State v. Shumaker

• Decision Date: 14 January 1960
• Docket Number: No. 586,586
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE, v. Frances SHUMAKER.

Page 878

111 S.E.2d 878

251 N.C. 678

STATE, v. Frances SHUMAKER.

No. 586

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Jan. 14, 1960

Malcolm B. Seawell, Atty. Gen., Glenn L. Hooper, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

Robert S. Cahoon, George W. Gordon, Greensboro, for defendant, appellant.

HIGGINS, Justice.

The exceptive assignments argued in defendant's brief involve these questions: (1) Did the court commit error by admitting in evidence, over defendant's objection, the bank deposit slips retained by the depositor? (2) By admitting in evidence, over defendant's objection, the microfilm copies of endorsements on checks and deposit slips delivered to the bank? (3) Did the court, in its charge, give undue emphasis to the State's evidence and contentions?

The defendant's objections to the admissibility of the retained deposit slips is unsound. These slips were introduced as originals or duplicate originals. They were typewritten by the defendant or by someone under her direction. It was the defendant's duty to make and file them. She was the authorized custodian. They were in the files when she left. Clearly they were admissible. The duplicates of the deposit slips were filed with the bank at the time the deposits were made. The bank made photostats of these slips and of the checks. Dorothy Bowling testified: 'I am employed in the main office of Wachovia Bank & Trust Company. * * * The various papers marked for the purpose of identification (here the numbers are given) are photostatic copies of original slips on deposit with the Wachovia Bank & Trust Company for Automatic Lathe Cutterhead Company for the period of time from September 23, 1957 to March 1, 1958. I personally made these photostats.'

The defendant objected to the use of photostats on the ground the State did not 'first account satisfactorily for nonproduction of the originals,' citing among others the leading case of People v. Wells, 380 Ill. 347, 44 N.E.2d 32, 142 A.L.R. 1262. Under the North Carolina Uniform Photographic Copies of Business and Public Records Act (G.S. § 8-45.1 et seq.), any photographic, photostatic, or microfilm is as admissible in evidence as the original itself. The statute makes the photostat or microfilm reproduction primary evidence. Whether the original is in existence is immaterial. Of course, use of the reproduction does not render the original inadmissible.

Our statute making the reproduction competent evidence is modeled on the Act of Congress relating to the same subject. See 28 U.S.C.A. § 1732. More than 30 states have similar statutes. At the time People v. Wells, supra, was decided, Illinois did not have any statutory provision for the use of photostats. The opinion in the Wells case is based on the lack of statutory authority for such evidence.

One of the leading cases on the subject of reproductions is United States v. Manton, 2 Cir., 107 F.2d 834, 844, certiorari denied 309 U.S. 664, 60 S.Ct. 590, 84 L.Ed. 1012: 'It is argued that the original checks themselves were the best evidence and that their absence should have been accounted for as a prerequisite to the admission of the recordaks. With this contention we cannot agree. These recordaks are made and kept among the records of many banks in due course of business and are within the words of 28 U.S.C.A. § 695 (now 1732). Their accuracy is not questioned. They represent, in the course of a year, perhaps millions of transactions. No one at all familiar with bank routine would hesitate to accept them as practically conclusive evidence. As proof of payment they constitute not secondary but primary evidence.' See also, United States v. Kushner, 2 Cir., 135 F.2d 668; ...