DA discusses offenses

The state intended to present multiple pages of extraneous offenses to the jury in the recent Kim Stevens trial, according to District Attorney Cindy Stormer.

However, after the jury found the woman guilty of capital murder for killing 2-year-old Jorden Saager, none of it was admitted. Stevens received an automatic life sentence when the jury returned the guilty decision because the state did not seek the death penalty.

If the jury had found Stevens guilty of murder or injury to a child - both first-degree offenses - the information on those pages could have been admissible in a court during the punishment phase of the trial.

"Extraneous offenses are offenses other than the one for which the accused is being tried," Stormer said. "Improper admission of extraneous offenses at trial is a common reason for reversal of criminal cases in the courts of appeals."

By not allowing that information in during the guilt or innocence trial phase, it keeps the jurors from looking at that information instead of the facts in the case.

"A major danger in the use of extraneous transactions or offenses is that the accused will, in effect, be tried for being a bad person rather than for the offense with which he has been tried," she said.

However, she said there may be some exceptions, such as motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity or absence of mistake or accident.

"Extraneous offense evidence might be relevant, for example, to prove identity by rebutting a defensive theory that someone other than the defendant caused the specific injury alleged," Stormer said. "In such a case, evidence of another act of misconduct could be offered to show that it was the defendant, and not some other person, who was the assailant in the charged incident, because the defendant committed another act very similar to the charged act."

At times the defendant can open the door to the admission of previous acts by taking the stand and stating he or she has never been in trouble before, according to Stormer. The prosecuting attorney then can uses the prior offenses to rebut the defendant's testimony.

However, jurors usually hear about such acts during the second part of a trial - the punishment phase.

"It is this second stage of the trial where the jury will be most likely to hear about extraneous offenses, the 'rest of the story'," Stormer said.

If the jury had to hear evidence in the punishment phase of the Stevens trial, Stormer said it would have included information from one of the longest notices she has seen, and which included multiple injuries to her own children.

In addition to injuries to Saager, the state would have spoken about her misconduct at the Cooke County Jail and injuring her children, husband and mother and previous misdemeanor convictions for driving while intoxicated, burglary of a vehicle and false report to a police officer.