Sheftel v. People
| Decision Date | 20 September 1943 |
| Docket Number | 15020. |
| Citation | 111 Colo. 349,141 P.2d 1018 |
| Parties | SHEFTEL v. PEOPLE. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Error to District Court, City and County of Denver; Henry A. Hicks Judge.
Joseph D. Sheftel was convicted of buying and receiving stolen goods, knowing them to have been stolen, and he brings error.
Judgment reversed.
VanCise, Robinson & Charlton, of Denver, for plaintiff in error.
Gail L Ireland, Atty. Gen., H. Lawrence Hinkley, Deputy Atty. Gen., and James S. Henderson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.
Defendant was found guilty under a grand jury indictment charging him with feloniously buying and receiving 5,000 pounds of stolen aluminum, knowing the same to have been stolen. On the verdict of the jury the court entered judgment sentencing him to a term in the state penitentiary. He seeks a reversal on numerous assignments of error, directed principally to the court's allegedly prejudicial remarks in the presence of the jury and to rulings permitting admission, over objection, of testimony offered by the people, and exclusion of testimony offered by defendant, to which rulings exceptions were duly saved.
The Shattuck Chemical Company, doing business in the city of Denver, had purchased a carload of practically pure aluminum, shipped to them in one hundred and two hundred pound gunny sacks, the metal being in the form of small pellets that had the appearance of having dropped while in a fluid state onto a hard surface and then solidified. These pellets were of the size generally of large buckshot. This metal the Shattuck Company used in part in some of its chemical operations, the remainder being stored in the company warehouse. Bayard Tillotson and Wendell Woodhams were employed by the chemical company and had knowledge of the stored aluminum. After they ceased to be so employed, they went back at various times and without authority removed large quantities of the stored metal and carried it away, selling it to a half dozen or more various dealers in metals in the city of Denver, including the Peerless Alloy Company where defendant Sheftel was employed. Sheftel was purchasing agent and assistant superintendent of the company but had no interest therein except he was given one share of stock to qualify him as a director which he reendorsed to the company. He received no bonuses from his employer. The Peerless company does a large business in metals and buys and ships them to eastern markets. Sheftel, over a period of time from June 19, 1940, to December 24, 1940, and on seven or eight different occasions, purchased this sacked aluminum from Tillotson and Woodhams in varying quantities from 285 pounds to 5,000 pounds. The price paid was eight cents per pound. The total quantity purchased by defendant was approximately 17,700 pounds. Tillotson and Woodhams gave their names as David Fine and Homer Burts and the transactions with defendant were all carried on by them under these aliases. They used other names in transactions with other metal dealers.
A large number of the assignments of error are directed to offers of proof made by defendant and refused by the court. There are twenty-four principal assignments with many subheads, covering twenty-two pages of the abstract. To analyze each of them separately would require an extension of this opinion beyond all reasonable limits. We have carefully examined and considered the record, the legal questions raised and argument of counsel and are of the opinion, based thereon, that defendant was not accorded a fair trial.
The people's theory of the case is that defendant, as the purchasing agent for his concern, bought from two unknown parties at various times over a long period of months, large quantities of new, sacked, granulated ingot aluminum, recognized as a particular form of such metal and regularly priced and quoted on the New York market and in standard trade journals in that form and that the circumstances, disclosed by the evidence, under which it was purchased were such as to import to defendant knowledge that he was purchasing stolen property. Defendant's theory is that the aluminum was purchased by him as scrap in the usual course of business, which was in large part the acquirement of metals as scrap, including aluminum, and that he had no knowledge of new aluminum being sold in such form as that in question, and did not know that the metal in question had been stolen. Out of these two conflicting theories the issues arise.
While we can understand from a reading of the record how the trial court was led to make many of the remarks, now assigned as error, by reason of the involved manner in which the relatively simple defense was presented, such remarks, if prejudicial, and we think some of them were, should not be allowed to prejudice the defendant in his right to receive a fair and impartial trial. The first assignment is directed to the court's statement in the presence of the jury 'There is no scrap metal involved here,' and 'The metal involved here is not scrap metal.' The court doubtless was speaking of the matter from the standpoint of the people's theory of the case and from that standpoint his statement was correct. It was brought out by the insistence of counsel for the defense on improper cross-examination of a witness who was called by the people to prove the value of new granulated ingot aluminum and who had not even attempted to qualify as having knowledge of the price of aluminum scrap; notwithstanding, the court, instead of distinguishing between the conflicting contentions, that of the people that it was new metal, and of defendant that it was scrap, made the unequivocal statement--not as the contention of the people but as a fact--that it was not scrap. We cannot say, being mindful of the weight given to statements of the court by jurors, that this did not prejudice the defendant Before the jury. Furthermore, we are of the opinion that it was error for the court to refuse defendant the right to show the size of the plant of which he was assistant superintendent, and the extent of its business. The language used by the court in his ruling that the question, 'What is the size of the plant down there?' was objectionable, was unfortunate and calculated to prejudice the rights of defendant. He said: 'Anything that is pertinent to this transaction is relevant here, but these other matters in the form of a build-up are not material and the jury should not be burdened with it.' Not only do these words deny the relevancy of clearly relevant evidence, but thereby the court insinuated that it was offered by counsel merely to build up his case with knowledge that it was not...
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