Joinder of assault & murder cases; MCR 6.120; Whether evidence of the murder was admissible in the assault case & vice versa; MRE 404(b)(1); Relevance; Plan or scheme; Identity; Evidence of defendant’s robbery of a gun store; MRE 403; Admission of defendant’s other acts of domestic violence against his girlfriend in the assault case; MCL 768.27b(1)

The court held that the trial court abused its discretion in (1) joining defendant’s assault and murder charges, (2) admitting evidence of his “other acts from the murder case in the assault case, and vice versa[,]” and (3) not excluding evidence connecting him to a gun store robbery under MRE 403. But it did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of his other acts of domestic violence in his assault case involving his girlfriend. Thus, in this interlocutory appeal the court reversed the trial court’s order as to joinder, the admission of other acts evidence of each case in the other case, and the admission of evidence connecting him to the gun store robbery. It affirmed the order as to the admission of evidence of other acts of domestic violence in the assault case. The trial court found that the “cases were related by a series of connected acts as part of a ‘little crime spree.’” But the court concluded that while there was some evidence connecting “these cases—defendant used the same pistol in [his] girlfriend’s presence on the same day—these circumstances do not comprise a series of connected acts sufficient for joinder. [His] anger may be an underlying cause in both cases, but [it] was aimed at two different subjects during the crimes: his girlfriend in the assault case and an alleged shooter of his mother’s house in the murder case.” The prosecution argued “that defendant’s ‘fits of anger’ connect these cases, but such connection is tenuous, especially where hours lapsed between the assault and murder and his anger was aimed at two different people. Because there is no logical relationship between” the crimes, they were “not a series of connected acts within the meaning of MCR 6.120(B)(1)(b).” In addition, they were “not the same conduct or transaction and do not constitute part of a single scheme or plan. Defendant did not assault his girlfriend to secure her cooperation in the murder. [He] did not discover the broken window, which resulted in his anger at an alleged shooter of his mother’s house, until after the assault occurred.” As to the other acts of domestic violence evidence, they “were highly probative because they involved similar acts of violence to the same victim throughout defendant’s relationship with his girlfriend” and they fell “squarely within the Legislature’s purpose for enacting MCL 768.27b[.]” The court also could not find “any substantial risk of unfair prejudice.”