Ferguson: too much or not enough?

[Brakeman]

He looks like a gentleman.

Just clowning around with a legally owned pistol & the money he made mowing lawns. Can anyone else hear that dog-whistle?

I see three items of interest in the picture.

1. A gun which Michael is just barely old enough to buy and of which I very, very highly doubt that he purchased legally.
2. A bottle of alcohol of which he is not old enough to buy or consume. (must be 21)
3. A wad of cash that he is displaying in a picture in the manner of a drug dealer showing off his "bounty."

He's such a fine character and such an exemplary citizen! I bet he was engaged to Tawana Brawley.

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You are wrong about one thing though. Looking at existing law, none of this will matter at Wilson's murder trial.

Evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character.

Your own source disagrees with you. Why did you not read further down?

However, there is a significant exception to Rule 404(b):

This evidence may be admissible for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.

The classic example of this rule is the old Law & Order episode where the kid "accidentally" shoots his friend, and detectives discover that he had previously "accidentally" shot another friend. The prior shooting wasn't admissible to show that the kid was the sort of person who shoots people, but it was admissible to call into doubt his story that the latest shooting was an accident, because it tended to show he knew guns and knew what he was doing — an absence of mistake.

Here, the robbery may be relevant to state of mind. At least as I understand the facts, it's not relevant to Wilson's state of mind, because he didn't know about the robbery when he shot Brown.2 But it could conceivably relate to Brown's state of mind. Wilson might argue that Brown resisted him because Brown thought he was being arrested for robbery, and that Wilson's story that Brown forcibly resisted arrest is more credible if Brown had a motive to resist.

True, one couldn't use the evidence to show Brown was in a state of mind to rob a convenience store, but who cares about that?