# State v. Hamilton

> Utah Supreme Court · January 29, 1992 · 827 P.2d 232

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9559656

## Case

- **Full name:** STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. George Wesley HAMILTON, Defendant and Appellant
- **Court:** Utah Supreme Court
- **Decided:** January 29, 1992
- **Citations:** 827 P.2d 232; 1992 WL 23948
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stewart
- **Judges:** Zimmerman, Stewart, Hall, Howe, Durham
- **Cited by:** 167 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9559656

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that even if the evidence's danger of unfair prejudice substantially outweighed its probative value, its admission was harmless
- holding that an error is harmless if "there is no reasonable likelihood that the error affected the outcome of the proceedings"
- stating even if evidence is erroneously admitted, it cannot result in reversible error unless error is harmful

## Opinion text

STEWART, Justice
(concurring).
In my view, the trial court properly rejected the defendant’s proposed instruction with respect to the weight the jury could give to the fingerprint evidence because the fingerprint evidence was not the only evidence linking the defendant to the crime and, more important, because the proposed instruction could have given the jurors the *241 impression that they should consider only the fingerprint evidence on that point. On the facts of this case, the instruction could have been confusing and misleading.
Nevertheless, an instruction on fingerprint evidence along the lines of that proposed by the defendant may well be appropriate, or even mandatory, when there is no other significant evidence pertaining to identity. For example, if the only evidence linking a defendant to a crime is fingerprint evidence and ambiguous circumstantial evidence as to when the fingerprint was impressed, an instruction would be appropriate and, perhaps, required.
In addition, I do not believe that the admission of Rita Weatherby’s statement that the defendant had hit her, made in the context of explaining why she had changed the alibi story that she had given to the police, was error. This Court has been careful to require that prior crime evidence have special relevance to the facts of the case, and I certainly do not suggest departing from that fundamental rule of fairness. Nevertheless, in this case, I believe that the statement was within our rules allowing for admissibility since it was highly relevant to explain Weatherby’s alibi stories. See generally State v. Forsyth, 641 P.2d 1172 (Utah 1982). In my view, the majority’s application of the harmless error doctrine is superfluous.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9559656. Public record. Not legal advice.