Quote:
Originally Posted by digamma
There's really clear evidence that the confrontation started for a different reason. The police today said the officer had no knowledge of the robbery and stopped them for some other reason. And of course, the defense may try to get it in. Maybe they should try to get it in. Granted I've only done two criminal trials in my life time and those were both about 13 years ago, but I don't see this one as a very close call.
The pretty simple comparison here, while not perfect, is to the rape defendant who wants to put on evidence that the victim slept with a guy down the street the day before. Most courts aren't going to come close to allowing that to be admitted.
|
We know the robbery wasn't the officer's motive for the initial contact, but we have no idea what the motive was for the initial physical confrontation.
Every jurisdiction has specific rules about the admissibility of prior sexual activity, that's a completely different thing. But it is true that the prosecution could not admit evidence of the robbery and then argue at closing, "this guy committed a robbery an hour before, he's obviously a terrible guy, so he must have attacked the officer here." That would be similar to the rape example and would be 100% inappropriate.