Court Opinion

ID: 9780651
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 02:19:14.983166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:09.765800
License: Public Domain

LUMPKIN, Judge,
concurring in result.
11 I concur in the Court's decision to affirm the Judgment and Sentence and remand this matter for an order nunc pro tunc to correct the Judgment and Sentence document. However, I disagree with the Opinion's discussion of the other crimes evidence which was admitted pursuant to 12 0.8.2001, § 2404(B).
[ 2 The Opinion engages in the business of weighing the similarities of the two offenses against the dissimilarities which this Court denounced in Williams v. State, 2008 OK CR 19, 188 P.3d 208. As I stated in my separate writing in Owens v. State, 2010 OK CR 1, 229 P.3d 1261:
While the opinion cites to Williams v. State, 2008 OK CR 19, 188 P.3d 208 and quotes a sentence that seems to confirm the opinion's analysis, it disregards the substance of the Court's analysis and decision in Williams. The Court actually found the evidence of the prior robbery in Williams was admissible § 2404(B) evidence to prove identity. In doing so the opinion pointed out the Court had previously considered this same issue in Pickens v. State, 1988 OK CR 35, 751 P.2d 742. In both cases the Court analyzed the methods utilized to commit the robberies. As a part of that analysis the Court stated in Williams:
This Court should not be in the business of weighing the similarities against the dissimilarities. When there are enough similarities between the two crimes to support the trial court's decision, then we must give deference to the trial court's decision. Onee that threshold is met, any differences in the two crimes go to the weight of the evidence and not to the admissibility.
2008 OK CR 19, ¶ 44, 188 P.3d at 220.
That is what the Court should have done in this case. If that analysis had been done, it would reflect the evidence should have been admitted in that the facts relating to *173the similarities of the two crimes in this case are the mirror images of the factual analysis in Williams and Pickens. When the evidence in these three cases is reviewed side by side, there is no reason why the evidence was admissible in the first two cases, but not the present case. An objective analysis can make no reasonable distinction between the admissibility of the evidence in each of the three cases. Trying to make that distinction is like trying to strain a gnat's hair to find a discernable difference. Instead of engaging in that type of verbal gymnastics we should apply the straight forward, common sense approach the Court set out above in Williams. I would find the other crimes evidence properly admitted.
Id., 2010 OK CR 1, 113-4, 229 P.3d 1261, 1269-70 (Lumpkin, J., concurring in part/dissenting in part).
T3 Turning to the present case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence concerning the burglary of the Hofmanns' home. Eizember v. State, 2007 OK CR 29, ¶ 99, 164 P.3d 208, 234. Analyz ing the present case pursuant to the rule set forth in Williams "there are enough similarities between the two crimes to support the trial court's decision." Williams, 2008 OK CR 19, ¶ 44, 188 P.3d at 220. In both instances, Appellant burglarized an apartment home in Norman, Oklahoma. Both burglaries occurred during the night. Appellant was able to gain entry into both apartment homes without waking the sleeping occupants of the home. Appellant burglarized both homes so he could engage in sexual conduct relating to a minor child or children. In the Hofmann burglary, Appellant viewed photographs of minor females in sexually suggestive poses and ejaculated on the Hofmanns' desk and computer while the Hofmanns slept.1 In the charged offense, Appellant raped a minor female while her parents slept.
T4 As both burglaries were accomplished upon apartment homes at night with the utmost stealth and punctuated with sexual conduct towards a female child or children, there are enough similarities between the two crimes to support the trial court's decision. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the other crimes evidence and this Court need not determine whether admission of the evidence was harmless.

. I note that the definition of "sexual conduct" includes both "[alets of masturbation" and "'{alets of excretion in a sexual context." Inst. No. 4-139, OUJI-CR(2d) (Supp. 2010); 21 O.S. 2001, § 1024.1.