State v. McCarty

• Decision Date: 02 September 1970
• Docket Number: No. 53424,53424
• Citation: 179 N.W.2d 548
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. George John McCARTY, Jr., Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 548

179 N.W.2d 548

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. George John McCARTY, Jr., Appellant.

No. 53424.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Sept. 2, 1970.

O'Brien & Galvin, Sioux City, for appellant.

Richard C. Turner, Atty. Gen., James W. Hughes, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Richard T. Smith, County Atty., for appellee.

REES, Justice.

The defendant was charged by grand jury indictment with the larceny of a quantity of soybeans exceeding in value $20, in violation of section 709.4, Code, 1966. On his plea of not guilty he was tried to a jury and convicted, and from a judgment imposing sentence of imprisonment for a term of not to exceed ten years in the penitentiary, the defendant appeals. We reverse and remand.

I. In his first assignment of error, the defendant urges the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of a witness Valera Wordelman as to the landlord-tenant relationship existing between the witness and one James McCarty, a brother of the defendant. She testified she had a rental arrangement under the terms of which James McCarty operated two 80-acre tracts of land belonging to Mrs. Wordelman, and in the year 1967, 38 acres of her land farmed by James McCarty was planted to soybeans, and her share of that crop was 536 bushels. Further, in his first assignment of error, the defendant asserts the court erred in admitting the testimony of one Fred Dressen, who testified he is the manager of a grain storage elevator at Alvord, Iowa, and never had any business transactions with the defendant but had had business transactions with the defendant's brother James, and in June of 1967 James McCarty had sold to the witness 1697 bushels of soybeans. Further, in his first assignment of error, the defendant contends the court erred in admitting the testimony of one Alvin Vant Land, who testified he is the assistant manager of a farmers cooperative at Inwood, Iowa, and never had any business transactions with the defendant, but that the defendant's brother James is a member of the cooperative, and in May of 1967 the witness sold James McCarty seven and one-half bushels of soybean seed, which would have planted approximately five acres of land, and that he also in May of 1967 cleaned 80 bushels of soybean seed for James McCarty, and in November of the same year purchased from James McCarty 1520 bushels of soybeans.

The defendant asserts error in the admission of the testimony of the above named witnesses because the evidence adduced from said witnesses was irrelevant and immaterial to the issues in the cause and was in no way binding on the defendant, contending that evidence as to acts or transactions to which the accused was not a party or to other matters with which he had no reasonable connection, being inter alios acta, is inadmissible unless it is so interwoven with other relevant evidence as to make it impossible to try the case without admitting it.

The State contends even if the evidence was irrelevant, it was non-prejudicial and should not be the basis for reversal, citing State v. Stuart, 241 Iowa 1004, 1006, 43 N.W.2d 702, 703. In Stuart, the charge was burglary with aggravation, the fruits of the alleged theft having been found in the defendant's hotel room. Evidence of a zipper bag and suitcase found in the hotel room of an alleged accomplice was deemed of questionable materiality, but the introduction of the same was viewed under the facts of the case as non-prejudicial. In Stuart, this court held where there is no prejudice the admission of irrelevant or immaterial evidence will not constitute reversible error.

In State v. Gill, 259 Iowa 142, 145, 143 N.W.2d 331, 333--334, this court held in a prosecution for robbery evidence of activities unrelated to the robbery did not come within any rule permitting the admission of such evidence, and the effect of such evidence was prejudicial and its introduction amounted to reversible error.

The rule 'res inter alios acta' forbids the introduction of collateral facts which by their nature are incapable of affording any reasonable presumption or inference as to the principal matter in dispute. 22A. C.J.S. Criminal Law § 602, pages 406--407. Thus, evidence as to acts, transactions or occurrences to which accused is not a party or is not connected is inadmissible.

From the holdings in Stuart and Gill, supra, while evidence may be inadmissible under the doctrine 'res inter alios acta', the type of evidence and the circumstances of the case are determinative of whether such evidence was prejudicial and therefore whether its admission is reversible error. It therefore appears the evidence relating to James McCarty's tenancy and his commercial transactions in soybeans prior to the alleged larceny of soybeans by the defendant has no relevance to the crime with which the defendant is charged. The State was obviously attempting to connect sales of soybeans by the defendant's brother with the offense by establishing the amount of soybeans the defendant is alleged to have committed, found in the hoghouse at the home of the defendant in January 1968 was greater than the defendant or his brother could have raised or accumulated without having come by them in some manner unexplained. Speculation by a jury as to connections between sales of soybeans by James McCarty and the offense with which the defendant was charged could therefore have been, and obviously was, highly prejudicial to the defendant. We conclude the trial court should have excluded the evidence of the witness Wordelman, Dressen and Vant Land, unless the testimony of such witnesses could have been more closely connected to the offense with which the defendant was charged than the record before us indicates was the fact.

II. In his second assignment of error, the defendant asserts the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of a witness, Emmet Rathbun, as to purported similarities of tire tracks observed by him and photographs of tire tracks taken by another because the questions propounded to the witness were leading and suggestive and invaded the province of the jury, and the witness was permitted to advance an opinion and conclusion without proper foundation.

The defendant further urges the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of the witness Rathbun as to purported similarities in photographs of boot prints observed by him, and certain boot tracks actually observed by him, on the same basis as the objection to the testimony concerning the tire tracks.

The defendant advances the argument that while the witness may state facts within his personal knowledge, unless he is properly qualified as an expert concerning the particular subject of his testimony he should not be permitted to state an opinion reached by him when such opinion is on an ultimate fact and invades the province of the jury. As applied to this case, the defendant argues Rathbun was a lay witness and gave testimony that the tire tracks and boot tracks observed and photographed by him were similar when such a question was one solely for the jury. The State contends opinion testimony of a lay witness is admissible if the record discloses factual observations upon which the opinion is predicated.

The defendant cites an Iowa case, State v. Steffen, 210 Iowa 196, 200--202, 230 N.W. 536, 537--538, 78 A.L.R. 748, 751, on the admissibility of testimony of an expert witness as to ultimate facts. The Steffen case was specifically overruled by Grismore v. Consolidated Products Co., 232 Iowa 328, 362, 5 N.W.2d 646, 663.

We conclude there was sufficient factual basis to serve as foundation for Rathbun's comparison testimony. Certainly where there is proper factual foundation for a lay witness to testify, it is within the discretion of a trial court to allow a witness to express an opinion based on such established foundation facts. When a witness expresses an opinion the matter of its being received is largely within the discretion of the trial court. Draeger v. Heckman-Reynolds Co., 247 Iowa 1259, 1263, 78 N.W.2d 851; Grismore v. Consolidated Products Co., supra, 232 Iowa at 342, 5 N.W.2d at 654. In the Grismore case the court announced the rule that the fact the matter inquired about is a vital and controlling element in the trial or is even the ultimate fact which the jury ought to pass upon and determine is no reason why the opinion should not be received. Grismore v. Consolidated Products Co., supra, 232 Iowa at 345--346, 5 N.W.2d at 655. In Grismore the court seemed to rely on the fact that all the expert is offering is an opinion and that the jury is perfectly capable of accepting or rejecting the same. There was sufficient evidence to provide a...