexistent issues of identity; Kelley because it suggests, by dictum, that inadmissible evidence of disposition can be smuggled into the record in disguise by giving it a “common scheme or plan” label.2
It was not to be. Like so many Phoenixes, Ing, Kelley and Cramer rose from the ashes of Haston and Thornton when the Supreme Court decided People v. Thomas, supra. I might add that if People v. Thomas left any doubt on the question whether the prior offense had to display *459a distinctive modus operandi, it was certainly dispelled in People v. Pendleton, supra, 25 Cal.3d 371, where the Supreme Court, in comparing three forcible rapes mentioned, along with other commonplace similarities, that in each case “defendant physically attacked the victim.” (Id., p. 377.)3
Pendleton thus exposes what I submit to be the fundamental mistake of Kelley, perpetuated in Thomas: that there is a difference between “disposition” and “propensity”—issues on which evidence of other offenses is inadmissible—and “common scheme or plan” when used to mean the defendant’s way of committing the crime in question. To be sure, when there is a genuine issue of identity the evidence of other offenses, if distinctive enough, is admissible whether we call it common scheme or plan or modus operandi or whatever. If, however, there is no such issue—as in this case—it should not be admissible whatever label we choose to give it.
This does not mean that the Kelley-Thomas rule is a bad rule. As I said at the outset reasonable men can take issue with the entire concept of keeping the accused’s criminal propensities from the jury. I do, however, suggest that it cannot co-exist with Haston-Thornton and cannot really be reconciled with the statutory mandate of section 1101 of the Evidence Code.
A petition for a rehearing was denied December 28, 1979, and appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied January 30, 1980.

In 1 Wigmore on Evidence (3d ed. 1940) section 193, the author describes how differently other civilized systems of criminal jurisprudence handle this type of evidence.

The common scheme or plan referred to in Kelley was not the ‘“larger continuing plan, scheme, or conspiracy, of which the present crime.. .is a part.”’ (People v. Sam (1969) 71 Cal.2d 194, 205 [77 Cal.Rptr. 804, 454 P.2d 700].) (E.g., (People v. Glass (1910) 158 Cal. 650 [112 P. 281].) It was, rather, nothing but the defendant’s “distinctive, characteristic method of committing crimes.” (People v. Thomas, supra, 20 Cal.3d at p. 465.)

The court also noted that “none of the victim’s property was taken.” It is obvious that the number of “negative similarities” of this sort is only limited by the imagination of the writer.