State v. Settle
| Decision Date | 24 January 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-449,81-449 |
| Citation | 123 N.H. 34,455 A.2d 1031 |
| Parties | The STATE of New Hampshire v. John A. SETTLE, Jr. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
Gregory H. Smith, Atty. Gen. (Brian T. Tucker, Asst. Atty. Gen., on the brief and orally), for the State.
James E. Duggan, Appellate Defender, Concord, on brief and orally, and John A. Settle, Jr., pro se, by brief, for defendant.
The defendant, John A. Settle, Jr., appeals his convictions of theft by unauthorized taking, RSA 637:3, burglary, RSA 635:1, and conspiracy to receive stolen property, RSA 629:3, RSA 637:7.
This case arose out of the same burglary described in State v. Chaisson, 123 N.H. 17, 458 A.2d 95 (decided this date). The home of G. Jackson Jones of Keene was burglarized on March 27, 1981. The following day, Harold Andrews, a retired coin shop owner who was working with the New Hampshire State Police on an unsolved burglary in the Town of Dublin, went to the apartment of Carl J. Chaisson. Andrews had been told that Chaisson had some silver and other items to sell. After meeting with Chaisson, Andrews contacted Corporal O'Brien of the State police and described the items that he saw in Chaisson's basement. Soon thereafter, O'Brien met with Sergeant Hardy of the Keene Police Department and described the same items to him. After communicating with the victim Jones, Hardy prepared a search warrant and affidavit, in addition to a warrant for the arrest of Chaisson.
On March 28, 1981, the Keene police executed the search warrant. They recovered many of the items taken from Jones' residence. Chaisson was arrested later that evening. Chaisson made a statement to the police implicating the defendant and Joey Lee Taylor. The following day, Settle was arrested.
Prior to trial, the defendant filed a motion to continue the trial because he had been indicted for burglary and theft by unauthorized taking just five days before the trial began. The Trial Court (Pappagianis, J.) denied the defendant's motion. The defendant also filed a motion to quash either the indictment for conspiracy to receive stolen property or the indictment for theft by unauthorized taking on the ground that they were multiplicitous, which the court also denied.
The defendant further moved to quash the indictments for burglary and conspiracy to receive stolen property on the ground that they failed to allege facts necessary to establish all of the elements of the offenses and failed to allege that the defendant acted with the required mental state. The court denied this motion. The defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized from Chaisson's apartment on the ground that the search-warrant affidavit contained intentional misrepresentations. The court also denied this motion.
Prior to trial, the defendant filed a document titled "Notice of Defendant's Appearance Pro Se and Defendant's Declaration Regarding Any Waivers," which stated that an attorney would serve as his "co-counsel" and/or provide standby legal services. The court stated that the defendant either could represent himself with the attorney as standby counsel or have the attorney conduct his defense. The defendant agreed to have the attorney conduct his defense.
During the trial, the court announced that it had a policy of refusing to let any witness be impeached by prior criminal convictions. It refused to permit Joey Lee Taylor, who agreed to testify for the State, to be cross-examined about any prior criminal convictions.
At the end of the trial, the defendant asked for a continuance to secure the testimony of an alibi witness who was in the hospital. The court denied the motion, and the defendant rested his case.
The defendant appeals the denial of his motions to quash and his motion to suppress, the court's ruling that he could not act as co-counsel, the court's refusal to permit the State's witness to be cross-examined about prior criminal convictions, and the denial of his motion for a continuance. The defendant also attacks the constitutionality of RSA 637:7, the statute defining the crime of receiving stolen property.
Many of the issues raised by the defendant are identical to those raised in the companion case of State v. Chaisson, 123 N.H. 17, 458 A.2d 95 (decided this date). The defendant's indictments for theft and conspiracy are identical to the indictments for these offenses in Chaisson. We held in Chaisson that the defendant's indictments for conspiracy to receive stolen property and theft by unauthorized taking were not multiplicitous.
We held that the indictments for burglary and conspiracy sufficiently alleged all of the elements of those offenses and sufficiently alleged that the defendant acted with the required mental state. Because the indictments in this case are identical to the indictments in Chaisson, we hold that the indictments for conspiracy and burglary in the present case are also sufficient and that the court properly denied the defendant's motion to quash.
In Chaisson, we upheld the court's denial of the defendant's motion to suppress. We held that there was sufficient evidence for the court to find that the affidavit supporting the search warrant did not contain misrepresentations. The same search warrant is involved in the present case. As a consequence, we hold, again, that there was sufficient evidence for the court to find that the search-warrant affidavit contained no misrepresentations, and therefore that suppression of the evidence discovered during the search was not required by State v. Spero, 117 N.H. 199, 371 A.2d 1155 (1977).
In Chaisson, we also held that RSA 637:7, the receiving-stolen-property statute, was neither unconstitutionally vague nor overbroad. We conclude in this case, as in Chaisson, that the statute does not permit the State to convict a defendant without proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew the property was stolen or believed that it had...
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State v. Chaisson, 81-429
...proposal. The defendant at that time gave a statement to the police implicating Joey Lee Taylor and John Settle, Jr., (see State v. Settle, 123 N.H. 34, 455 A.2d 1031 (decided this date)), and eventually made a full confession. The defendant was indicted for theft by unauthorized taking, bu......
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State v. Dukette
...he later insisted that the public defender allow one John Settle to participate in the preparation of the case. See State v. Settle, 123 N.H. 34, 455 A.2d 1031 (1983). Settle has been the subject of an inquiry by the Attorney General into the unauthorized practice of law, see generally Stat......
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State v. Barham, 83-363
...sixth amendment to the Federal Constitution, a defendant has a right to represent himself in a criminal trial. State v. Settle, 123 N.H. 34, 38, 455 A.2d 1031, 1033-34 (1983); Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975). We begin, as we must, by first making an......
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State v. Settle
...447 A.2d 1284 (1982) (reversing defendant's convictions for receipt of, and conspiracy to receive, stolen property); State v. Settle, 123 N.H. 34, 455 A.2d 1031 (1983) (reversing convictions for theft and conspiracy to receive stolen property); State v. Settle, 124 N.H. 832, 480 A.2d 6 (198......