State v. Ashley

NAHMIAS, Justice.

In 2012, Thad Lee Ashley was convicted of kidnapping a seven-year-old girl, attempting to kidnap her three-year-old sister, and criminal trespass at the trailer park where his father lived. At trial, the jury heard evidence of these crimes as well as evidence of three earlier incidents at the trailer park’s pool when Ashley had behaved inappropriately toward young children. The trial court admitted the evidence of these other incidents as similar transaction evidence under Georgia’s old Evidence Code, which applied at the time of Ashley’s trial, for the purpose of showing his…