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People v. Vilan10/24/2001
heir car eating in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. Another car entered the lot and Vilan, two other men and two women got out. One of the men, who appeared to be drunk, spoke provocatively to the victim and tried unsuccessfully to hit him. Vilan and other men attacked the victim, punching and kicking him. They stopped when the victim's girlfriend said she had called the police.
The last incident occurred in January 1998. Vilan was again at a party. So was a friend of the victim of the August 1996 incident. Vilan told the friend that he hated the victim of the August 1996 incident and that he had previously hit him. The friend merely looked at Vilan, who then punched him in the face three times.
The trial court admitted the evidence to show "opportunity, lack of self-defense, lack of accident lack of mistake."
Vilan here contests the trial court's ruling admitting this evidence. He begins by contending that the circumstances surrounding the assaults supplied sufficient proof that he had the requisite general intent. Therefore, evidence of the prior acts to show intent was cumulative. His point lacks merit.
In support of his position, he cites People v. Balcom (1994) 7 Cal.4th 414. In Balcom, the victim claimed that the defendant forced her to have sex by holding a gun to her head. The defendant claimed that no gun was present and the sex they had was consensual. The California Supreme Court held that the only issue was whether the act of holding the gun to the victim's head had occurred or not. The court further held that the victim's testimony that the defendant held a gun to her head constituted compelling evidence that the defendant had the requisite intent for rape. Therefore, evidence of other acts coming in to show his intent was cumulative. Here, in contrast, the acts of the defendant were not at issue, at least, not at this stage of the proceedings. What was at issue was his intent when he performed those acts. We disagree with Vilan's assertions that the circumstances of the assaults, to the extent they were laid out in the People's moving papers, constituted compelling evidence that Vilan had the intent necessary for the assaults, that his motive was evil and that he could not have been acting in self-defense.
Next, Vilan asserts that there were insufficient similarities between the other acts and the charged crimes to permit admission to show intent, motive or lack of self-defense. As the People correctly note, the least amount of similarities is necessary when evidence is introduced for these purposes. (People v. Ewoldt, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 402.) We turn our attention to People v. Haylock (1980) 113 Cal.App.3d 146. In Haylock, the defendant and her boyfriend, the victim, lived together in his mother's home. During an argument in the kitchen, the defendant drew a butcher knife out of the drawer to cut the victim. After the victim moved out of the mother's home and took up with another woman, the defendant confronted him with a butcher knife. The defendant then called the victim's mother and threatened to burn his car if she did not receive child support from him. She also said, "`I can't get your son, no one else will get him.'" (Id. at p. 149.) Finally, the defendant confronted the victim outside his new girlfriend's house and stabbed him to death, saying, "`You son of a bitch, this is what you need.'" (Ibid.) The defendant claimed that she stabbed the victim in self-defense, as he was beating her after he found her putting sugar in his gas tank. The Court of Appeal upheld the admission of the other acts, saying that they "involved quarrels or threats directed at the specific victim of the charged crime. They were highly proba
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