PEOPLE OF MI V ANTERIO WILLIAMS
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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
UNPUBLISHED
June 4, 1999
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v
No. 216441
Jackson Circuit Court
LC No. 98 88918 FH
ANTERIO WILLIAMS,
Defendant-Appellee.
Before: Gribbs, P.J., and Kelly and Hood, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Defendant was charged with assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder,
MCL 750.84; MSA 28.279, aggravated stalking, MCL 750.411i; MSA 28.643(9), and being a third
felony offender, MCL 769.11; MSA 28.1083. In a pre-trial motion, plaintiff moved to introduce
evidence that defendant had previously assaulted the complainant. The trial court denied plaintiff's
motion to introduce the evidence of defendant's other "bad act" pursuant to MRE 404(b). Plaintiff filed
an application for leave to appeal to this Court, which application was denied. The Supreme Court
remanded the case to this Court for consideration as on leave granted, and we affirm.
Defendant allegedly severely beat the complainant, a former girlfriend, by hitting her in the face
numerous times with his fist, splitting her jaw. The complainant required hospitalization and corrective
surgery. According to testimony at the preliminary examination, defendant had physically assaulted the
complainant on approximately four other occasions. On one of those occasions, in 1996, defendant
pushed the complainant, causing her to hit her head on the wood portion of a couch. She suffered a left
frontal hematoma, which required her to be transported to the University of Michigan hospital for a
craniotomy. Plaintiff sought to introduce the evidence of this prior assault. The trial court denied the
admission of the evidence.
The admissibility of other "bad-acts" evidence is within the trial court's discretion. People v
Catanzarite, 211 Mich App 573, 579; 536 NW2d 570 (1995). We review a trial court's decision to
admit or deny evidence for a clear abuse of discretion. People v Crawford, 458 Mich 376, 383; 582
NW2d 785 (1998). An abuse of discretion exists if an unprejudiced person, considering the facts on
which the trial court acted, would say that there was no justification or excuse for the ruling. People v
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Ullah, 216 Mich App 669, 673; 550 NW2d 568 (1996). We decline to accept the invitation of both
plaintiff and amicus curiae to review the trial court's decision de novo. We do so because it is well
settled that a trial court's refusal to admit evidence under MRE 404(b) is reviewed for an abuse of
discretion. Crawford, supra; People v Starr, 457 Mich 490, 494; 577 NW2d 673 (1998). We do
acknowledge that the trial court failed to set forth with any specificity its reasons for declining to admit
the evidence. We do not agree, however, that this indicates that the trial court ignored the law or failed
to review the appropriate considerations. The trial court was not required to articulate the reasons for
its discretionary ruling with regard to the evidence, see Johnson v Corbet, 423 Mich 304, 328, n 14;
377 NW2d 713 (1985)1 and People v Shields, 200 Mich App 554, 558; 504 NW2d 711 (1993),
and from our review of the record, it is obvious that the trial court was fully aware of all of the issues
and the arguments of the parties. It was presented with the parties' briefs and heard and participated in
the arguments. Therefore, we need only review the trial court decision to determine if it was an abuse of
discretion to fail to allow admittance of the evidence.
The elements of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder are: (1) an attempt
or offer with force or violence to do corporal hurt to another; coupled with (2) an intent to do great
bodily harm less than murder. People v Bailey, 451 Mich 657, 668-669; 549 NW2d 325, amended
453 Mich 1204 (1996). It is a specific intent crime. People v Parcha, 227 Mich App 236, 239; 575
NW2d 316 (1997). The prosecution therefore needs to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
defendant specifically intended to do great bodily harm less than murder to the complainant. An intent
to harm can be inferred from defendant's conduct itself. Id.
In this case, in addition to relying on the nature of defendant's conduct to prove intent, the
prosecution sought additional proof of intent. Specifically, it wanted to introduce evidence of the
previous assault in order to prove that defendant intended serious bodily harm to the complainant during
the assault at issue. MRE 404(b) provides:
(1) Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the
character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith. It may, however,
be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent,
preparation, scheme, plan, or system in doing an act, knowledge, identity, or absence of
mistake or accident when the same is material, whether such other crimes, wrongs, or
acts are contemporaneous with, or prior or subsequent to the conduct at issue in the
case. [Emphasis added.]
In People v VanderVliet, 444 Mich 52; 508 NW2d 114 (1993), amended 445 Mich 1205 (1994),
the Court clarified the standard for the admission of evidence of other crimes or wrongs. The evidence
must be relevant to an issue other than propensity under MRE 404(b); must be relevant under MRE
402; and must not be more prejudicial than probative under MRE 403. Id. at 74-75. In addition, the
trial court, upon request, may provide a limiting instruction. Id. at 75.
Under this formulation, the prosecution bears the initial burden of establishing relevance
of the evidence to prove a fact within one of the exceptions to the general exclusionary
rule of MRE 404(b). Where the only relevance is to character or the defendant's
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propensity to commit the crime, the evidence must be excluded. Where, however, the
evidence also tends to prove some fact other than character, admissibility depends upon
whether its probative value outweighs its prejudicial effect, taking into account the
efficacy of a limiting instruction in cushioning the prejudicial effect of the evidence.
[Crawford, supra at 385.]
Under the first prong of the VanderVliet standard, the evidence must be offered for a proper
purpose. Here, the prosecutor offered the evidence primarily for the purpose of proving defendant's
intent.2 Intent is clearly a proper purpose under MRE 404(b). However, other acts evidence is not
admissible simply because a proper enumerated purpose is articulated under MRE 404(b). Crawford,
supra at 387. Under the second prong of the VanderVliet standard, the court must also determine that
the evidence is relevant.
MRE 401 defines relevant evidence as "evidence having any tendency to make the existence of
any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it
would be without the evidence." MRE 402 provides that "all relevant evidence is admissible." Here,
the prosecutor had to prove defendant’s intent to cause great bodily harm to the complainant. The
prosecutor anticipated that defendant would assert the defense that he did not intend serious injury to
the victim. The evidence at issue is relevant. It is related to an element that must be proved by the
prosecution and is probative of that issue. Id. at 388-389. The evidence demonstrates that defendant
more probably than not meant to cause serious bodily harm to the complainant. Defendant hit the
complainant about the face numerous times during the assault at issue, knowing that he was capable of
causing serious harm to her because he had previously done so and knew about her prior condition.
The prosecution did not wish to use the evidence only to demonstrate propensity. In other words, it
would not be used to show that because defendant previously assaulted the complainant, he must have
done so in this instance in conformity with his character and propensity. We note that there is simply no
dispute that defendant committed an assault on the complainant. Rather, the dispute is over what
injuries the defendant intended or did not intend to inflict.
Under the third prong of VanderVliet, the trial court must determine whether the danger of
unfair prejudice substantially outweighs the probative value of the evidence in view of the availability of
other means of proof and other facts appropriate for making a decision of this kind under MRE 403.
VanderVliet, supra at 75. The trial court apparently concluded that the evidence was more prejudicial
than probative. The trial court stated, "[t]his area is a very dangerous situation for the Defendant and
the People to get reversed on. I don't think its necessary for this particular case." In this case, the
evidence was obviously prejudicial. Moreover, we note that there is a special danger of unfair prejudice
when a juror learns that a defendant has previously committed the same bad act, here an assault on the
complainant, as that for which he is on trial. See Crawford, supra at 398. The risk is severe that the
juror will use the evidence for an improper purpose, such as to convict on the basis that defendant is a
bad person or convicted criminal. Id. In addition to a high risk of prejudice in this case, there were
other available means of proving intent. Specifically, the intent to cause serious bodily harm can be
inferred from the defendant's conduct of repeatedly striking the victim in the face. Parcha, supra.
Moreover, we also note that given that defendant is additionally charged with aggravated stalking, the
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jury will be aware of the prior relationship of the parties and the fact that defendant violated a personal
protection order to get to the complainant. The jury can infer an intent to seriously harm the
complainant from that evidence. Therefore, although we may have decided the issue differently, we are
mindful that we are reviewing for an abuse of discretion. We cannot find that the trial court abused its
discretion in not allowing the evidence. We cannot determine that there was no justification or excuse
for the trial court's ruling where the evidence is arguably more prejudicial than probative, and is arguably
inadmissible under MRE 404(b).
Affirmed.
/s/ Roman S. Gribbs
/s/ Michael J. Kelly
/s/ Harold Hood
1
In Johnson, supra, the Court stated:
While this Court is reluctant to impose upon the trial courts a boiler-plate requirement to
state reasons for discretionary rulings, it is manifest that appellate deference to the
exercise of trial court discretion is made unnecessarily difficult, and often impossible,
when trial courts fail to articulate the reasons for a discretionary ruling . . . .
2
Plaintiff also claimed the evidence was relevant to the absence of mistake in his actions.
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