Coleman v. State

• Decision Date: 09 December 1987
• Docket Number: No. F-85-680,F-85-680
• Citation: 747 P.2d 322
• Parties: Donald Gene COLEMAN, Appellant, v. STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma

Page 322

747 P.2d 322

Donald Gene COLEMAN, Appellant, v. STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee.

No. F-85-680.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma.

Dec. 9, 1987.

An Appeal from the District Court of Lincoln County; Milton C. Craig, District Judge.

Donald Gene Coleman, appellant, was charged, tried and convicted in the District Court of Lincoln County for the crime of Grand Larceny of Oilfield Equipment in Case No. CRF-84-61, and was sentenced to three (3) years imprisonment, with two and one-half (2 1/2) years of the sentence suspended, and fined one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500), and he appeals.

Larry K. Lenora, Erwin, Butts & Lenora, P.C., Chandler, for appellant.

Michael C. Turpen, Atty. Gen., Tomilou Gentry Liddell, Asst. Atty. Gen., Oklahoma City, for appellee.

OPINION

BUSSEY, Judge:

The appellant, Donald Gene Coleman, was charged, tried and convicted in the District Court of Lincoln County for the crime of Grand Larceny of Oilfield Equipment in Case No. CRF-84-61, and was sentenced to three (3) years imprisonment, with two and one-half (2 1/2) years of the sentence suspended, and fined one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500), and he appeals.

Briefly stated the facts are that on April 12, 1984, the appellant, Calvin Williams and Ray East met at the Tenneco Oilfield located four (4) miles south of Stroud, Oklahoma. When they arrived at the yard, they discovered that it was closed, so Williams cut the gate open and drove the pickup he and appellant were using into the yard. Appellant and Williams loaded a large quantity of oilfield equipment onto the truck bed while East watched the entrance in his pickup. After the equipment was loaded, they drove to a pasture owned by East's father about eleven (11) miles away and unloaded the equipment and covered it with a tin cover.

For his first assignment of error appellant asserts that the trial court improperly overruled his motion for mistrial which was based on the State's failure to produce exculpatory evidence. Specifically, he argues that the prosecution failed to disclose that plastic castings and photographs of tire tracks and fingerprints had been obtained at the scene of the crime.

This Court, in Behrens v. State, 699 P.2d 156, 157 (Okl.Cr.1985), held that:

It is true that under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) and United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976), when the defense has requested disclosure of specific evidence, and that evidence is material either to guilt or punishment and is favorable to the accused, due process is violated irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecutor if he fails to make the disclosure. Materiality requires that the evidence requested might have changed the verdict; a mere possibility of such is insufficient. Agurs, supra [427 U.S.] at 109-110, 96 S.Ct. at 2400.

There is, of course, no constitutional requirement that the prosecution make a complete and detailed accounting to the defense of all police investigatory work on a case. Moore v. Illinois, 408 U.S. 786, 92 S.Ct. 2562, 33 L.Ed.2d 706 (1972). The suppressed evidence must be of sufficient probative value to create a reasonable doubt of defendant's guilt. Hall v. State, 650 P.2d 893 (Okl.Cr.1982).

In this case, the appellant first elicited the alleged exculpatory evidence during cross-examination of a State's witness, and then requested the court to suppress the evidence. The trial court granted appellant's motion on the condition that defense counsel make no remarks in final argument concerning whether the evidence was offered in evidence or was not offered. The next day, appellant, after reconsidering the matter, requested the trial court to declare a mistrial because of the State's failure to disclose the evidence revealed by the State's witness....