People v. Holmes

In People v. Holmes, 383 Ill. App. 3d 506, 515, 890 N.E.2d 1045, 322 Ill. Dec. 126 (2008), the Court held the trial court properly excluded evidence regarding the defendant's 1996 conviction for attempt forcible rape because the details of that assault were not similar enough to the charged offense. Holmes, 383 Ill. App. 3d at 518-19. Unlike the charged assault, during the 1996 assault: there was a second person present when the victim was attacked; the victim went into the defendant's bedroom voluntarily and engaged in some level of intimacy; defendant did not threaten the victim with a weapon; the victim escaped from defendant; and there was no actual penetration. The court held the attacks did not share enough general similarities to make the 1996 conviction sufficiently probative to prove propensity under section 115-7.3. Holmes, 383 Ill. App. 3d at 518-19.