The rules of evidence in New Jersey generally prohibit the government from admitting into evidence other crimes committed by the defendant except under limited circumstances, and that is so because “other crimes” evidence can tend to influence a jury to conclude that the defendant is a “bad” person.  In a recent decision rendered by the Appellate Division a defendant with a prior drug conviction took the witness stand and testified on direct examination that, although he was a former drug dealer, he had not sold drugs since the summer of 2006.  Thereafter, the prosecutor began a lengthy cross-examination probing intimate details of various components of the defendant’s drug business prior to June of 2006. Ultimately the defendant was convicted.

The Appellate Division reversed the defendants’s conviction and observed that other crimes evidence is a very sensitive area of the law that should heighten a trial judge’s concern.  Continuing, the Court said that the cross-examination in the case before the court had no other relevant purpose than to show a propensity to commit crime.  Indeed, the government did not produce any admissible evidence that the defendant conducted drug related transactions after June 2006.  The court also observed that the government did not offer any proof as to the basis of the other crimes evidence, nor did the court provide any limited instructions to jury with respect to that evidence.