State v. Eames
| Decision Date | 15 May 1925 |
| Docket Number | 24,517 |
| Citation | 203 N.W. 769,163 Minn. 249 |
| Parties | STATE v. PAUL EAMES, JR |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Defendant was indicted by the grand jury of Goodhue county charged with the crime of unlawfully giving and furnishing intoxicating liquor to a minor, tried in the district court for that county before Schultz, J., and a jury which found him guilty as charged in the indictment. Defendant appealed from an order denying his motion for a new trial. Reversed.
Evidence of other offers to give intoxicating liquor inadmissible in prosecution.
In a prosecution for furnishing a person with intoxicating liquor proof that defendant had previously offered to give liquor to the same person, and to another, should be excluded under the general rule that proof of acts or offenses of a similar nature, to establish the commission of the crime charged, is not admissible. Neither is such proof admissible on the theory that it tends to show a plan or scheme to violate the law. An instruction that such proof may be considered insofar as it indicates an inclination or disposition on the part of the defendant to violate the law, does not cure the error in receiving it.
1. See Criminal law, 16 C.J. p. 586, § 1132; p. 591, § 1140; p. 605, § 1173; p. 606, § 1174 (1926 Anno); 17 C.J. p. 320, § 3662; p. 328, § 3668.
Frank M. Wilson, for appellant.
Clifford L. Hilton, Attorney General, James E. Markham, Deputy Attorney General, and Theodore N. Ofstedahl, County Attorney, for respondent.
The grand jury returned an indictment in which the defendant was charged with the crime of unlawfully furnishing intoxicating liquor to a girl 18 years of age. He was tried and found guilty and has appealed from an order denying his motion for a new trial.
At the time of the commission of the alleged offense, the defendant, accompanied by a young woman, was in attendance at a dance at which the girl named in the indictment was present. The evidence warranted the jury in finding that while at the dance he gave the girl a drink from a bottle he carried with him and that the bottle contained intoxicating liquor.
The girl was a witness, and, after she had testified to the circumstances of the alleged offense, she was asked whether on other occasions the defendant had offered to give her intoxicating liquor to drink. Defendant's objection was overruled and the witness answered that he had at two different times. His companion at the dance also testified over defendant's objection that she became acquainted with him about two months prior to the date of the offense charged and that within that period on three or four occasions he had offered to give her alcohol.
The one issue to be determined was whether the defendant had furnished intoxicating liquor to the girl named in the indictment at the time and place set forth therein.
It is a matter of common knowledge that men are disposed to believe that a person accused of a crime is guilty, if satisfied that he committed, or attempted to commit, other offenses of a similar nature. A standard writer of authority remarks that it cannot be said that this tendency is wholly without justification, for many persons, drawing upon their own experience, can bear testimony that a man who once committed a crime subsequently committed another of the same description. Underhill, Crim. Evid. § 150.
The general rule is that proof of the commission by defendant of other independent and disconnected offenses or acts of a similar nature is not admissible to establish the commission of the crime charged, and the erroneous admission of such proof usually works a reversal of a judgment of conviction. State v. Fitchette, 88 Minn. 145, 92 N.W. 527; State v. Friend, 151 Minn. 138, 186 N.W. 241. That evidence of that description has an effect on the minds of jurors cannot be gainsaid. Whether its effect is removed by an instruction that the evidence may be considered for a limited or special purpose and for none other is more than doubtful. In the instant case this instruction was given:
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