Gorski v. State

Proctor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant was convicted, under a two count indictment, of sodomy and assault and battery. He was sentenced to a term of 10 years. This appeal from that judgment and sentence raises two questions: (1) Did the trial court err in permitting a police officer to testify concerning admissions made to him by appellant of involvement in other criminal offenses ?

(2) Did the trial court err in permitting the State to impeach appellant by interrogating him about a case in Prince George’s County in which a jury had found appellant guilty of ²⁰² sodomy but in which no judgment or sentence had been entered and the time for taking an appeal had not expired ? In response to a question by the State concerning statements allegedly made by appellant a police officer, over objection, was permitted to testify that “I asked him if he was the same Stanley Morris Gorski that was arrested in 1957 for indecent exposure in Montgomery County. * * * He stated that he was. * * * I asked the defendant if he had a sex problem and he stated that he did. * * * I asked him if he was presently participating in indecent exposures similar to what he had been * * * charged with * * * in 1957. He stated that he was and that he exposed himself several times in Washington, D.C. and that he would do it from his apartment window where he lived. He stated that he also frequently masturbated.” In Wentz v. State, 159 Md. 161, 163-166 , the Court of Appeals (p. 164) stated the general rule to be that “ ‘Offenses against other persons than the one against whom the offense with which the defendant is charged was committed are inadmissible.’” (citing Wharton on Criminal Evidence (10th Ed.), p. 170). “The theory on which evidence of other offenses is excluded is that the jury may be misled into a conviction for an offense for which the defendant is not indicted, or that he may be prejudiced by the accumulation of offenses which he is not prepared to defend.” (p. 165).

Quoting from Cothron v. State, 138 Md. 101, 110 , the Court of Appeals further stated that the exceptions to the general rule are “ ‘to prove the specific crime charged when it (the proffered evidence) tends to establish (1) motive, (2) intent, (3) absence of mistake or accident, (4) a common scheme or plan embracing the commission of two or more crimes so related to each other that proof of one tends to establish the other, (5) the identity of the person charged with the commission of a crime on trial.’ ” In Berger v. State, 179 Md. 410, 414-15 , the Court of Appeals said “* * * However, on account of the misleading probative force and dangerous tendency of testimony of this kind, its introduction should be subjected to rigid scrutiny by the court. * * * to come within the exception to the rule that evidence of previous offenses is irrelevant, there must appear be ²⁰³ tween the previous offense and that with which the defendant is