State v. Murphy

• Decision Date: 21 February 1978
• Docket Number: No. 5944,5944
• Citation: 59 Haw. 1,575 P.2d 448
• Parties: STATE of Hawaii, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. George Patrick MURPHY, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

Page 448

575 P.2d 448

59 Haw. 1

STATE of Hawaii, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. George Patrick MURPHY, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 5944.

Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

Feb. 21, 1978.

Ronald M. Yonemoto, Deputy Public Defender, Honolulu, for defendant-appellant.

Kendall C. S. Wong, Deputy Pros. Atty., Honolulu, for plaintiff-appellee.

Before RICHARDSON, C. J., and KOBAYASHI, OGATA, MENOR and KIDWELL, JJ.

OGATA, Justice.

This is an appeal from a conviction for murder. The defendant-appellant, George Patrick Murphy (hereinafter referred to as appellant), was found guilty by a jury of the murder of Linda K. Knodle. The court below sentenced appellant to life imprisonment with possibility of parole. ¹ Upon consideration of all the points raised on this appeal, we affirm the judgment and sentence of the court below.

On the morning of November 26, 1974, the partially clad body of a young woman was discovered in the restroom area of the fourth-floor laundry room of the Waikiki Gateway Hotel. The cause of death was found to have been asphyxia due to strangulation, and there was also evidence of sexual assault. The body was later identified as that of Linda K. Knodle, who had checked into the hotel earlier that morning.

Knodle was last seen alive as she entered one of the hotel's lobby elevators about 20 to 30 minutes after checking in at the front desk. The hotel's assistant manager, Gaylord Komoto, testified that he also saw a male, whom he later identified as appellant, walk into the hotel lobby and get into the same elevator which Linda Knodle entered. However, on cross-examination, Komoto stated that he was only "40% Sure" that it was appellant who got into the elevator at the same time as Knodle.

Police detectives were able to "lift" several latent fingerprints from the scene of the murder, and fourteen of the prints were identified as those of appellant. Appellant admitted having been in the fourth-floor laundry area restroom on the morning of November 26, but he testified that he had only gone there to urinate while walking home from a night out at some Waikiki bars. Appellant's testimony indicated that he used the restroom some time prior to the time that Linda Knodle was seen getting into the hotel elevator.

The State produced additional evidence that appellant had accosted a woman by the name of Karen Cook on a street near the Waikiki Gateway Hotel shortly before 5:00 a. m. on November 26. Cook managed to break away from appellant's grasp and succeeded in running away from him. She stated that she last saw appellant walking away from her in the direction of the Waikiki Gateway Hotel.

I. PRE-TRIAL MOTION TO DISMISS THE INDICTMENT

The first question raised by appellant is whether the trial court erred in refusing to grant appellant's pre-trial motion to dismiss the indictment. Appellant contends that the grand jury improperly indicted him on the basis of certain hearsay testimony elicited during the grand jury proceeding.

During the course of the grand jury hearing, Honolulu Police Detective Paul Trepte was called to testify regarding his investigation of the Linda Knodle homicide. The grand jury transcript, a copy of which is a part of the record in this case, reveals that Detective Trepte testified, inter alia, to the following matters:

(1) When he arrived at the Waikiki Gateway Hotel on the morning of November 26, 1974, he found the body of a partially nude, young woman in the restroom of the hotel launderette, and the woman "was pronounced dead, at the scene"; and

(2) "An autopsy was performed on the woman and the cause of death comes back as 'asphyxia, due to strangulation.' "

Based upon the testimony of Trepte and of other witnesses, the grand jury indicted appellant on the charge of murder. ²

Appellant maintains that because Trepte's testimony as to the fact and cause of death was hearsay, the indictment was improperly returned under the pronouncements of State v. Layton, 53 Haw. 513, 497 P.2d 559 (1972). ³ In Layton, this Court agreed with the proposition that hearsay evidence in a grand jury proceeding should only be used in certain exceptional situations. Appellant asserts that the exceptions stated in Layton do not apply here, and, therefore, the hearsay statements made by Trepte as to the fact and cause of death should not have been considered by the grand jury.

We agree that the testimony of Detective Trepte relating to the fact and cause of death was hearsay. ⁴ In addition, Trepte's testimony as to the fact and cause of death was crucial to the grand jury's finding that probable cause existed, for no other testimony was presented which would have indicated that Linda Knodle was the victim of a homicide. Therefore, if Trepte's hearsay testimony was impermissible under Layton, the indictment should have been dismissed.

We do not regard Layton as having established an ironclad prohibition on the use of hearsay testimony in grand jury proceedings. In Layton, the court quoted a passage from United States v. Umans, 368 F.2d 725, 730 (2d Cir. 1966), which expressed the following:

Hearsay evidence should only be used (in a grand jury proceeding) when direct testimony is unavailable or when it is demonstrably inconvenient to summon witnesses able to testify to facts from personal knowledge.

53 Haw. at 515, 497 P.2d at 561. Describing the above-quoted passage as an "admonition to prosecutors", the court in Layton expressed agreement with it. We are of the opinion, however, that this "admonition" must be viewed as at most a policy expression and not as a hard and fast rule, because the court in Umans was mainly concerned with "excessive" use of hearsay evidence in grand jury proceedings. Moreover, it was never stated in Layton that the effect of Umans was to require that an indictment be quashed whenever crucial hearsay evidence is presented to a grand jury absent a showing of necessity. The language of Layton fails to indicate that the above-quoted passage was intended to become an absolute rule in Hawaii.

We do agree with the position taken in Umans that excessive use of hearsay testimony tends to be destructive of the grand jury's function. See Umans, 368 F.2d at 730, quoted in Layton, 53 Haw. at 515, 497 P.2d at 561. The preferable practice would be, of course, for the prosecution to present witnesses who are able to testify from first-hand knowledge whenever possible. ⁵ Nevertheless, where the hearsay testimony was not used deliberately in the place of better evidence to improve the case for an indictment, dismissal of the indictment is not required.

In the instant case there is nothing to suggest that the testimony of Detective Trepte did not accurately reflect the findings of the official autopsy or that there was any improper purpose behind the prosecutor's use of hearsay to establish the fact and cause of death.

The grand jury properly considered the hearsay testimony given by Detective Trepte. The motion to dismiss the indictment was properly denied.

II. EVIDENCE OF PRIOR CRIME

The next point relied upon by appellant is that the trial court erred in allowing witness Karen Cook to testify over objection that appellant had accosted her near the Waikiki Gateway Hotel on the morning of the murder.

Prior to Cook's taking the stand to testify, appellant's counsel moved to have Cook's testimony excluded on the ground that prior acts or offenses of a defendant are inadmissible. In opposing the motion, the prosecution contended that Cook's testimony fell within certain exceptions to the general rule of nonadmissibility of evidence of prior offenses. The trial court denied appellant's motion to exclude Cook's testimony.

Cook testified that she was accosted by appellant, with whom she was theretofore unacquainted, early on the morning of November 26, 1974. On that date, Cook was employed as an airline reservation agent and was slated to begin work at 5:00 a. m. As she was walking to work at about 4:50 a. m. a male walked up to her, grabbed her by the arm, and asked her where she was going and what she was doing. The assailant also grabbed her around the neck with one hand. Cook managed to break away from her assailant's grasp and succeeded in escaping from him. She last saw the male walking away from her in the direction of the Waikiki Gateway Hotel, which was located about one or two blocks from where she was accosted. At a police lineup and later at trial, Cook identified appellant as the man who had accosted her.

Appellant relies upon the generally stated rule that evidence which reveals that a defendant has committed crimes other than the one for which he is on trial is ordinarily inadmissible. Territory v. Caminos, 38 Haw. 628, 635 (1950).

In State v. Iaukea, 56 Haw. 343, 537 P.2d 724 (1975), we noted the difficulties which may arise when evidence is introduced which tends to prove the commission of crimes other than those with which the defendant is charged. We went on to discuss in Iaukea the two basic formulations of the rule pertaining to use of evidence involving other crimes. Under the first formulation, which encompasses a more liberal approach, evidence of other crimes is deemed to be admissible if it is found to be relevant and to have a tendency to establish the offense charged. The second (or "alternative") formulation, which is most often recited by courts around the country, is the more restrictive view that evidence of other crimes is inadmissible except when it helps to establish one of five issues: intent, motive, absence of mistake or accident, identity, or common scheme or plan. While these five traditional exception categories are not intended to be exhaustive, courts which follow the alternative approach are usually reluctant to admit evidence of other crimes which does not fall within those categories.

We chose in Iaukea to base our decision regarding admissibility of the evidence of other crimes upon an analysis which independently utilized each of the...