16.21 - A. To Show Intent Or The Absence Of Accident Or Mistake

• Jurisdiction: New York

A. To Show Intent or the Absence of Accident
or Mistake

With regard to the delineated five categories, evidence of other crimes has been admitted to show intent.²²⁶⁴ However, where intent is not an element of the crime charged (e.g., incest, statutory rape), evidence of similar uncharged misconduct should not be allowed in evidence to show the defendant’s state of mind, since such is irrelevant.²²⁶⁵ In addition, to be admissible, evidence of prior misconduct to establish intent must show more than merely a “generalized intent” (or an inclination or proclivity) to commit the charged crime.²²⁶⁶ On the question of criminal negligence, proof of a driver’s license suspension is admissible to the unreasonableness of the driver backing fast into a crosswalk when he has been forbidden to drive at all.²²⁶⁷

The crucial consideration in allowing the introduction of evidence of an uncharged crime to prove intent is the degree of similarity between the charged crime and the uncharged crime, since the purpose of allowing such evidence is not to prove the commission of the crime charged, but rather to establish the defendant’s state of mind.²²⁶⁸ Evidence of other crimes has also been admitted to negate a claim of accident or mistake where, for example, evidence of past child abuse is introduced in a prosecution for a child abuse homicide;²²⁶⁹ or where evidence of 15 prior transactions was admitted where the defendant, a department of motor vehicles cashier, took money and then issued false documentation;²²⁷⁰ or where evidence of prior drug sales by the defendant was properly received to rebut his claim that although he possessed drugs for his own use, he had never sold drugs, only stolen property.²²⁷¹ Similarly, evidence of a defendant’s prior crimes has been admitted to rebut the defendant’s insanity defense²²⁷² and advance the prosecution theory that the defendant’s explosive personality, as manifested in past violent crimes, led him to commit the crime, as opposed to the defense theory that he suffered from temporary insanity.²²⁷³

Since it is the duplication of the specific conduct that makes it relevant to the issue of the defendant’s state of mind, it does not matter whether the similar crime occurred before or after the crime for which the defendant is being tried. Repetition and a lack of intent are inversely related to each other.²²⁷⁴ Thus, where an alleged robbery accomplice took the stand and offered an innocent explanation for his presence at the scene of a gas station robbery, it was proper to allow the prosecutor to introduce evidence that the defendant, driving the same car, participated with the same accomplice in another gas station holdup 18 days later.²²⁷⁵ It is enough if the evidence tends to establish the prior or subsequent criminal conduct.²²⁷⁶

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Notes:

^[2264] . People v. Denson, 26 N.Y.3d 179, 21 N.Y.S.3d 179 (2015); People v. Mees, 47 N.Y.2d 997, 420 N.Y.S.2d 214 (1979); People v. Gabb, 11 A.D.3d 556, 557, 782 N.Y.S.2d 813 (2d Dep’t 2004); People v. Bierenbaum, 301 A.D.2d 119, 149, 150, 748 N.Y.S.2d 563 (1st Dep’t 2002) (prejudicial effect of evidence of marital strife and prior incident in which defendant allegedly choked his wife did not outweigh probative value in homicide trial because evidence went to defendant’s intent. “The proof here...