Bad Act Evidence

In OCCA case No. F-2001-1224, the appellant appealed his conviction for two counts of Child Abuse. In an unpublished decision, the court decided to affirm the conviction but modify the sentences. One judge dissented. The appellant, referred to as Donnie Joe Bacon, was found guilty in the District Court of Oklahoma County. His jury trial was overseen by a judge, and the jury sentenced him to serve twenty-five years on one count of child abuse and forty-seven years on the other count. These sentences were ordered to be served one after the other. On appeal, the court looked at several arguments made by the appellant regarding his trial, including violations of his rights and errors made during the trial process. The court examined various points of error. One issue discussed was the testimony from a detective that did not follow a pretrial order, which the court said was a mistake but did not think it affected the guilt of the appellant; however, it did influence the length of the sentence. Another point was about the admission of evidence related to other crimes, which the appellant argued should not have been allowed in the trial. The court agreed that some of this evidence about other bad acts was not relevant and should not have been presented, yet again concluded it did not change the verdict of guilt but might have influenced the sentence. The court also looked into whether the prosecution failed to share important information with the defense and whether the appellant's lawyer did a good job representing him. They decided that the mistakes made by the defense lawyer mostly dealt with the other crimes evidence and didn't significantly impact the guilty verdict. In the end, the court affirmed the conviction of Donnie Joe Bacon but modified the punishment, reducing it to twenty years on each count, which would still be served consecutively. While most of the judges agreed with this decision, one judge wanted to reverse the conviction and order a new trial.