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ALL BUT ONE COUNT OF THE INDICTMENT WAS RENDERED DUPLICITOUS BY THE CHILD-VICTIM’S GRAND JURY TESTIMONY IN THIS SEXUAL ABUSE CASE; THE SIMILAR UNCHARGED OFFENSES SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED UNDER MOLINEUX AS BACKGROUND EVIDENCE; NEW TRIAL ORDERED (THIRD DEPT).

The Third Department, reversing defendant’s conviction and ordering a new trial determined: (1) the duplicitous counts of the indictment should have been dismissed pre-trial, not post-trial; (2) the evidence of similar uncharged offenses under Molineux should not have been admitted as “background evidence.” The defendant was charged with sexual abuse of a child. With the exception of one incident (count 1), the child was not able to pinpoint when the abuse happened. All but count 1 were rendered duplicitous by the grand jury testimony (indicating that more than one offense occurred in the one-month time-frame of the indictment counts). In addition, the similar uncharged allegations were too prejudicial to be allowed under Molineux:

“[U]nder . . . Molineux jurisprudence, we begin with the premise that uncharged crimes are inadmissible and, from there, carve out exceptions” … . The proffered Molineux evidence was not necessary to resolve any ambiguity as to count 1, and thus was beyond the Molineux exception for background information as provided by County Court in its ruling … . If the court had dismissed counts 2 through 13 as duplicitous prior to the People’s presentation of their case-in-chief, that likely would have changed the court’s calculus as to the admission of the victim’s testimony regarding uncharged crimes — including whether to allow testimony regarding the incidents referred to in those dismissed counts, which would no longer be direct evidence of charged crimes. Even if the testimony regarding the uncharged criminal conduct was permissible for a nonpropensity purpose, its prejudicial nature outweighed the minimal probative value that may be attributed to it as to count 1 … . While in some circumstances the undue prejudice resulting from Molineux evidence may be mitigated by a limiting instruction, here such an instruction was only provided once in the final charge to the jury, and not at the time of the victim’s testimony, despite County Court having indicated that those instructions would be provided at the time that such evidence was admitted … . People v Holtslander, 2020 NY Slip Op 07250, Third Dept 12-3-20

 

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