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Lawrence v. State5/5/2000
This appeal involves the introduction of evidence of the defendant's prior bad acts. Melisa Jessica Lawrence was convicted of second-degree theft. She formerly had worked for Mark King, an agent of State Farm Insurance Company. The indictment charged that in May 1997, as an employee of Mark King, she had received certain premium payments from customers and had failed to remit those payments to the company. Before her trial, Lawrence filed a request pursuant to Rule 404(b), Ala. R. Evid., for notice of evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts the prosecutor intended to introduce at trial. Rule 404(b) provides:
"Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident, provided that upon request by the accused, the prosecution in a criminal case shall provide reasonable notice in advance of trial, or during trial if the court excuses pretrial notice on good cause shown, of the general nature of any such evidence it intends to introduce at trial." (Emphasis added.)
Pursuant to Rule 404(b), the prosecutor notified Lawrence's attorney that the State intended to introduce evidence of Lawrence's nine misdemeanor convictions in 1996 for negotiating worthless instruments.
During the trial, Lawrence testified on direct examination that she had had no financial problems while she was working at the insurance company because during that time, she said, her mother was giving her money. On cross-examination, the prosecutor asked Lawrence about her convictions for negotiating worthless instruments. During re-direct examination, defense counsel elicited from Lawrence testimony that the worthless-check convictions occurred during a time when she was having marital problems and that some of the worthless checks were written to draw from a joint account that she said her former husband had closed without her knowledge. During re-cross-examination, the prosecutor asked Lawrence whether "this the only time [she had] had this problem." Lawrence stated: "I am not saying that it happened all at one time there. It happened in a spread of a period of time." The prosecutor then questioned Lawrence about other instances of negotiating worthless checks, instances for which she had not been convicted, and which had occurred from 1991 to 1997.
Defense counsel objected to the questioning because the prosecutor had not provided notice, pursuant to Rule 404(b), that she intended to present evidence of any prior worthless-check instances that did not involve convictions. Defense counsel also moved for a mistrial, on the grounds that Lawrence had been substantially prejudiced by the jury's hearing the questions about other instances of Lawrence's writing bad checks. The prosecutor argued that there was no discovery violation because, the prosecutor said, she was attempting to rebut Lawrence's testimony in which Lawrence had explained her 1996 convictions. Specifically, the prosecutor claimed that Lawrence stated that she had negotiated worthless checks only during a specific period of time; therefore, the prosecutor argued, she should be permitted to show that the conduct had occurred over an extended period of time. The trial court listened to the examination of Lawrence and concluded that she had testified that her writing of bad checks had occurred "over a spread of time." The trial court agreed that the evidence regarding other instances of writing bad checks was not admissible as rebuttal evidence, but denied defense counsel's motion for a mi
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