The People, Plaintiff and Respondent v. Juan Jose Villatoro, Defendan — Liu, J., Concurring in Part and Dissenting…

Summary

The opinion disagrees with the majority's conclusion that Evidence Code section 1108 permits a jury to draw a propensity inference from evidence of charged sex offenses. It reasons that section 1108 addresses only the admissibility of uncharged sex-crime evidence, that the instruction improperly bootstrapped verdicts across counts, and that the trial court's purported section 352 analysis was unsupported by the record; it nevertheless concludes the instructional error was harmless. Corrigan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part, likewise rejects the majority's analysis but concurs in the result because the error was harmless.