Court Opinion

ID: 9728520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:10:04.665145+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:49.366808
License: Public Domain

R. B. Burns, P.J.,
(dissenting). I must dissent. In my opinion it was reversible error to allow the complainant’s three sisters to testify as to prior sexual acts committed against them._
*477MCL 768.27; MSA 28.1050 provides:
"In any criminal case where the defendant’s motive, intent, the absence of, mistake or accident on his part, or the defendant’s scheme, plan or system in doing an act, is material, any like acts or other acts of the defendant which may tend to show his motive, intent, the absence of, mistake or accident on his part, or the defendant’s scheme, plan or system in doing the act, in question, may be proved, whether they are contemporaneous with or prior or subsequent thereto; notwithstanding that such proof may show or tend to show the commission of another or prior or subsequent crime by the defendant.”
In People v Oliphant, 399 Mich 472, 488; 250 NW2d 443 (1976), the Supreme Court allowed the testimony of three young women, other than the complainant, who claimed that the defendant had raped them, and stated:
"We agree with the trial court and the Court of Appeals that the testimony of 'A’, 'B’, and 'C’ goes beyond tending to show that defendant raped other young women. The many similarities in all four cases tend to show a plan or scheme to orchestrate the events surrounding the rape of complainant so that she could not show nonconsent and the defendant could thereby escape punishment. Defendant’s plan made it appear that an ordinary social encounter which culminated in voluntary sex had simply gone sour at the denouement due to his reference to complainant’s unpleasant body odor; a vain and bitter woman seeking revenge against an innocent man.”
In the present case there was no showing of mistake or accident on the part of the defendant, or of any scheme, plan or system.
I would reverse and remand for a new trial.