cdTOCtest

(1991), quoting State v. Hummel, 132 N.J. Super. 412,
425-26 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 67 N.J. 102 (1975).
In Hummel, the Appellate Division held that in a
prosecution for sexually abusing minors who were in his
custody, evidence was properly admitted that the
defendant previously abused other young victims also in
his custody. These proofs were admissible to show the
defendant’s state of mind toward young women in his
custody. Similarly, in State v. Kozarski, 143 N.J. Super.
12, 17-18 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 71 N.J. 532 (1976),
the defendant’s commission in another jurisdiction of
sexual offenses against the child victim was held to have
been properly admitted to show the defendant’s
continuous state of mind with respect to the victim.

In State v. Morton, 155 N.J. 383 (1998), a capital
case, the Supreme Court held that evidence that the
defendant and his codefendant in the murder and
robbery of a gas station attendant had planned to commit
other crimes, including robbing a bank or another gas
station, was admissible to show the defendant’s state of
mind.

In State v. Davidson, 225 N.J. Super. 1 (App. Div.
1988), the defendant was convicted of criminal mischief
and causing damage to others, fourth degree crimes, and
putting others in fear of bodily violence, a third degree
crime. The charges arose from the spray-painting of a
black family’s house with racially threatening graffiti.
The judge admitted evidence showing that about one
month before the spray painting, the defendant had
poured rice or sugar into the gas tanks of the victim’s two
cars. The Appellate Division ruled that this evidence was
properly admitted as it had a bearing on the defendant’s
motive, intent, plan, and state of mind. “[E]vidence that
defendant, just a month before had damaged the
[family’s] property in another way... tended to show
that defendant had targeted the [family] as victims of a
campaign of terror.”

The defendant was tried in State v. Sinnott, 24 N.J.
408, 413-14 (1957), on an indictment charging him
with sodomy and there was testimony of the commission
of the same offense against another boy just prior to the
sodomy being tried. The Supreme Court held the
testimony admissible as showing the continuous state of
mind of the defendant at the time he committed the act
for which he was being tried.

A victim’s state of mind can also be shown by
evidence admitted under the rule. Thus, in State v.
Chenique-Puey, 145 N.J. 334, 342 (1996), prior acts of
domestic violence were admissible at a defendant’s trial

for terroristic threats to kill to demonstrate that the

victim had reason to believe that the defendant would

make good on the threats. In State v. G.S., 278 N.J. Super.

151, 162-63 (App. Div. 1994), rev’d o.g., 145 N.J. 460

(1996), allegations of sexual abuse made by a girl against

her stepfather a year before charges of similar conduct

were brought were admissible at the trial of the latter to

explain why the girl never told her mother of the renewed

crime, because the mother never believed the original

allegations and continued to support the stepfather.

F. Prior Crime - Common Plan or Scheme

Other crime evidence is admissible under N.J.R.E.

404(b) to demonstrate a common plan or scheme only if

it “proves the existence of an integrated plan, of which the

other crimes and the indicted offenses are components.”

State v. Stevens, 115 N.J. 289, 305-06 (1989); see also

State v. Louf, 64 N.J. 172, 178 (1973); State v. Coruzzi,

189 N.J. Super. 273, 300 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 94

N.J. 531 (1983); State v. Zicarelli, 122 N.J. Super. 225,

240-41 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 63 N.J. 252 (1973),

cert. denied, 414 U.S. 875 (1973); State v. Sease, 138 N.J.

Super. 80, 85-86 (App. Div. 1975). The exception

requires a single purpose binding together several crimes,

rather than having the same purpose several times. State

v. Oliver, 133 N.J. 141, 152 (1993). In Oliver, evidence

of similar sexual assaults against three other women were

not admissible to prove the defendant’s intent with

respect to the charges of sexual assault upon two other

women for which the defendant was being tried.

Similarly, in State v. Lumumba, 253 N.J. Super. 375, 387

(App. Div. 1992), there was no common higher goal to

which the use of the same weapon, car, and gunman

pertained with respect to shootings committed two days

apart. Therefore, evidence of the second, attempted

murder, was inadmissible in a prosecution for the murder

resulting from the first shooting.

G. Prior Crimes - Malice or Ill Will

In State v. Donahue, 2 N.J. 381, 388 (1949), the

defendant was charged with murder of his wife. The State

produced evidence of prior beatings inflicted upon the

deceased by the defendant. See State v. Lederman, 112

N.J.L. 336 (E. & A. 1933). The defendant in State v.

Slocum, 130 N.J. Super. 358, 362-64 (App. Div. 1974),

was charged with committing a savage attack on a store

clerk during the course of a robbery. The Appellate

Division held that the State was entitled to adduce

evidence that the victim once testified against the

defendant in a criminal prosecution. This evidence was

admissible to show the defendant’s malice against the