Opposition to District Attorney’s Motion of Admission of Alleged Prior Offense

Opposition to District Attorney’s Motion of Admission of Alleged Prior Offense (Evid. Code Sections 1108, 1101 (b)) Summary: It’s only 7 pages long. The defense says that these prosecution witnesses are fired ex-employees, some of whom have lost civil suits against Jackson and were found by a jury to have both lied and stolen from Jackson. They basically say that these people won’t provide any substantiated and sufficient evidence of any wrongdoing on Jackson’s part. But that if the judge does decide to allow these incredulous witnesses in, then the defense should be given a chance to fully and thoroughly cross-examine them, and time to prepare to do so. Excerpts: (pg2) Strikingly, the District Attorney is alleging at least seven prior sexual offense, yet only one of the seven alleged victims is scheduled to testify (1). In place of the alleged victims, the prosecution seeks to introduce the testimony of a collection of disgruntled former employees, paid tabloid informants, and other disreputable characters. (1) The defense has yet to receive current discovery regarding this witness _________________________________________________ (pg2) This testimony has previously been presented to two criminal grand juries and one civil jury, and the all three juries have rejected the testimony as false. Five of the witnesses were found to have lied about Mr. Jackson, by a civil jury, and two of them were found to have stolen from him. This is not the sort of prior sexual offense evidence that the legislature intended to permit when it enacted Section 1108. Mr. Jackson asks that this Court find that the prosecution’s “evidence” is so lacking in credibility that it should not be allowed at trial based on its tendency to mislead the jury. __________________________________________________ (pg 3) A. The Proposed Testimony Has No Probative Value Because It Is False This is not the first time that the prosecution has sought to introduce this evidence in a judicial proceeding. This is the same “evidence” that left two separate grand juries so unimpressed with the prosecution’s “case” that they did not return indictments. In each of the occasions in which a grand jury or civil jury has had the opportunity to listen to witnesses like _________ or ____________, the jurors have found the witnesses to be incredible. In the civil trial, the jury went as far as to find that Mr. _________ and Ms. ________ not only lied about Mr. Jackson, but that they stole from him as well. The only thing probative about the proposed testimony of these witnesses is that it will demonstrate to the jury that the District Attorney maintains the same fact checking standards as Hard Copy and the National Enquirer. _______________________________________________ (pg 3) Predictably, the prosecution’s papers merely gloss over the issue of whether or not there is any reason to believe that the alleged prior acts actually occurred. The prosecution’s 63 page motion devotes a single paragraph to the “degree of certainty of defendant’s commission of the prior offenses.” _____________________________________________ (pg3-4) B. The “Similarity” Of The Prosecution’s Evidence Does Not Overcome The Witnesses Total Lack of Credibility …The courts have held that similarity can overcome remoteness and other defects under Section 352, however, they have not held that similarity rescues testimony that is utterly lacking in credibility. …Unlike the cases cited by the prosecution, there is no credible evidence that the conduct even occurred, so it is unnecessary to even get to the question of whether the conduct is similar to the charged conduct. ________________________________________________ (pg 5) Like the current alleged victim and his family, the prosecution’s Section 1108 witnesses had media accounts of the prosecution’s theory at their disposal when they carefully crafted their allegations, prior to selling their stories to the tabloids and filing a lawsuit against Mr. Jackson. For the past decade, anyone who wanted the District Attorney’s ear could simply read the media accounts and come up with a story that fit the prosecution’s theory. ______________________________________________ (pg 6) 3. The current alleged victims went to __________ and _______ before telling their new story. Furthermore, this is a situation in which the ______’s stories conformed to other stories only because they met with ________, the attorney for ________, prior to making their allegations. He then sent them to his forensic psychiatrist, ________. The __________ never made any of these allegations prior to meeting with Mr. __________ and Dr. ________ despite the fact that they were represented by counsel and had numerous opportunities to make the allegations. They not only did not make the so-called “similar” allegations before they saw __________ and __________, they didn’t make any allegations at all. Therefore, any alleged similarity with claims made by Mr. ________ and Dr. __________’s prior cleint is not coincidental. :nav Opposition to District Attorney’s Motion of Admission of Alleged Prior Offense