Court Opinion

ID: 9444776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:11:31.263236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:59.861711
License: Public Domain

PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The witness Nelson testified emphatically and vividly that there was a struggle at her door upon the occasion in question. It was two o’clock in the morning. There was a knock on the door. She opened the door but left the chain lock on, and through the crack she recognized a neighbor. She got the matches he requested, removed the chain lock, and then fully saw his condition. To say the least his condition was immorally suggestive; as I read her description no obscene words were necessary to convey suggestion or intent. He tried to push the door open, and she tried to push it shut. She used the word “struggle” in that connection. She had an impression he put his foot in the door, because she could not get the door shut. She testified “I couldn’t push that door in” and added the observation “and I am a big girl.”
*256Fairbanks was convicted of assault with intent to commit rape. The foregoing evidence showed that within a few days (six) prior to the alleged assault Fairbanks at two o’clock in the morning attempted to force his way into a lady neighbor’s apartment in a condition which clearly indicated his then intent, which was consistent with his alleged later intent. I think that evidence was clearly relevant to the issue of intent in the offense of assault with intent to commit rape. Moreover it was admissible under what Professor Wigmore calls “Design”.1
2Thus there may be conduct which indicates the inward existence of a design or plan. “Emotional predisposition” is the term used by this court in somewhat the same connection in Bra-cey v. United States.3 Design, as distinguished from knowledge or intent, is not an element of the criminal offense charged “but is the preceding mental condition which evidentially points forward to the doing of the act designed or planned”.3 It frequently consists of a series of acts having common features with the act charged and which tend to indicate that the accused person did commit the act charged.
I think the discussion by the court as to whether the disputed evidence revealed the same or a similar offense is beside the point. This evidence .is not admissible to prove an evil disposition or the commission of similar offenses but is admissible to prove that over a course of time the accused had a design or plan in mind. The question is whether the prior acts are relevant to prove that the accused committed the offense charged. It seems to me that the evidence here in dispute is clearly admissible under these principles. That Fairbanks did in fact commit a rape, or that he committed an assault with intent to rape, is clearly indicated by evidence that within a week prior to the critical date he was going about the same apartment house, knocking at the doors of lady tenants and making requests which would cause them to open the doors, and that on one such occasion he tried to force his way into the apartment, being in a condition which was visible demonstration of his then purpose.
The testimony of the witness Krawezel was admissible under the foregoing principles. I think her testimony that someone who said he was Fairbanks knocked on her door the morning of the alleged rape and offered her some groceries and clothes (which was the same offer Fairbanks made to the complainant Bowles), and a second time rapped and asked for matches (which was the same request he made of both Bowles and Nelson), created a jury question whether this person was Fairbanks. I think this evidence was not so indefinite as to be inadmissible. Furthermore, if there was error in the admission of this evidence, it was harmless error.
I would affirm the conviction.

. 2 Wigmore, Evidence §§ 237, 300, 304, 305 (3d ed. 1940).

. 79 U.S.App.D.C. 23, 142 E.2d 85 (D.C. Cir.1944), certiorari denied, 322 U.S. 762, 64 S.Ct. 1274, 88 L.Ed. 1589 (1944).

. 2 Wigmore, Evidence § 300(3) (3d ed. 1940).