I don’t have the details. Described in varying ways, but basically to get more convictions more easily.
“Tendency” evidence (“The defendant tends to be the kind of guy that rapes kids”) is normally very strictly restricted, to prevent prejudicing the case. Evidence that lots of people have made the same complaint, and that the guy has three previous convictions, and is facing several identical charges, is normally not heard by the jury: each case is tried on it’s evidence.
The fore-shadowed changes will make it easier to run multiple charges and introduce evidence of other complaints.
Restricted to sex-abuse cases because (1) they still think it’s generally a bad idea, and (2) in historical sex-abuse cases there is sometimes a lot of available tendency evidence, and very little eye-witness or physical evidence.
Me neither. I know a previous conviction doesn’t mean someone will 100% reoffend, but considering how frequent reoffending is, it should absolutely be mentioned.
My mom was once in a jury for a guy accused of sexual assault. They determined there just wasn’t enough evidence to convict him. They didn’t find out until later that he had previously been convicted of another sexual assault. I think it’s wrong to keep that information from the jury.
I think it’s more of “If you can’t prove your case with the existing evidence, you can’t prove your case.”
Though I think previous convictions should be OK to bring up. From the OP, I thought it was going to be some “profiling” crap - our in-house expert said the criminal probably lives alone, and this person lives alone, and somehow that becomes evidence of guilt.
Since 2011, the US federal rules of evidence have permitted the admission of evidence of prior sexual assaults in sexual assault cases, and prior child molestation in child molestation cases. Not limited to prior convictions, I don’t think.
That’s been a long enough time that there might be some commentary on how those rules have worked in practice, but I have not looked.
Because their prejudicial effect outweighs their probative value.
You’re on trial for housebreaking. You have several previous convictions for housebreaking. Relevant? You might think so, and so might a jury. But bear in mind that there may be many people in the same city who have several previous convictions for housebreaking. If your convictions are evidence that tend to show that you committed the particular housebreaking for which you are now being tried, then their convictions are equally evidence that they committed this particular housebreatking. And evidence tending to show that they committed this housebreaking crime must raise a reasonable doubt as to whether you did. And a reasonable doubt is all you need to be acquitted.
So the probative value of this particular fact is very weak, while its prejudicial effect is strong; therefore it gets excluded.
Different if the crimes are strikingly similar. If the CCTV shows that this particular housebreaking was committed by a man wearing a mask of Donald J. Trump and a feather headdress, and you have previous convictions for housebreaking while so attired, that would be admissible.
“It must have been Sosndso, he did this before”. Which now becomes probable cause for arresting S., for which there was pre-existing admissible evidence before the crime was even committed.
No, it’s not limited to prior convictions. Over the last two years I’ve been involved with two federal trials where this rule was invoked; both involved a longtime sexual predator, with many victims, but since everybody was coming forward decades after the abuse, there was no physical evidence. What convicted the defendant in each case was the overwhelming number of people coming forward.
The theory is that a sexual predator tends to have many victims, but there may be a lack of specific evidence to independently prove each case, especially if victims wait to outcry. So the rule goes against the typical rules by allowing “propensity” evidence. Drug dealers may tend to be repeat offenders, too, but we wouldn’t think to let the government convict a dealer by bringing in stories of past instances. Due to the uniquely sordid nature of sex crimes, the federal government has carved out an exception for them.
I meant specifically for sexual abuse. For pretty much the reasons given by Moriarty. And for how frequently I see previous convictions in the records of serial rapists and serial killers.
Because the same reasoning applies. If A’s previous record of sexual assault is evidence that he perpetrated the assault now being tried, then B’s previous record of sexual assault is likewise evidence that B perpetrated it, and similarly for C, D, E, F, G and many others. Once you accept this you see immediately that the probative value of A’s previous record is negligible, whereas its prejudicial effect - as, no offence, your own post illustrates - is considerable. Therefore, it’s excluded.
But the difference also gets down to what you typically need to prove in the trial. For housebreaking, in the example above, generally it’s pretty easy to prove that a crime was committed, the problem is in proving that this particular person did it. Defenses are generally of the “it wasn’t me, I was driving my grandmother to dialysis that day” type. So past convictions are more prejudicial than not, since lots of people have convictions for housebreaking.
But for sexual abuse/assault, there’s usually not a question of who the alleged perpetrator is - the victim generally knew the person ahead of time, so the difficulty isn’t in proving who did it, it’s no proving there was a crime at all. So defenses are of the “That never happened/it was consensual” type. So prior convictions don’t tend to incriminate everyone else convicted of the same crime, since the identity of the perpetrator isn’t in question.