finding insufficient instruction as to the use of other-crimes evidence harmless because “the evidence of guilt, 30 independent of the other-crime evidence, was nearly overwhelming,” such that the inadequate instruction “did not tip the scales”
How later courts described this case
- finding insufficient instruction as to the use of other-crimes evidence harmless because “the evidence of guilt, 30 independent of the other-crime evidence, was nearly overwhelming,” such that the inadequate instruction “did not tip the scales”
- stating that determinations on admissibility of other-crime evidence are best left to trial court's discretion; trial court's decision is entitled to deference and is to be reviewed under abuse of discretion standard
- finding no plain error when evidence of guilt that was indepen dent of erroneously admitted other-crime evidence was “nearly overwhelming”
- finding insufficient instruction as to other crimes evidence harm less because, in “consideration of the near overwhelming evidence of guilt,” instruction “did not tip the scales”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
O’HERN, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the Court for reasons different from those stated by the majority. The majority reasons that the Appellate Division erred in substituting its judgment for that of the trial court on its discretionary ruling concerning the admission of other-crimes evidence but that the error was harmless. I cannot agree that the conviction can be salvaged under harmless-error analysis. To say that the Appellate Division erred in reversing the trial court is to say that the evidence of other crimes should not have come in. If the evidence should not have come in, the admission of the evidence in this case could not have been harmless.
*498 The [harmless error] rule is essential "to conserve judicial resources,” but it must be applied with caution so as to assure “the vitality of the rules and procedures designed to assure a fair trial.”
There is enormous potential for prejudice in the improper admission of a defendant’s prior convictions. Commentators have suggested that such error should be considered harmful per se. See The Riddle of Harmless Error [1970], where Chief Justice Traynor wrote:
The erroneous admission of evidence of other crimes also carries such a high risk of prejudice as ordinarily to call for reversal.
Prior convictions tend to have an incalculably potent impact on the minds of jurors, both because they are evidence of the defendant’s criminal proclivities and therefore of the likelihood that he is guilty as charged, and because they can prejudice the jury against the defendant and lead them to convict him as a “bad man” regardless of the weight of evidence.
[State v. Atkins, 151 N.J.Super. 555, 570 , 377 A.2d 718 (App.Div.1977), rev’d primarily on issue of intoxication charge and that evidence of burglary was "undisputed,” 78 N.J. 454 , 396 A.2d 1122 (1979) (internal citations omitted) (emphasis added in original).]
Because the evidence of the rape was so strongly disputed, this conviction cannot be salvaged under traditional harmless-error doctrine if it was wrong to have admitted the evidence.
I believe that we should affirm the judgment of conviction in a candid recognition that under our rules governing interlocutory relief, the Appellate Division was in effect sitting as a trial court determining the admissibility of evidence. In our post-trial review of such a matter, we should defer to the discretionary rulings of the Appellate Division on the admissibility of evidence as though it were sitting as a trial court. We otherwise produce an intolerable system of justice under which jurors and parties participate in a trial in which deference may not be given to the evidentiary rulings under which the trial was conducted. The inverted question on appeal becomes whether the intermediate level court should have deferred to the trial court, not whether the discretion *499 ary.rulings under which the trial court took place would not constitute an abuse of the discretion to admit evidence.
This is a case in which reasonable minds might differ about the Rule 404 decision to admit the other-crimes evidence. In balancing the probative worth of the evidence against its prejudicial effect, the Appellate Division reached a different balance than did the trial court. The Appellate Division having established the ground rules for this trial, we should defer to its ruling.