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State v. Hawn6/30/2000
e inadmissible per Evid.R. 404(A). That inference is not avoided by excluding evidence of the victim's actual reasons for fearing the accused, per Apanovitch. Indeed, that exclusion operates to lessen the burden of the party who offers evidence of the victim's state of mind. As that rule is now applied, it permits the State to introduce evidence of the Defendant's bad character by inference, "through the back door," absent any responsibility for its accuracy.
With all due respect, we urge the Supreme Court to revisit the rule it applied in Apanovitch, Awkal, Frazier, and Reynolds permitting evidence that a murder victim feared the accused. As the court itself held in Greer, supra, permitting evidence of a murder victim's fear of an accused to prove that the accused committed the murder invites speculation, not rational inference.
The resulting benefits to the prosecution notwithstanding, the Apanovitch rule would benefit from some further review.
Nevertheless, we are required to follow the rule set out in Apanovitch and subsequent cases, and are thus required to hold that the trial court did not err when it ruled that evidence of Sue Jack's declarations that she feared Hawn were subject to the exception that Evid.R. 803(3) creates to the rule against hearsay. Whether the particular evidence that the State offered through its witnesses was properly admissible to prove that Hawn murdered Ms. Jack is another matter, however.
The fear that Sue Jack manifested might amount to non-verbal declarations of her state of mind for purposes of Evid.R. 803(3). However, neither that rule nor the other exceptions to the rule against hearsay are rules of relevance. The hearsay evidence that they permit must nevertheless be relevant.
Hawn objected that evidence that Sue Jack feared him as well as evidence of the hair pulling and black eye injuries she allegedly suffered at his hands, and the testimony of police witnesses concerning Sue Jack's domestic violence complaint, was irrelevant to prove the charges against him because it concerned matters wholly separate from the operative facts of the offense with which he was charged. The State responded that the evidence was nevertheless admissible per Evid.R. 404(B) as evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts probative of the perpetrator's identity, motive, intent, or the absence of mistake or accident.
The court overruled that objection. We find that the court abused its discretion in so doing.
To be held criminally liable, a person must be found to have engaged in conduct prohibited by law with the requisite degree of culpability, if any, that the law prescribes. R.C. 2901.21(A). Those two elements of criminal liability are proved by evidence of the operative facts and circumstances of the offense alleged in the indictment or criminal complaint. Introducing evidence of matters extrinsic to those operative facts in order to prove the offense alleged violates the defendant's rights to due process. In particular, the State is prohibited by Evid.R. 404(A) from offering extrinsic evidence of the Defendant's bad character to prove that the defendant engaged in conforming conduct to commit the crime alleged. However, the same evidence may be admissible per Evid.R 404(B) for the other, limited, collateral purposes specified therein, under certain circumstances. That rule states:
Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted 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 acci
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