State v. Seaburg

• Decision Date: 18 September 1958
• Parties: STATE of Maine v. Carl SEABURG.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 550

145 A.2d 550

154 Me. 162

STATE of Maine v. Carl SEABURG.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Sept. 18, 1958.

David R. Hastings, II, Co. Atty., Fryeburg, for plaintiff.

Berman & Berman, Lewiston, Dow & Dow, Norway, for defendant.

Before WILLIAMSON, C. J., and WEBBER, TAPLEY, SULLIVAN, and DUBORD, JJ.

SULLIVAN, Justice.

A jury found the respondent guilty of taking indecent liberties with a male person of the age of 15 years. R.S. (1954) c. 134, § 6. During the trial exceptions were taken to the admission of testimony and to the refusal of the presiding Justice to instruct the jury as requested. After verdict a motion was made to have the verdict set aside and a new trial granted. Upon the denial of such motion the respondent appealed. He now prosecutes his exceptions and appeal.

Exception 1.

The complaining witness in direct examination over the objection of the defense was asked by the prosecuting attorney the following question concerning indecent liberties by the respondent and was permitted to make the ensuing reply:

'Q. At this time in November, was this the first time that Mr. Seaburg committed acts of this kind with you? A. Yes, it was.'

The testimony was offered and admitted by the Court as relevant for any significance it might afford in characterizing any relationship between the respondent and the complaint.

There was no error. The situation here, the question, the ground assigned to justify it and the ruling of the Court are patterned almost identically from the decided case and precedent of this Court in State v. Norton, 1955, 151 Me. 178, 180, 116 A.2d 635.

The respondent protests that 'the County Attorney must be presumed to have known what the answer would have been and if he knew that the answer was going to be' yes, 'then the only purpose of asking the question was to lay the foundation of the building up of prejudice in the minds of the jury against the respondent.'

The question was proper and the answer proved to be favorable rather than detrimental to the respondent.

Exception 2.

With the defense opposing, the witness was then interrogated by the State as to any indecent liberties practiced upon him by the respondent subsequent to those precisely charged in the indictment and in the specifications supplied thereunder and was permitted to recite that there had been some three more of such defilements over the period of time extending from November to the next January. Such evidence was received as pertinent to the topic of relationship between the respondent and the witness.

The challenged testimony was not admitted nor was it admissible in proof of the particular offense of which the respondent was accused here.

'It is an elementary principle in the law of evidence that, when a respondent stands charged with the commission of a particular criminal act, evidence that he did a similar thing at some other time is generally deemed irrelevant and inadmissible. The considerations of justice underlying this rule are sufficiently obvious. The admission of such collateral facts in evidence would tend to place the defendant's whole life in issue on the charge of a single act, and oppress him with irrelevant matter of which he had received no notice and which he could not be prepared to meet. Proof of numerous other crimes similar to that charged may indeed have a tendency to show the accused to be devoid of all moral restraint, and 'fatally bent on mischief,' and thus, in a moral sense, increase the probability of his guilt with respect to the particular offense set out in the indictment; but such evidence does not, for that reason, become legally admissible when there is no question in regard to the nature of the act charged. Evidence that the defendant's general reputation is bad with respect to that element of character involved in the crime charged, or bad generally as a man of moral worth, might also tend in some degree to lay the foundation for a presumption of guilt; but the rule is firmly established and unquestioned that such evidence cannot be received until the accused has opened the door by introducing evidence of his good reputation.' State v. Acheson, 1898, 91 Me. 240, 243, 39 A. 570, 571. See Wigmore on Evidence, 3d Ed., Vol. 1, § 194, p. 646.

The testimony was entertained for a carefully discriminated, refined and relevant purpose.

'* * * to prove the mutual disposition of the parties, and to illustrate the nature of the intimacy shown by their conduct on the occasion in question; * * *' State v. Acheson, 91 Me. 240, 244, 39 A. 570, 572.

State v. Witham, 1881, 72 Me. 531, was a trial upon an indictment for adultery. This Court said at page 535:

'It is objected that this mode of trial involved the admission of evidence of acts of adultery happening both before and after the principal act complained of. Formerly, the criticism might have been regarded favorably in many courts. Latterly, however, courts and text-writers are rapidly falling in with the view, that acts prior and also subsequent to the act charged in the indictment, when indicating a continuousness of illicit intercourse, are admissible in evidence as showing the relation and mutual disposition of the parties; the reception of such evidence to be largely controlled by the judge who tries the cause, and the evidence to be submitted to the jury with proper explanation of its purpose and effect. We think this doctrine is most in accordance with the logic of the law and with the authorities. * * *'

In State v. Williams, 1884, 76 Me. 480, 481, also upon the issue of adultery, we find:

'Evidence tending to show illicit intercourse by the defendant with the same person charged in the indictment, both before and after the day laid, is competent to prove the relation and mutual disposition of the parties. State v. Witham, 72 Me. 531.'

State v. Witham and State v. Williams, supra, were cases of contested accusation of adultery while the case at bar is one of a charge of indecent liberties. Yet, that accidental distinction notwithstanding, the evidentiary determinations of this Court in the Witham and Williams precedents are soundly applicable to the problem of admissibility of the evidence which comprises the subject matter of respondent's Exception 2. The same decisive rationale serves equally well to demonstrate the competency, relevance and fairness of the controverted evidence in each of the three cases. The rules for attaining, pertinent truth without prejudicial harm are constant and uniform in all three cases.

State v. Kornegger, 1953, 363 Mo. 968, 255 S.W.2d 765, was a trial for indecent liberties with a female child of 7 years. Evidence of such a transgression subsequent in time to the specific or principal offense described in the indictment was admitted. The Court, in holding the evidence proper, said, 255 S.W.2d 768:

'* * * But we think that under the above stated exceptions, and under the instant circumstances, the above stated events which subsequently occurred on April 19 were clearly admissible to establish not only the identity of the defendant and a common scheme and plan as to this prosecutrix but also as 'corroborative evidence to show a disposition upon the part of the accused and as tending to support the specific offense' for which defendant was on trial * * *'

State v. Mitchell, 1948, 253 Wis. 626, 34 N.W.2d 661, was a trial for indecent liberties with a 14 year old girl.

'Defendant also contends that there was error on the trial by the introduction of Shirley's testimony as to similar acts of such unlawful misconduct by defendant in relation to her at other times.

'The admission of that testimony did not constitute error. Evidence as to such other acts of indecent familiarity between defendant and Shirley was clearly admissible. * * *' 34 N.W.2d 662.

In People v. LaMantain, 1949, 89 Cal.App.2d 699, 201 P.2d 598, the defendant had been convicted of committing lewd and lascivious acts upon the body of a female child under the age of 7 years. Evidence of 2 such offenses, one on a Friday in February and another on the following Tuesday, had been introduced by the State. The law of California held the State to an election by the very act of the prosecution in presenting evidence of the offense of the earlier date. The Court held that the following instruction was without reproach, 201 P.2d 599:

'Although evidence was offered for the purpose of showing that on more than one occasion the defendant committed lewd or lascivious acts upon or with the body of Nancy Jane Spohn, you are not permitted to deliver a verdict of guilt in this case unless you find that the defendant committed the specific offense which, the prosecution alleges was committed on or about March 2, 1948. That alleged offense and no other is the one of which the defendant now stands accused under the information. You may not, for the purpose of finding against the defendant distinct offenses or continued criminality, consider any evidence which tends to show other instances of lewd or lascivious conduct by the defendant with said child, but you may consider such evidence as tending to show, if you decide that it does tend to show, a lewd and lascivious disposition on his part toward said child and hence as bearing on the question of intent and inclination at the time of the alleged specific crime, in respect to the charge of which your verdict must be given. As to such limited purpose for which such evidence may be considered, you will weigh it as you do all other.'

State v. Sebastian, 1908, 81 Conn. 1, 69 A. 1054, was a prosecution upon an indictment for carnally knowing and abusing a female child of less than 15 years. There were 2 counts for two separate violations, one committed on April 9, 1907 and the other, between April 1 and August 12, 1907. The State elected to rely totally upon the first count. Testimony was introduced by the prosecutor of sexual intercourse on April 8th or 9th and of such...