State v. Nystedt, 4512
| Decision Date | 16 January 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 4512,4512 |
| Parties | The STATE of Nevada, Appellant, v. Robert O. NYSTEDT, Respondent. |
| Court | Nevada Supreme Court |
Harvey Dickerson, Atty. Gen., Carson City, William J. Raggio, Dist. Atty., and Herbert F. Ahlswede, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty., Reno, for appellant.
Stanley H. Brown, Peter Echeverria, Reno, for respondent.
Respondent was acquitted in the lower court of the charges of incest and pape under an information which alleged that in May 1961 he had had sexual intercourse with his natural daughter of the age of 16 years. Pursuant to NRS 177.065 the State has appealed, specifying three errors at law committed in the court below.
During the trial, the lower court denied the State's offer to prove through its witness, respondent's 17 year old son, that prior to the commission of the offenses charged, respondent: (1) in April 1957 contributed to the delinquency of a minor other than the minor involved in the offenses with which respondent was charged; (2) in the summer of 1957 respondent was an accomplice in an act of sodomy accompanied by an act contributing to the delinquency of a minor, neither of which concerned the minor involved in the offenses with which he was charged; and (3) at an unspecified date respondent committed sodomy with a minor other than the minor involved in the offenses with which he was charged.
The State's purpose for the offers of proof 1 and 2 does not appear in the transcript. As to offer of proof 3, the State stated that the purpose of this offer was to show a common scheme on the part of the respondent and respondent's motive for the commission of the acts of which he stands charged.
Although we could sustain the action of the trial court in denying offers 1 and 2 for the reason that they failed to contain a statement of the specific purpose for which these offers were made, 1 Wigmore, Evidence § 17 (3rd ed. 1940), we hold that it was not error for the trial court to deny the three offers of proof under our decision in the case of Nester v. State, 75 Nev. 41, 334 P.2d 524.
In Nester, we stated the general rule that on the trial of a person accused of crime, proof of a distinct independent offense is inadmissible, and then cited the five exceptions thereto, to wit, when the other crime tends to establish motive, intent, the absence of mistake or accident, a common scheme or plan embracing the commission of two or more crimes so related to each other that proof of one tends to establish the others, and the identity of the person charged.
Even if we were in accord with the State's position that such proffered testimony was admissible under one of the exceptions to the general rule forbidding evidence of a separate and distinct offense, and if we disregarded...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Greene v. State
...by virtue of its prejudicial nature, it is more likely to distract from the essential issue than bear upon it." State v. Nystedt, 79 Nev. 24, 27, 377 P.2d 929, 931 (1963) (quoting Nester v. State, 75 Nev. 41, 54, 334 P.2d 524, 531 We conclude that, under the circumstances of this case, the ......
-
McMichael v. State
...instant case, we find no abuse in the admission of the testimony, Martin v. State, 80 Nev. 307, 393 P.2d 141 (1964); State v. Nystedt, 79 Nev. 24, 377 P.2d 929 (1963), since the acts were similar, were committed within a period immediately preceding and following the instant offense, and in......
-
Brown v. State
...value on the other, is a grave one to be resolved by the exercise of a judicial discretion. Nester v. State, supra; State v. Nystedt, 79 Nev. 24, 377 P.2d 929. Of course the discretion reposed in the trial judge is not unlimited, but an appellate court will respect the lower court's view un......
-
Montez v. State
...offer of proof must be explicit. State Highway Commission of Wyoming v. Joe Miller Land Company, Wyo.1970, 467 P.2d 450; State v. Nystedt, 1963, 79 Nev. 24, 377 P.2d 929. There must be a showing of what the answer would have been. State v. Collins, 1946, 162 Kan. 34, 174 P.2d 126. The defen......