Court Opinion

ID: 9454569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:50:04.06666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:10.176878
License: Public Domain

FAHY, Senior Circuit Judge
(concurring specially).
The court, in upholding the admission of the testimony of Mrs. Marshall and Mrs. Scoggins, disagrees with the decision of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals which reversed the conviction and granted a new trial on the ground that the testimony of these two witnesses was inadmissible under the rule excluding evidence of other crimes than the one on trial. The Court of Appeals held this testimony did not fall within any of the exceptions to the general rule of exclusion. Our court upholds the admission of the evidence as relevant on the issue of intent, but remands to the Court of Appeals because the Court of General Sessions admitted the testimony as relevant to all the exceptions as enumerated in Drew v. United States, 118 U.S. App. D.C. 11, 16, 331 F.2d 85, 90. As the court points out, however, no objection in the Court of General Sessions pointed to the procedure followed there and the issue of its correctness was not urged on appeal.
Much may be said for limiting the application of the exceptions to offenses closely related in time and continuity to the offense on trial; that is, as stated in Bracey v. United States, 79 U.S.App.D.C. 23, 26, 142 F.2d 85, 88, cert. denied, 322 U.S. 762, 64 S.Ct. 1274, 88 L.Ed. 1589 to other criminal acts “so blended or connected with the one on trial as that proof of one incidentally involves the other.” *1041But in view of the scope of the remand for further proceedings in the Court of Appeals I need not take a definitive position as to this in the present posture of this ease. It might in the end be disposed of upon another ground.