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<blockquote data-quote="donner" data-source="post: 4251116" data-attributes="member: 277">it probably depends on the case. I don&#039;t think a person&#039;s rap sheet can be included in the court proceedings in cases where the people involved would have had no way of knowing about the person&#039;s past (in a situation like self defense). So you can&#039;t shoot a stranger and then claim you did it because of that person&#039;s past bad acts since you&#039;d have no way of knowing about the person&#039;s past. Now if you shot someone and knew the person&#039;s history, like they had attacked you before, you could likely include it.You can&#039;t always present evidence to blame the &#039;victim&#039; (for lack of a better term) that you learned after the fact.Nor can the prosecution present a case using past acts unless they are directly connected to the crime in question. Otherwise you might get people convicting someone because of a history of crime and not because the jury thought the person committed that specific crime. But the court can look at the totality of the situation when it comes to sentencing. Or at least that is what i believe i recall from conversations with an attorney friend. But i could easily be mistaken.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="donner, post: 4251116, member: 277"] it probably depends on the case. I don't think a person's rap sheet can be included in the court proceedings in cases where the people involved would have had no way of knowing about the person's past (in a situation like self defense). So you can't shoot a stranger and then claim you did it because of that person's past bad acts since you'd have no way of knowing about the person's past. Now if you shot someone and knew the person's history, like they had attacked you before, you could likely include it. You can't always present evidence to blame the 'victim' (for lack of a better term) that you learned after the fact. Nor can the prosecution present a case using past acts unless they are directly connected to the crime in question. Otherwise you might get people convicting someone because of a history of crime and not because the jury thought the person committed that specific crime. But the court can look at the totality of the situation when it comes to sentencing. Or at least that is what i believe i recall from conversations with an attorney friend. But i could easily be mistaken. [/QUOTE]

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