State of West Virginia, Plaintiff Below, Appellee v. Lyle B. McGinnis, Jr., Defendant Below, Appellant

Summary

The court reversed the murder conviction because the prosecution introduced an excessive volume of uncharged-misconduct evidence without establishing a logical connection to a material issue and without the required Rule 403 balancing. The court clarified that Rule 404(b) admissibility must be determined by the trial court under Rule 104(a), using a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, followed by relevance and unfair-prejudice analysis and an appropriately tailored limiting instruction when requested. The court held that the cumulative errors were not harmless in this circumstantial-evidence case.