What is the test for evidence of motive in a murder case?

death, and the killing was not the result of an accident or mistake. "The relevance of uncharged misconduct to show identity, intent, or the existence of a common design or plan is determined by the nature and degree of the similarity between such misconduct and the charged crime. 'Evidence of uncharged crimes is admissible to prove identity, common design or plan, or intent only if the charged and uncharged crimes are sufficiently similar to support a rational inference of identity, common design or plan, or intent.' [Citation.]" (People v. Scheer (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 1009, 1018.) "The least degree of similarity (between the uncharged act and the charged offense) is required in order to prove intent. [Citation.] '[T]he recurrence of a similar result . . . tends (increasingly with each instance) to negative accident or inadvertence or self-defense or good faith or other innocent mental state, and tends to establish (provisionally, at least, though not certainly) the presence of the normal, i.e., criminal, intent accompanying such an act . . . .' [Citation.] In order to be admissible to prove intent, the uncharged misconduct must be sufficiently similar to support the inference that the defendant ' "probably harbor[ed] the same intent in each instance." [Citations.]' [Citation.]" (People v. Ewoldt (1994) 7 Cal.4th 380, 402.)⁴

While motive is not an element of murder, " 'the absence of apparent motive may make proof of the essential elements less persuasive.' [Citation.]" (People v. Davis (2009) 46 Cal.4th 539, 604.) "A 'motive' is defined as a '[c]ause or reason that moves the will and induces the action[,]' '[a]n inducement, or that which leads or tempts the mind to indulge a criminal act.' [Citation.] Motive is an intermediate fact which may be probative of such ultimate issues as intent [citation], identity [citation], or commission of

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the criminal act itself [citation]." (People v. Scheer, supra, 68 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1017-1018.) " '[T]he intermediate fact of motive' may be established by evidence of 'prior dissimilar crimes.' [Citation.] 'Similarity of offenses [is] not necessary to establish this theory of relevance' for the evident reason that the motive for the charged crime arises simply from the commission of the prior offense. [Citation.] The existence of a motive requires a nexus between the prior crime and the current one, but such linkage is not dependent on comparison and weighing of the similar and dissimilar characteristics of the past and present crimes. [Citations.]" (Id. at p. 1018.)