My work this summer and last summer has focused my
attention on California’s criminal law more than the criminal law of any other
state. Every once in a while, however,
an errant citechecking click or an event in the news will clue me in to the
criminal laws of other states. One such
citechecking click occurred during one of my earlier assignments, which led me
to find an interesting difference between the law of California and the law of
Iowa.
As a general rule, evidence about a defendant’s
prior bad actions cannot be admitted to show that the defendant had a
propensity to do bad actions. There are,
however, some exceptions to this rule.
Federal Rules of Evidence 413 and 414, for example, permit evidence of
the defendant’s commission of prior sexual assaults and child molestation in
cases where the defendant is charged with sexual assault or child molestation. In a similar manner, California Evidence Code,
section 1108 allows for the admission of prior commissions of sexual assault in
cases where the defendant is charged with sexual assault. These rules have been upheld despite
defendants’ arguments that allowing propensity evidence violates due
process. The main California case on
this point is People v. Falsetta, 986
P.2d 182 (1999). The Falsetta court held that it was not
clear that a ban on propensity evidence was a fundamental part of California’s
legal history, noting that courts had historically been far more lenient in
allowing evidence of propensity in sex offense cases. The court further noted that even if the principle
against propensity evidence were sufficiently fundamental in sex offense cases,
1108 did not unduly offend the principle because it was a narrow statute and
subject to the limitations of other evidentiary rules.
In contrast, the Iowa Supreme Court struck down a
similar rule, Iowa Code 701.11, in State
v. Cox, 781 N.W.2d 757 (2010). Recognizing
that the general history of propensity in sex offense cases suggested that
courts would sometimes allow evidence of prior sex offenses, the court clarified
that Iowa courts would typically require the evidence of the prior offenses to
be “relevant and material to some legitimate issue other than a general
propensity to commit wrongful acts.” Because
propensity evidence had never been admitted solely to show the defendant’s
propensity, and because there were longstanding “deep concerns” over admitting
this evidence, the court held that 701.11 was unconstitutional.
After an initial reading, both of these cases seem
to illustrate the importance of history in making an initial determination of
whether a law violates due process, with the Falsetta court relying on ambiguity indicated by several cases and
treatises and the Cox court relying
on a rule drawn from a number of cases. But
both of these cases also illustrate the limitations of history in determining
whether a law violates due process. The Falsetta court noted that there were a
number of limitations on 1108, with other rules still limiting evidence that is
unduly prejudicial and the rule only applying to sexual assault
prosecutions. On the other hand, the
Iowa statute contained the same limitations, but the Cox court still concluded that it violated due process.
The courts seemed to reach these different
conclusions by focusing on different values throughout their due process
analysis. The Falsetta court focused on the importance of successfully
prosecuting crimes that are typically committed in private, noting that
propensity evidence will help victims bolster their credibility compared to the
defendant. The Cox court focused on the inherently prejudicial nature of
propensity evidence and noted that past crimes are not probative of future
crimes. When two courts value
fundamentally different concepts, it should not be surprising when they end up
reaching different conclusions.
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