ALBANY – In a pair of criminal appeals centering on the admissibility of a defendant’s prior bad acts, the Court of Appeals yesterday held for the prosecution and declined to broaden its 28-year-old precedent in People v. Sandoval.
One case, People v. Percival F. Hayes, 1, reined in what the Court of Appeals viewed as an overly broad application of Sandoval by the Appellate Division, Third Department. In Hayes, a rape case, the Third Department held that cross examination as to the existence of a prior conviction is allowable, but questioning as to the nature of the conviction is not. As it has repeatedly in the past, the Court of Appeals “eschewed fixed rules to determine where to draw the line,” and left the matter to the discretion of the trial court.
