State v. Snyder.

• Decision Date: 06 February 1923
• Docket Number: No. 2736.,2736.
• Parties: STATEv.SNYDER.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

28 N.M. 388

212 P. 736

STATE

v.SNYDER.

No. 2736.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Feb. 6, 1923.

Syllabus by the Court.

Evidence of other crimes committed by the accused is not admissible, unless it tends to establish motive, intent, absence of mistake or accident, a common scheme or plan, or the identity of the person on trial.

Section 3, chapter 69, Laws 1921, construed, and held that proof of a prior conviction should be limited and restricted to a conviction previously had under the provisions of that act.

Appeal from District Court, Colfax County; Leib, Judge.

Pearl Snyder was convicted of violations of the laws for the repression of prostitution, and she appeals. Reversed and remanded.

See, also, 212 Pac. 736.

In a prosecution for keeping a house of prostitution, lewdness and assignation in violation of Laws 1921, c. 69, evidence held sufficient to warrant setting aside suspension of sentence granted during good behavior of accused.

Ward, Askren & Hedgcock, of East Las Vegas, and Voorhees & Voorhees, of Raton, for appellant.

H. S. Bowman, Atty. Gen., and A. M. Edwards, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

BRATTON, J.

The indictment in this cause contained 12 counts, and charged appellant with violations of chapter 69, Laws 1921. Counts numbered 2, 6, and 10 thereof were, upon request of the district attorney, stricken. Separate verdicts were returned by the jury, finding her guilty as charged in the first, fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth, ninth, eleventh, and twelfth counts. Her motion for a new trial having been overruled, appellant was sentenced to serve a term in the penitentiary of not less than 1 1/2, nor more than 2, years upon each of the counts upon which she had been convicted, with the further provision that such terms should run concurrently.

[1][2] Appellant assigns as error the action of the court in admitting over her objection, and as a part of the state's case in chief, an original judgment which was entered on December 24, 1917, whereby appellant was convicted of the crime of setting up and keeping a house of prostitution. This judgment was imposed and sentence passed long prior to the enactment of chapter 69, Laws 1921, referred to. The general rule, which has been many times announced by this court, is that in the trial of a criminal case, proof of other crimes which are separate and distinct from and form no concomitant part of the crime charged, even though of a similar character, is inadmissible. There are, however, certain commonly called exceptions to this rule. These are not in reality exceptions to the rule, but are a part of the rule itself. They are that, where the proof of other crimes tends to establish on the part of the accused motive, intent, absence of mistake or accident, a common scheme or plan, or the identity of the person charged with the crime, it becomes and is admissible. State v. Graves, 21 N. M. 556, 157 Pac. 160; State v. Pino, 21 N. M. 660, 158 Pac. 131; State v. Starr, 24 N. M. 180, 173 Pac. 674; State v. Alford, 26 N. M. 1, 187 Pac. 720; State v. Bassett, 26 N. M. 476, 194 Pac. 867; State v. Lazarovich, 27 N. M. 282, 200 Pac. 422. The facts in the case of State v. Alford, supra, were that the defendant was charged with the unlawful sale of intoxicating liquors upon a given date, and the state proved that he had made other sales to the same person. This was held to be improper, but that the defendant could not avail himself of such error because no objection thereto had been seasonably or timely made. In State v. Bassett, supra, the defendant was charged with murder by committing an abortion. He admitted that he had aborted the woman, but sought to justify the act by asserting that the fetus was dead, and that it was necessary, in order to save the...