State v. Stoddard, 14085

• Decision Date: 11 October 1983
• Docket Number: No. 14085,14085
• Citation: 105 Idaho 533,670 P.2d 1318
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Daniel Wayne STODDARD, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals

Page 1318

670 P.2d 1318

105 Idaho 533

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Daniel Wayne STODDARD, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 14085.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

Oct. 11, 1983.

Petition for Review Denied

Dec. 30, 1983.

Klaus Wiebe, Ada County Public Defender, David Z. Nevin, Boise, for defendant-appellant.

Jim Jones, Atty. Gen., Lynn E. Thomas, Sol. Gen., Fred C. Goodenough, Deputy Atty. Gen., Boise, for plaintiff-respondent.

SWANSTROM, Judge.

Appealing from a judgment of conviction for grand larceny, Daniel Stoddard presents two issues for our consideration. He contends first that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of prior criminal conduct, unrelated to the charge for which he was on trial. Second he argues that the court erred by declining to give a requested jury instruction on circumstantial evidence. We conclude that the court erred in admitting evidence of prior criminal conduct. Accordingly, the judgment of conviction must be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings.

In the afternoon of July 22, 1980, Daniel Stoddard and a juvenile companion were arrested by the Oregon State Police at a rest stop off Interstate 84 in central Oregon. The police had been alerted by the proprietor of a gas station in Hermiston, Oregon, that two suspects, in a black Datsun 280-Z, had pulled into his station, ordered him to fill the tank and then driven off without paying. The gas station attendant later testified that, at the time of this incident, Stoddard was driving the car. When arrested, Stoddard had the car's keys in his possession.

After arresting the two suspects for the theft of the gasoline, the Oregon State Police received a report from the Boise Police Department that the car had been stolen earlier in the day. The car belonged to a Boise man who had parked it in a downtown parking lot and left the keys in the ignition. When he returned for the keys during his lunch hour, he found the car missing. Near the space where he had parked the car, he found a "Slim Jim"--a piece of wire coat hanger with a hook fashioned at one end.

Stoddard and the juvenile were advised of their Miranda rights and each signed a form acknowledging that they understood those rights. While at the police station in the company of two Oregon State Policemen, Stoddard was asked how long he had been in possession of the 280-Z. Both officers testified that in response to this question Stoddard admitted participating in the theft of the car. While the propriety of admitting this testimony was challenged in the court below, it has not been raised as an issue on this appeal.

Stoddard did not testify in his own behalf, but his juvenile companion did. The juvenile, who had a lengthy arrest record for car theft, testified that he was the person who stole the 280-Z. He said that on July 21, 1980, he had escaped from the juvenile detention center in Ada County. After escaping, he contacted several friends in Boise, including Daniel Stoddard. The next morning, knowing that the police would be looking for him, he decided to steal a car to leave Boise. While he was on his way to Stoddard's house, he found the 280-Z parked with the keys in the ignition. He broke into the car and drove it to Stoddard's residence, where he asked Stoddard to accompany him to Oregon. Stoddard, who had a girl friend in Salem, readily agreed. He did not tell Stoddard that the car was stolen, but instead related that he had borrowed it from a rich girl friend.

The weight to be given the juvenile's testimony was for the jury to decide. The jury's determination was made in light of other evidence, presented at the beginning of the state's case, which is the point of controversy on appeal. This evidence showed that on the day of the theft, July 22, Stoddard had been scheduled to appear in magistrate court in Boise for a preliminary hearing. He there faced a felony charge involving the theft of a Chevrolet Corvette on July 15. ¹ Because Stoddard did not appear in court on the 22nd, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. Before trial in the instant case, Stoddard filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence of the Corvette theft. The court denied the motion.

The first witness called by the state was a magistrate judge. Over defendant's objection he was permitted to testify that a criminal complaint charging theft of the Corvette was signed before him on July 15. He further testified that on July 15 he arraigned Stoddard on that charge, scheduled a preliminary hearing for July 22 and set bond at $300. In addition, the state offered in evidence a certified copy of the criminal complaint charging defendant with the felony theft of the Corvette. The trial judge admitted the evidence over Stoddard's objection that it was not relevant and was extremely prejudicial. The court ruled it was relevant to prove "motive or intent." The state then called a clerk of the court to testify that Stoddard, who had been released upon posting the bond, failed to appear at the preliminary hearing scheduled for July 22 in the Corvette case; that the presiding magistrate had issued an order for a bench warrant; and that the magistrate had set Stoddard's bail at $8,000 on the warrant. The state introduced a copy of the motion and order for the bench warrant. Over Stoddard's objection that the exhibit was irrelevant and "highly prejudicial," it was admitted.

It has been a rule of our common law for three centuries that evidence that an accused has committed other crimes is not generally admissible to show that he is guilty of the crime for which he is on trial.

[T]his policy of exclusion ... has received judicial sanction, more emphatic with time and experience. It represents a revolution in the theory of criminal trials, and is one of the peculiar features of vast moment, which distinguishes the Anglo-American from the Continental system of Evidence....

1 WIGMORE, EVIDENCE § 194 (1940). Our own Supreme Court has long recognized the importance of this rule. In State v. Garney, 45 Idaho 768, 775, 265 P. 668, 670 (1928), the court said:

The general rule is, that when a man is put upon trial for one offense, he is to be convicted, if at all, by evidence which shows that he is guilty of that offense alone, and that, under ordinary circumstances, proof of his guilt of one or a score of other offenses in his lifetime, wholly unconnected with that for which he is put upon trial, must be excluded.

Likewise, in State v. Larsen, 42 Idaho 517, 520, 246 P. 313, 313 (1926), the court declared:

It is utterly repugnant to fairness and justice to accuse a person with the perpetration of a specific and definite crime, and then make that a pretext for trying him, without notice, for another alleged offense against which he is unprepared to defend, thereby producing a prejudice and bias against him in the minds of the jury.

The strongest reason advanced for the general exclusion of evidence of other crimes to establish the guilt of the accused is that such evidence is likely to mislead the jury, permitting them to improperly draw the inference that if the accused committed a similar crime before, he probably did so again on the occasion of the offense charged. State v. Shepherd, 94 Idaho 227, 229, 486 P.2d 82, 84 (1971).

Idaho appellate courts have continued to embrace the rule that evidence of unrelated criminal activity is generally inadmissible to show that the accused committed the crime for which he is on trial. State v. Abel, 104 Idaho 865, 664 P.2d 772 (1983); State v. Needs, 99 Idaho 883, 591 P.2d 130 (1979); State v. Wrenn, 99 Idaho 506, 584 P.2d 1231 (1978). Cf. State v. Boothe, 103 Idaho 187, 646 P.2d 429 (Ct.App.1982). For evidence of another crime to be admissible to prove the guilt of the defendant for the crime charged "[t]here must be a causal relation or logical and natural connection between the two acts, or they must form parts of but one transaction." State v. Garney, 45 Idaho at 775, 265 P. at 670; State v. Jones, 62 Idaho 552, 561, 113 P.2d 1106, 1109 (1941). Thus, evidence of an accused's past criminal activity is admissible only when relevant to prove: (1) motive, (2) intent, (3) the absence of mistake or accident, (4) a common scheme or plan embracing the commission of two or more crimes so related to each other that proof of one tends to establish the other, (5) the identity of the person charged with the commission of the crime on trial, and (6) other similar issues. State v. Abel, supra; State v. Needs, supra; State v. Wrenn, supra; State v. Shepherd, supra; State v. Boothe, supra.

The admission of such evidence is, of course, within the discretion of the trial judge. State v. Abel, supra. See State v. Terry, 98 Idaho 285, 561 P.2d 1318 (1977). However, the discretion is not unbridled. The import and limitations of this discretion have been described as follows.

[T]his is not a discretion to depart from the principle that evidence of other crimes, having no substantial relevancy except to ground the inference that [the] accused is a bad man and hence probably committed this crime, must be excluded. The leeway of discretion lies rather in the opposite direction, empowering the judge to exclude the other-crimes evidence, even when it has substantial independent relevancy, if in his judgment its probative value for this purpose is outweighed by the danger that it will stir such passion in the jury as to sweep them beyond a rational consideration of guilt or innocence of the crime on trial. Discretion implies not only leeway but responsibility. A decision clearly wrong on this question of balancing probative value against danger of prejudice will be corrected on appeal as an abuse of discretion. [Emphasis added.]

McCORMICK, HANDBOOK OF THE LAW OF EVIDENCE § 190 (Cleary ed. 1972). We believe the same limitations apply to admission of evidence showing that the defendant has been charged with other crimes.

The state contends here that the evidence of...