Are multiple other similar acts admissible in a criminal trial to show the improbability that the charged criminal act was innocently done or was not done? (The rule that other acts can be used in this way is often called the "doctrine of chances.")

Cf. Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013, pin? (D.C. Cir. 1923) (decision that long predates the Federal Rules of Evidence; it was this decision that established the "Frye test" for the admissibility of novel scientific evidence; the court held polygraph test results...Polygraph test results are insufficiently reliable to be admissible.

Cf. United States v. Lawrence, 349 F.3d 109, 117 (3d Cir. 2003) (upholding trial court's exclusion into evidence of the victim's hospital bed identification of another suspect as a dying declaration because defendant failed....The hearsay exception for dying declarations applies only if the declarant believed that his or her own death was imminent when he or she made the statement.

Perrin v. Anderson, 784 F.2d 1040, 1044 (10th Cir. 1986) (holding, in an action against patrolmen for deprivation of decedent's civil rights, that evidence of decedent's previous violent encounters with police was erroneously admitted where it was offered to show that decedent was the aggressor).When an exception to the character evidence prohibition makes evidence of a criminal defedant's character admissible, the testimony of a witness on direct examination about the defendant's character must take the form of reputation or opinion and it cannot consist of specific instances of the defendant's conduct.