State v. Hook
| Decision Date | 15 June 1928 |
| Docket Number | 26,786 |
| Citation | 219 N.W. 926,174 Minn. 590 |
| Parties | STATE v. HAROLD HOOK |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Defendant appealed from an order of the district court for Lincoln county, Enersen, J. denying his motion for a new trial. Reversed.
After vacation of plea of guilty and judgment, prosecutor's cross-examination of accused was error.
1. When a plea of guilty, sentence and judgment are set aside by the trial court upon the ground that the defendant was misled in making his plea and he is allowed to enter a plea of not guilty and goes to trial thereon, it is error to require him to state on cross-examination that he said before the presiding judge after his plea preliminary to sentence and as a part of the proceeding resulting in the judgment.
Testimony intended to fix date of purchase should have been admitted.
2. Where a date was important and a witness stated it positively, but could not fix it by any circumstance more definite than that she had bought some clothing the day previous for which she had paid by check, she should have been permitted to testify on redirect that she had found the check and could verify her recollection by reference to its date.
Not error to exclude evidence of details of settlement proposed by prosecuting witness.
3. Upon cross-examination the prosecutrix admitted that, after the filing of the complaint before the justice of the peace, she and some of her relatives had sought a money settlement with the relatives of the defendant. There was no error in excluding testimony as to the details of the proposed settlement.
William E. G. Watson and John A. Mansfiled, for appellant.
G. A. Youngquist, Attorney General, James E. Markham, Deputy Attorney General, and R. F. Schulz, County Attorney, for the state.
The defendant was convicted upon a trial before a jury of the crime of carnal knowledge of a female child under the age of 18 years, and appealed from the order denying his motion for a new trial.
1. The case came to trial in the September, 1927, term of the Lincoln county court. The defendant was convicted on his plea of guilty, and judgment was entered on the 28th day of September. A few days later motion was made to set aside the plea, sentence and judgment upon the ground that the plea was entered through misapprehension and mistake. On October 4 the court entered an order to this effect:
The motion was made upon the ground that the plea of guilty "was made through misapprehension and mistake and that the judgment and sentence of the court was based wholly upon the plea of guilty." Trial on the plea of not guilty was commenced a few days later, resulting in the conviction now before the court. The defendant testified in his own behalf. The state on cross-examination asked him whether he was in the courthouse at Ivanhoe, Minnesota, on the 26th day of September, 1927, before the judge then presiding, and received an affirmative answer. Then followed a number of questions as to what on that day he said to the presiding judge, question and answer being suggested to him. The questions were such as are usually put to a defendant upon his tendering a plea of guilty and as preliminary to the sentence. They were such as are in part at least contemplated by the statute, and were a part of the judicial proceeding resulting in the sentence and judgment, both of which had been set aside by the order of the court. The plea was not put before the jury. Most of the questions were not in themselves important. The answer to one question, unexplained, was an admission of guilt and went directly to the jury.
In State v. Anderson, 173 Minn. 293, 217 N.W. 351, it was held error to introduce a plea of guilty which had been set aside, following the recent case of Kercheval v U.S. 274 U.S. 220, 47 S.Ct. 582, 71 L.Ed. 1009. The rule that a plea of guilty cannot be introduced in evidence against the accused after it has been withdrawn by permission of the court is well supported. See State v. Meyers, 99 Mo. 107, 119, 12 S.W. 516; ...
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