State v. Wilson, 21230
| Decision Date | 14 May 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 21230,21230 |
| Citation | 274 S.C. 635,266 S.E.2d 426 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. Julius A. WILSON, Appellant. |
Staff Atty. Tara D. Shurling, of S.C. Appellate Defense Commission, Columbia, for appellant.
Atty. Gen. Daniel R. McLeod and Asst. Atty. Gen. Brian P. Gibbes, Columbia, and Sol. Capers G. Barr, III, Charleston, for respondent.
Julius A. Wilson was convicted of first degree criminal sexual conduct and burglary, with a recommendation of mercy. Wilson appeals the conviction, asserting that the lower court erred in allowing into evidence testimony relating to subsequent crimes allegedly committed by him. We agree and reverse.
The incident for which Wilson was tried involved a sexual assault which occurred in the victim's residence in August of 1978. The victim was awakened by a blow to her head and forced to submit to sexual acts by an assailant she described as a black male about 5'8 , 160 pounds, with short cropped hair and medium dark skin. She was unable to identify Wilson as her attacker. Fingerprints lifted from the outside of bedroom windows at the victim's residence were identified as Wilson's. However, the State could not show when the fingerprints were made. Apparently in order to bolster Wilson's identity, the State introduced testimony indicating he had been positively identified in relation to other charges, an attempted criminal sexual conduct and a peeping-tom offense, which occurred in the same vicinity more than three months later. This testimony included that of the victim of the attempted criminal sexual conduct, her neighbor who identified Wilson, and the police officers who witnessed the peeping-tom incident.
It is well established that:
"(E)vidence of other crimes is competent to prove the specific crime charged when it tends to establish, (1) motive; (2) intent; (3) the absence of mistake or accident; (4) a common scheme or plan embracing the commission of two or more crimes so related to each other that proof of one tends to establish the others; (5) the identity of the person charged with the commission of the crime on trial." State v. Lyle, 125 S.C. 406, 118 S.E. 803 (1923). See, also, State v. Rivers, 273 S.C. 75, 254 S.E.2d 299 (1979), and State v. Anderson, 253 S.C. 168, 169 S.E.2d 706, cert. den. 396 U.S. 948, 90 S.Ct. 386, 24 L.Ed.2d 253 (1969).
Just as in Rivers, the State maintains that the evidence was properly admitted because it was offered (1) to prove the identity of the assailant and (2) to show a common scheme or plan. There the court said:
"For admission under either theory, our cases have required that the relationship between the acts must have established such a connection between them as would logically exclude or tend to exclude the possibility that the present crime could have been committed by another person."
The State's evidence does not meet this test.
The Lyle court emphasized that evidence of other...
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State v. Bailey
...two or more closely related crimes; (5) the identity of the defendant. State v. Lyle, 125 S.C. 406, 118 S.E. 803 (1923); State v. Wilson, S.C., 266 S.E.2d 426 (1980). We would agree that the evidence at trial would not have been admissible under Lyle since the testimony does not connect app......
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State v. Anderson
...between the acts, the accused is to be given the benefit of the doubt and the evidence should not be admitted. State v. Wilson, 274 S.C. 635, 266 S.E.2d 426 (1980). This inference of guilt is a powerful thought difficult to resist even for the fairest of jurors, no matter the court's instru......
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State v. Johnson, 22777
...if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of undue prejudice or misleading the jury. See, State v. Wilson, 274 S.C. 635, 266 S.E.2d 426 (1980). Implicit in the rules of evidence which permit the introduction of prior bad acts or crimes into evidence is the prerequisit......
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State v. Bostick
...tendency of such evidence is to raise a legally spurious presumption of guilt in the minds of the jurors." State v. Wilson, 274 S.C. 635, 637, 266 S.E.2d 426, 427 (1980). "When, as here, the previous alleged bad act is strikingly similar to the one for which the [defendant] is being tried, ......