State v. Roquez

Under OEC 404(3), "other crimes" evidence cannot be used when the prior crime is insufficiently similar to the acts involved in the charged offenses, or when attempting to use one victim's state of mind to prove another's.

Defendant appealed a judgment of conviction for first-degree sodomy, and second-degree sexual abuse. The State argued for admission of evidence at a pre-trial hearing, and subsequently offered at trial, evidence that was meant to prove that the victim in the present case, P, had not consented to Defendant's sexual advances. The evidence was based upon a prior occasion, wherein Defendant had engaged in sexual intercourse with another woman, S, without her consent. On appeal, Defendant argued that "other crimes" evidence is inadmissible under OEC 404(3) to prove that, in the present case, Defendant acted with the same intent or knowledge as that needed in a different trial. The State responds that the "other crimes" evidence was admissible to prove both Defendant's intent to commit the charged acts and P's lack of consent to Defendant's sexual contact. The Court of Appeals found that the trial court should have excluded the other crimes evidence involving S, because the evidence was insufficient to establish Defendant's intent under the doctrine of chances or P's lack of consent, as one person's state of mind or consent cannot be presumed, based upon another person's lack of consent in a different scenario, under OEC 404(3). Reversed and remanded.