Preview:

STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS


PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v JOHN RODNEY McRAE, Defendant-Appellant.

UNPUBLISHED January 12, 2001

No. 217052 Clare Circuit Court LC No. 98-001151-FC

Before: Talbot, P.J., and Hood and Gage, JJ. PER CURIAM. Following a jury trial, defendant was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder, MCL 750.316(1)(a); MSA 28.548(1)(a). The trial court sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole. Defendant appeals as of right. We affirm. The fifteen-year-old male victim was reported missing in 1987. The victim's skeletal remains were discovered in 1997 on property where defendant lived at the time of the victim's disappearance. The prosecution alleged at trial that defendant killed the victim, performed sexually sadistic acts on him, dismembered his body and then buried it under a pile of goat manure to evade cadaver dogs. Defendant denied that he killed the victim, claiming that he had moved out of the state before the victim's death. Defendant first argues that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting evidence that he murdered, partially dismembered, and buried another young boy in 1950. The trial court ruled that the evidence was admissible under MRE 404(b) to prove defendant's motive, intent, premeditation and deliberation. This Court reviews a trial court's decision to admit other-acts evidence for an abuse of discretion. People v Crawford, 458 Mich 376, 383; 582 NW2d 785 (1998). An abuse of discretion exists only when an unprejudiced person, considering the facts on which the trial court acted, would conclude that there was no justification or excuse for the ruling. People v Hoffman, 225 Mich App 103, 105; 570 NW2d 146 (1997). Pursuant to MRE 404(b)(1) evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is admissible if the evidence is (1) offered for a proper purpose other than to prove the defendant's character or propensity to commit a crime (2) relevant to an issue of fact or consequence at trial, and (3) sufficiently probative to outweigh the danger of unfair prejudice. People v VanderVliet, 444 Mich 52, 55; 508 NW2d 114 (1993), amended 445 Mich 1205 (1994). Accord Crawford, supra -1

at 385; People v Starr, 457 Mich 490, 496; 577 NW2d 673 (1998). Only one of the purposes for which the other-acts evidence is offered "needs to be a proper, noncharacter reason that compels admission for the testimony . . . ." Id. at 501. Contrary to defendant's contention, the prosecutor did not offer or use the contested evidence to establish that he acted in conformity with a propensity to commit bad acts. Rather, the prosecution used the evidence to counteract defendant's general denial that he murdered the victim by establishing that the murder was motivated by sexual sadism. See Starr supra at 501. Proof of motive in a prosecution for murder, although not essential, is always relevant, and evidence of other acts to prove motive is among the purposes for which such evidence is expressly admissible under MRE 404(b)(1). People v Rice (On Remand), 235 Mich App 429, 440; 597 NW2d 843 (1999). "Motive" for purposes of 404(b) was defined in Hoffman, supra at 106; 570 NW2d 146 (1997) as: Cause or reason that moves the will and induces action. An inducement, or that which leads or temps the mind to indulge in a criminal act. [] In common usage intent and "motive" are not infrequently regarded as one and the same thing. In law there is a distinction between them. "Motive" is the moving power that impels to action for a definite result. Intent is the purpose to use a particular means to effect such result. "Motive" is that which incites or stimulates a person to do an act. [Citations omitted.] In Hoffman, this Court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting testimony from two women whom the defendant had allegedly assaulted and battered and to whom he had expressed a general hatred toward women to establish that the defendant's actions against the victim were motivated by misogyny (hatred of women). Id. at 104-110. In rejecting the defendant's contention that the evidence was only relevant to establish his character or propensity toward violence, this Court held that the evidence was "relevant and material to defendant's motive for his unprovoked, cruel, and sexually demeaning attack on his victim." Id. at 107, 109 110. This Court also noted that "absent the other-acts evidence establishing motive, the jurors may have found it difficult to believe the victim's testimony that defendant committed the depraved and otherwise inexplicable actions" and that the evidence "also tends to counter defendant's self-serving testimony that the victim provoked the incident by stealing his money." Id. at 110. In this case, several prosecution witnesses testified that the victim's skeletal remains contained numerous cut marks; that some marks indicated a successful attempt to cut the body in half in the lumbar region; that there were at least three cut marks on the inside of the sacrum in an up and down pattern; that the victim's foot bones were found inside his socks with a ropes tied around their tops; and that the victim's unbuttoned and unzipped blue jeans were found without leg bones inside them. Clinical and forensic psychologists testified that the cuts in the sacrum suggesting penetration of the anal or urogenital area with a knife, ropes indicating that the victim may have been restrained prior to death, and the blue jeans without leg bones suggesting that the victim was naked except for socks, constituted compelling evidence that defendant's actions were motivated by sexual sadism.

-2

In an attempt to provide an explanation for why defendant perpetrated this seemingly random and inexplicable crime, Hoffman, supra at 108, the prosecutor presented experts who drew the same conclusion with respect to the 1950 homicide in which defendant: choked the 8

Download PEOPLE OF MI V JOHN RODNEY MCRAE.pdf

Michigan Law