CrimLaw

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Why practicing criminal defense is so frustrating.

While speaking out of one side of its mouth the Virginia Court of Appeals states:

"[W]e hold appellant's admissions (1) that he "[had] dealt" unnamed drugs "to support [his] habit" and (2) "that he had 20 hits of heroin . . . he [had] sold" that day prior to the search were both irrelevant and highly prejudicial. The testimony that appellant admitted possessing and selling unspecified drugs and heroin from the residence was extremely prejudicial and was not "'so intimately connected and blended with the main facts [regarding appellant's possession and use of cocaine] . . . that they [could not] be departed from with propriety.'" Kirkpatrick v. Commonwealth, 211 Va. 269, 273, 176 S.E.2d 802, 806 (1970) (quoting Walker v. Commonwealth, 28 Va. (1 Leigh) 574, 576 (1829)). For these reasons, we hold the trial court erred in admitting Detective Key's testimony that appellant admitted possessing and selling unspecified "drugs" and "heroin."" (emphasis added)

Then out of the other side it states:

"[T]he Commonwealth's evidence of guilt was strong, and the admission of appellant's statement to Detective Key that he sold heroin and other drugs was harmless."

Brown v. Commonwealth, Record no. 3489-01-2 (May 6, 2003)(Unpublished).

The entire purpose of keeping "prior bad acts" (usually convictions) from being put before the jury is to keep the jury from convicting based on the fact that the Defendant is a bad person who needs to be put away whether he did what he was accused of or not. If this rule is violated in a manner which is "highly prejudicial / extremely prejudicial" there is absolutely no way that it is "harmless." When something is that prejudicial there is no way to tell if the conviction is actually based upon the evidence. If an appellate court asserts that the verdict is based upon one part of the evidence rather than the other or that the non-prejudicial evidence would have convinced the jury by itself the appellate court has replaced the constitutionally guaranteed judgment of the group of citizens in a jury with its own. This decision is not defendable. Which - I suspect - is the reason that it is an unpublished opinion.

UPDATE: Let me be clear here. I think that a jury would almost certainly find the Defendant guilty in a retrial; I just don't believe that the court appellate should decide that it would.

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