Prior Crimes Admissible, Justices Rule

The California Supreme Court made it easier Monday for prosecutors to introduce evidence of previous, uncharged offenses in rape and other criminal cases.

Ruling in a child molestation case, the court voted 6 to 1 that prior, uncharged misconduct is admissible if the circumstances, victims or offenses are sufficiently similar.

The decision overturns a 1984 ruling by the court that such evidence had to be part of a grand design or demonstrate a “single, continuing conception or plot.”

But the court ruled that such evidence still should not be admitted to establish that the defendant had a criminal disposition or bad character. Rather, the court said, it should be intended to “prove that he or she committed the charged offense pursuant to the same design or plan used in committing the uncharged criminal acts.”

In the case before the court, a man was convicted in Santa Clara Superior Court of molesting his stepdaughter. The trial court allowed the sister of the victim to testify that she too had been molested by their stepfather years earlier. A Court of Appeal held that the trial court had erred in allowing the sister to testify to molestation.

Quin Denvir, the defense attorney in the high court case, called the ruling “very significant” because it substantially broadens the circumstances in which uncharged prior offenses can be introduced as evidence.

“They overruled (precedent) as a way to get around a ban on character evidence,” he said.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Gloria Folger Dehart said the new rule established by the court is “much more sensible” than the more restrictive 1984 ruling. “I think it should be helpful” in prosecutions, she said.

California has historically been among the toughest states in barring testimony from previous victims who did not file charges against a defendant.

The issue became controversial in the rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, who was acquitted after a judge refused to admit the testimony of three women who claimed that Smith either sexually assaulted or raped them.