Other acts evidence; MRE 404(b); People v Denson; People v VanderVliet; Unfair prejudice; MRE 403; Identity; People v Yost; People v Golochowicz; People v McMillan; A common plan, scheme, or system; People v Sabin (After Remand)

[This opinion was previously released as an unpublished opinion on 12/17/20.] The court held that the trial court did not err by granting defendant’s motion to exclude other acts evidence. He was charged with first-degree premeditated murder. The trial court granted his motion to exclude the other acts evidence, finding the circumstances of his assault on another woman were too dissimilar to his alleged acts in this case to establish any nonpropensity purpose for admission. On appeal, the court rejected the prosecution’s argument that evidence of defendant’s prior assault on a victim bearing a striking resemblance to the victim in this case three months before this victim disappeared was admissible for the proper purposes of showing defendant’s motive, intent, lack of accident, identity, and common scheme, plan, or system. It noted that the trial court applied the correct law to the facts of this case. In addition, “there is no intermediate fact linking the charged and uncharged acts.” Further, the “abstractly-stated physical similarity between the victims, by itself, is insufficient to identify defendant in any manner not incorporating the inferential chain that because defendant assaulted” the prior victim, he has a “propensity to assault dark-haired white women, and therefore, he murdered” this victim. Moreover, “the trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that those abstract physical similarities between [the victims] did not persuasively establish a common scheme or plan.” It also did not abuse its discretion in determining that “the probative value of defendant’s assault of [the first victim] on any material issue in this case is substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice.” Affirmed.