People v. Hawkins

Decision Date18 June 2001
Docket NumberDocket No. 224336.
PartiesPEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Galen Perez HAWKINS, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtCourt of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Jennifer M. Granholm, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, William A. Forsyth, Prosecuting Attorney, Timothy K. McMorrow, Chief Appellate Attorney, and David M. LaGrand, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.

State Appellate Defender (by Deborah W. Keene), for the defendant on appeal.

Before HOEKSTRA, P.J., and WHITBECK and COOPER, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant Galen Hawkins appeals as of right his conviction of uttering and publishing1 for cashing a stolen cashier's check. The trial court, following a bench trial, sentenced Hawkins as a fourth-offense habitual offender2 to a prison term of 2½ to 20 years. We affirm.

I. Basic Facts And Procedural History

The prosecutor and Hawkins had conflicting theories of this case. From the prosecutor's perspective, Hawkins uttered and published a false, forged, altered, or counterfeited check dated April 22, 1998, in the amount of $9,500. Hawkins conceded that he presented an Old Kent Bank cashier's check in the amount of $9,500, introduced at trial as exhibit one, which he made payable to himself. He claimed, however, that he did not know that anything was wrong with the check. Consequently, Hawkins contended that he was not guilty of uttering and publishing because he lacked the requisite intent to defraud.3

Alice Wood, a teller at the Old Kent Bank branch located at Franklin and Eastern in Grand Rapids, recounted that someone presented exhibit one to cash it. Wood could not identify the person who presented the check, nor could she say specifically when this occurred. However, she was able to confirm that exhibit one was the check presented to her because, she explained, Hawkins' driver's license number appeared on the back of the check in her handwriting, where she had written it to identify him as the person who cashed the check. Wood noted that the check was unusual because the drawer's and the payee's names on the front were handwritten, not typewritten. Though Wood said that she ordinarily needed to obtain approval from her manager before cashing a check this large, she did not seek management approval in this case because the initials in the corner of the check indicated to her that it had already been approved for cashing. Wood gave the man presenting the check $9,500 in bills with large denominations, such as $100 bills. The man, however, handed $500 back to her and asked for smaller bills. Before Wood could give the man $500 in smaller bills, the bank manager, Rene Buggs, approached the man and they began talking and walking out of the building.

Buggs, who stated that this incident occurred on April 24, 1998, explained that she approached the man because Marian Barrera-Young had called her to warn her that a gentleman had come into the business where she worked, the Baxter Neighborhood Association, asking to use a typewriter to fill in the "pay to the order of" line on an undated and uninitialed check for a large amount of money. Barrera Young, who also testified at the trial, thought this was suspicious. She asked Hawkins how he knew the check was "good" and he explained that the check was partially blank because this was a common way for him to be paid for contracting work. When Barrera-Young asked him who had signed the bottom of check as its drawer, Hawkins first glanced at a piece of paper before he said, "Roberts," a name that did not appear on the check. These factors all made Barrera-Young suspicious of Hawkins. Consequently, she said, she made Hawkins "aware" of her suspicions, she suggested that he take the check to the bank to type the payee's name, and she called Buggs immediately.

Following the telephone call, Buggs saw that there was only one customer in the bank, the man at Wood's teller window. Buggs, who later identified Hawkins as that customer, confirmed that Wood had already cashed the check and was counting out the smaller bills totaling $500 when she approached Hawkins. Buggs recalled that she told Hawkins that there was a possible problem with the check and that she needed him to return the money. She did not tell Hawkins that she suspected that he had stolen the check, because she feared that she would not be able to reclaim the $9,000 from him. Rather, she told Hawkins that he would have to take the check to the issuing bank, presumably the Old Kent Bank branch at Kalamazoo and 44th Street.

According to Buggs, after she asked him to return the money, Hawkins walked to the drinking fountain and started to "inch" his way to the door. Buggs "inched" along with him, trying to convince him to exchange the money he had received for the check. Buggs followed Hawkins out of the bank and continued to talk to him in an attempt to convince him to exchange the money for the check, all to no avail. At one point, Buggs stood in front of Hawkins and put her hand out to stop him, but he told her not to touch him. Buggs then advised Hawkins that she was calling the police and returned to the bank.

Melissa Richardson, an assistant branch manager at the Old Kent Bank branch at Kalamazoo and 44th Street in Grand Rapids, testified at trial that she had inspected the bank's stock of "official" checks4 and found that four checks were missing. Exhibit one, which bore the number XXXXXXXXXX, was one of the missing checks. From Richardson's perspective, exhibit one was unusual because both the payee's and the maker's names were handwritten, not typed as was the ordinary practice with these checks. Additionally, Richardson explained, the bank teller who issued the check would ordinarily sign for the bank, but for a check in an amount as large as $9,500, a member of the bank's management would sign the check. In the case of exhibit one, the initials needed to cash the check were in the proper place, but Old Kent Bank had not been able to identify who initialed the check. When shown exhibit one in court, Buggs stated that it was the check Hawkins had presented at the bank, that she did not authorize acceptance of the check, and that she did not recognize initials on the check. Furthermore, Buggs and Wood both identified themselves and Hawkins at the bank in a photograph bearing an April 24, 1998, date stamp. Detective Philip Porter of the Grand Rapids Police Department, who investigated Old Kent Bank's complaint that four checks had been stolen from the branch at Kalamazoo and 44th Street and presented at various branches in Grand Rapids, recovered two original checks and two copies of the stolen checks, including exhibit one. When the prosecutor showed Detective Porter one of the other stolen checks, Detective Porter testified that there were some similarities between the four checks and that two of the checks, including exhibit one, listed Tim Roberts as the drawer. The other stolen check bearing Tim Roberts' name as the drawer was presented for payment on April 23, 1998. Detective Porter stated that a different person presented each of the stolen checks for payment and that the check at issue differed from the other three stolen checks. Specifically, the drawer's name, the drawee's name, and the date were handwritten on the check at issue in this case while this information had been typed on the other checks.

Defense witness Sheila Darling, who was dating Hawkins at the time of the trial but not in April 1998, testified that she worked at Old Kent Bank processing checks. She agreed that it would be unusual to see a handwritten cashier's check. However, contrary to the prosecution witnesses' suggestion that handwritten cashier's checks indicated a problem with the draft, Darling stated that her trainer at Old Kent Bank had instructed her that handwritten cashier's checks were acceptable and had to be processed as usual.

Hawkins testified in his own defense and contended that he had obtained the check from a friend, Jimal Clark, who wanted Hawkins to cash it. According to Hawkins, Clark explained that the check was for roofing work. Clark reportedly asked the person from whom he obtained the check not to list him as a payee because he (Clark) did not have the identification necessary to cash the check. Hawkins said that, because he had been previously prosecuted for uttering and publishing, he wanted to make sure he would not do anything illegal if he cashed the check.

Consequently, Hawkins said, Clark drove him to the Baxter Neighborhood Association where he asked Barrera-Young to type his name as payee, to type the drawer's name, and to type the date to make the check look more authentic. Hawkins said that he explained the situation to Barrera-Young and when Barrera Young asked him what name to type for the drawer, he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and told her "Tim Roberts," the name Clark had given to him. Next, Barrera Young telephoned someone and asked if the check needed to be typed or if it could be handwritten. Barrera-Young then told him that nothing appeared wrong with the check but that he needed to return to the bank where he obtained the check to have bank personnel fill in the information. Hawkins left the Baxter Neighborhood Association with Clark and headed straight to the Old Kent Bank at Franklin and Eastern. On the way, he said, he completed the check by hand, filling in the date, his name as the payee, and Tim Roberts as the drawer. Hawkins admitted that "looking at this in hindsight, obviously, there isn't a Tim Roberts." However, he denied that he wrote the initials indicating bank approval on the check.

On appeal, Hawkins argues that he is entitled to a new trial because the trial court erroneously admitted the evidence that he had previously committed uttering and publishing, his trial cou...

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