In what circumstances can extraneous crimes be proven to establish the specific crime charged?

Without further multiplying the cases which exemplify and support the exception to the general rule that extraneous crimes may be proven to establish the specific crime charged, when all are shown to have been committed in pursuance of a common design, or when they are so connected that evidence of one tends to prove the other, we will now quote from a single authority which clearly and succinctly prescribes the limitations of this exception, and the reasons for careful judicial discrimination in its application. In Shaffner v. Com., supra, the highest court of Pennsylvania said: To make one criminal act evidence of another, a connection between them must have existed in the mind of the actor, linking them together for some purpose he intended to accomplish, or it must be necessary to identify the person of the actor by a connection which shows that he who committed the one must have done the other. Without this obvious connection, it is not only unjust to the prisoner to compel him to acquit himself of two offenses instead of one, but it is detrimental to justice to burden a trial with multiplied issues that tend to confuse and mislead the jury. The most guilty criminal may be innocent of other offenses charged against him, of which, if fairly tried, he might acquit himself. From the nature and prejudicial character of such evidence, it is obvious it should not be received unless the mind plainly perceives that the commission of one tends, by visible connection, to prove the commission of the other by the prisoner. If the evidence be so dubious that the judge does not clearly perceive the connection, the benefit of the doubt should be given to the prisoner, instead of suffering the minds of the jurors to be prejudiced by an independent fact carrying with it no proper evidence of the particular guilt. This statement voices the keynote of the distinction between the civil law and our own more merciful common law. Under the former there is no presumption of innocence. A mere official [168 N.Y. 310]charges of crime puts the accused upon his defense. His history is an open book, every page of which may be read in evidence by the prosecution. Every crime or indiscretion of his life may be laid bare to feed the presumption of guilt. How different is our own common law, which is the product of all the wisdom and humanity of all the ages! Under it the accused comes into a court of justice panoplied in the presumption of innocence, which shields him until his guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt. His general character can be thrown into the balance by no one but himself. The incidents of his life, not connected with the crime charged, are his sacred possession. He faces his accuser in the light of a distinct charge, with the assurance that no other will be or can be proved against him.

Let us now endeavor to make a practical application of these principles to the case at