State v. Gumm
| Decision Date | 23 October 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 12446,12446 |
| Citation | 585 P.2d 959,99 Idaho 549 |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Arnold Edward GUMM, Defendant-Respondent. |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
Arthur J. Berry, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Wayne L. Kidwell, Atty. Gen., Lynn E. Thomas, Deputy Atty. Gen., H. Thomas Vanderford, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boise, for plaintiff-appellant.
Ronald Schilling, Moscow, for defendant-respondent.
The state appeals three district court decisions at trial which led to an order dismissing a grand larceny prosecution against the defendant. As established by the record, the facts are as follows.
Avery Brewer owns a cabin at O'Mill, Idaho. On August 10, 1976, Brewer inspected this cabin subsequent to a tenant vacating it. Brewer noticed nothing missing at that time. The next day Brewer returned and found that the place had been burglarized. Brewer reported this to the County Sheriff who began an investigation. Pursuant to some leads, Deputy Raleston filed an affidavit for and obtained a search warrant to search the residence of the defendant, Arnold Gumm, for specifically named items alleged to have been taken from the Brewer cabin. In executing the search warrant, the Sheriff seized several items matching the description in the warrant.
A criminal complaint was filed against the defendant on August 13, 1976. The complaint recited the facts of larceny but then charged the defendant with burglary. That same day the complaint was amended to charge Gumm, the defendant, with grand larceny. Ten days later on August 23, 1976 the second amended complaint was filed, again charging the defendant with grand larceny. That day, a preliminary hearing was held on the second amended complaint, and the defendant was bound over for trial. An information was filed on August 26, 1976 charging the defendant with grand larceny.
Trial began on November 22, 1976, during which the state amended the information by adding another witness. During the direct examination of Brewer (the owner of the cabin), the state sought to question him about the specific items of property that were missing. The defendant objected to specific testimony concerning any items not listed in the information, and the judge sustained the objection. The prosecutor then moved to amend the information.
The judge, noting that the information was not in conformance with the Idaho Code ( I.C. § 19-1411), denied the motion to amend, finding that such amendment would be prejudicial to the defendant. The defendant then moved to dismiss the case. The court granted this motion and dismissed the jury.
The state filed this appeal on November 30, 1976. Thus, I.C. § 19-2804, in effect until July 1, 1977, provided for the appealability of the court's ruling excluding certain testimony and the court's granting the defendant's motion to dismiss. 1
Idaho Code § 19-2804 provides no authority for the state to appeal the trial judge's denial of its motion to amend. But because we hold that the lower court's granting of defendant's motion to dismiss is appealable under I.C. § 19-2804(1) and because the denial of the motion to amend led to the granting of the motion to dismiss, we review the denial of the motion to amend in an exercise of this court's plenary power. Idaho Const., art. 5, § 9; State v. Lewis, 96 Idaho 743, 536 P.2d 738 (1975).
Informations must be specific in their content for two reasons: first, so that the accused has a means to prepare a proper defense and secondly so that a defendant can protect himself against subsequent prosecution based on the commission of the same act. State v. McKeehan, 91 Idaho 808, 814, 430 P.2d 886, 892-893 (1967). Not only is this specificity requirement statutory (see I.C. §§ 19-1409 to 19-1411, 19-1418 to 19-1420 inclusive), but it is also rooted deeply in constitutional guarantees. U.S.Const. amend. VI; Idaho Const. art. 1, § 13.
The specificity requirement takes on added meaning where, as here, the state charges a defendant with grand larceny. The information must name or describe the property charged to have been stolen. State v. Elmore, 126 Mont. 232, 247 P.2d 488 (1952); State v. Rogers, 2 Ariz.App. 232, 407 P.2d 773 (1965). The information here in question charged Gumm with:
wilfully, knowingly, intentionally, unlawfully, feloniously and without due cause or justification take, steal or carry away the personal property of another, to wit: that the said Arnold Edward Gumm did take, steal and carry away the personal property of one Avery Brewer from a house owned by the said Avery Brewer at O'Mill, said property having a value in excess of One Hundred Fifty Dollars ($150.00) lawful money of the United States, and said property being taken with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of said property's possession.
Because this charging language does not specifically list the property Gumm was charged with taking, it fails to meet the statutory and constitutional requirements of specificity. Since the information was defective, the next question to consider is whether the trial court should have allowed the prosecution to amend the information to include the specific property alleged to have been taken. I.C.R. 7(d) allows amendments to informations if the "substantial rights of the defendant are not prejudiced." Leave to amend after a plea is taken is given to "the discretion of the court." I.C. § 19-1420. The issue before us then is whether the trial judge abused his discretion in refusing leave to amend this information. We hold that he did.
When the trial judge denied the state's motion to amend he stated:
Mr. Calhoun, let me say in my judgment since Mr. Schilling argues now that in effect he wouldn't even be ready to go if you amend and you could certainly understand why he could not be ready to go on these facts when I say ready to go I mean ready now to proceed with this trial if the amendment is permitted, that would, then, be prejudicial to the substantial rights of his client were I to permit the amendment. I don't believe that I should and I will not. I deny your motion at this time. (Tr. p. 60)
There is no question that the information in its unamended form lacked specificity. Such a lack of specificity clearly prejudiced the rights of the defendant. But we cannot see how an amendment which would have cured this defect, would necessarily have prejudiced the substantial right of the defendant to prepare an adequate defense.
The reasoning of the trial court was simply that it would be prejudicial to allow an amendment and then force the defendant to defend immediately, without allowing him sufficient time to prepare a defense against the amended information. We agree with that reasoning as far as it goes. But if the trial court reasoned that the amendment would prejudice the defendant such that he would not be able to proceed adequately with the trial without delay, then the court should have granted a continuance or a mistrial under I.C.R. 29.1(c) if requested by the defendant rather than deny the motion to amend and then dismiss the case.
Defendant cannot legitimately contend that he was surprised to his substantial prejudice by the absence in the information of specific descriptions of the property which he had allegedly stolen. Defendant undoubtedly knew what articles the information referred to. The Clearwater County Sheriff's Department had seized those articles from the defendant pursuant to a valid search warrant. Idaho Code § 19-4413 requires an officer to give a receipt for the property (specified in detail) which the officer seized under a search warrant to the person from whom it was taken or in whose possession it was found or in the absence of a person present, at the place where the officer found the property. Further, I.C. § 19-4416 requires the presiding magistrate, upon the sheriff's return of the warrant, to deliver a copy of the inventory of property seized to the person from whose possession the property was taken. In the colloquy at trial, the prosecutor called the court's attention to the fact that Mr. Gumm had been given a receipt for all items of property taken from him at the time they were taken. In addition the prosecutor noted that, as part of discovery prior to trial, he provided defense counsel with a list of the property taken from the Brewer cabin and a list of the property recovered from Mr. Gumm.
It follows from the above discussion that the trial judge should not have granted defendant's subsequent motion to dismiss. We review this trial court decision under I.C. § 19-2804(1) which allows the state to appeal "(f)rom a judgment for the defendant on a demurrer to the indictment." 2
Although I.C.R. 12(a) abolishes demurrers, this Court has held that the state can still appeal under I.C. § 19-2804(1) from motions to dismiss which raise defenses and objections which were formerly grounds for demurrer. State v. Jennings, 95 Idaho 724, 727, 518 P.2d 1186, 1189 (1974); State v. Blair, 97 Idaho 646, 647, 551 P.2d 601 (1976). Idaho Code § 19-1703 provides in part that "the defendant may demur to the indictment when it appears upon the face thereof . . . that it does not substantially conform to the requirements of § . . . 19-1411." Idaho Code § 19-1411 mandates that an indictment or information be "direct and certain as it regards . . . the particular circumstances of the offense charged, when they are necessary to constitute a complete offense." Because of the lack of specificity in the information before us, we find that the motion to dismiss raises an objection which was formerly a ground for demurrer under I.C. § 19-1703. Thus the state may appeal the trial court's granting of the motion to dismiss.
Based on our analysis of the trial court's denial of the motion to amend, we hold that it was error for the trial court to grant defendant's motion to dismiss. Judgment reversed and remanded for further proceedings. 3
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