People v. Loomis

• Decision Date: 03 May 1904
• Citation: 70 N.E. 919,178 N.Y. 400
• Parties: PEOPLE v. LOOMIS.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

178 N.Y. 400

70 N.E. 919

PEOPLE

v.LOOMIS.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 3, 1904.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.

Augustus Loomis was convicted of burglary, and from a judgment of the Appellate Division (78 N. Y. S. 578) affirming the conviction, he appeals. Reversed.

G. P. Pudney, for appellant.

M. H. Kiley, Dist. Atty., for respondent.

WERNER, J.

The defendant appeals from a judgment affirming his conviction under both counts of an indictment charging him with the crimes of burglary and larceny, alleged to have been committed on the 17th day of September, 1898, in the town of Eaton and county of Madison. There is no controversy over the fact that the crimes of burglary and larceny were committed by some one, at or about the time stated in the indictment, upon certain premises owned by John E. Smith & Son in the town and county named. The question that was vigorously contested upon the trial was whether the defendant was one of the perpetrators of these crimes, and upon this issue a jury has found the defendant guilty.

There are many exceptions to rulings in receiving and rejecting evidence that are now relied upon by the defendant as presenting sufficient grounds for the reversal of this judgment. A careful examination of the record has led us to the conclusion that the only exception in the case which we cannot disregard as technical and unsubstantial under section 542 of the Code of Civil Procedure is the one relating to defendant's alleged confession of a crime not charged in the indictment. Upon the direct case for the prosecution, a witness named Vosburg was permitted to testify that the defendant confessed that he was one of the perpetrators of the burglary and larceny charged in the indictment, as well as a burglary committed upon the premises of one Mrs. Lewis. The evidence relating to the Lewis burglary was given in response to a direct question asked by the district attorney, and was objected to by defendant's counsel as incompetent, improper, and immaterial, because it tended to prove a separate and distinct crime not charged in the indictment. The district attorney contends that the evidence of the defendant's confession of complicity in the Lewis burglary was competent, not only because it was part of the conversation in which he confessed his guilt of the crimes charged in the indictment, but because the crimes confessed were part of a series of crimes said to have been committed by the defendant, in concert with others, pursuant to a common plan or scheme. Counsel for the defendant, on the other hand, relies upon the general rule that evidence of one crime is inadmissible to prove guilt of another and wholly distinct crime. This general rule is so thoroughly settled and so commonly understood that without discussion thereof we pass at once to the consideration of the circumstances which, it is claimed, except the case at bar from its operation.

It is said that a series of burglaries and larcenies had been committed in the county of Madison and vicinity, at about the same time as the crimes charged in the indictment, by a ‘gang’ of which the defendant was a member, and that evidence of all or any of these crimes was therefore competent to establish the defendant's guilt of the crimes charged. The difficulty with this contention is that it is not borne out by the facts of record. Beyond the reference to the Lewis burglary in the defendant's alleged confession to Vosburg, there is nothing in the evidence to justify the assertion of the learned district attorney that other burglaries had been committed in that neighborhood, or that the finger of suspicion was pointed at the defendant in connection therewith. Nor is there any evidence that the burglary and larceny charged in the indictment were in the slightest degree connected with the Lewis burglary. It may be that the stolen goods recovered by the officers of the law were identified as belonging to different owners, and, while that may prove that several burglaries or larcenies had been committed, it does not establish such a connection between these separate crimes as to make evidence of one competent upon the trial of another. If A. steals a horse from one person, and a cow from another, the fact that both animals are found in the thief's possession does not make it competent to prove that the accused was guilty of stealing the cow by showing that he stole the horse. That is precisely the logic applicable to the case at bar. The burglary and larceny charged in the indictment, and the Lewis burglary, are entirely separate and distinct crimes, and yet proof of one is relied upon in part to secure a conviction of the other. The case of Hope v. People, 83 N. Y. 418, 38 Am. Rep. 460,cited for the prosecution, not only illustrates the principle which justifies the reception of evidence tending to prove a crime not charged, if it is relevant and material upon the one that is charged, but it also serves to show the utter misapplication of the principle to the case at bar. In the Hope Case the plaintiff in error was tried upon an indictment charging him with robbery in the first degree. The robbery was committed by a...