Title: State v. Johnson

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Reversed and remanded April 20, 1966.
Petition for rehearing denied May 25, 1966.
*533 Julian Herndon, Jr., Portland, argued the cause and filed a brief for appellant.
George M. Joseph, Deputy District Attorney, Portland, argued the cause for respondent. On the brief were George Van Hoomissen, District Attorney, and Lewis B. Hampton, Deputy District Attorney, Portland.
Before McALLISTER, Chief Justice, and PERRY, SLOAN, HOLMAN and LUSK, Justices.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
PERRY, J.
The defendant Louis Woods was convicted of the crime of obtaining money by false pretenses and appeals.
In February 1964, the defendant Woods accompanied by Charles E. Johnson went to the home of a Miss Tooley in Portland. They told Miss Tooley they were "termite exterminators." She told them she didn't need anything like that, but they said they wanted to look at the house anyway. Johnson looked in the attic for termites and when he came down he brought with him a piece of wood, a two-by-four about *534 nine inches long, with termites in it and displayed it to her. Miss Tooley then told them to go ahead and treat the attic and paid the parties by check. They also represented that there were termites in the underpinnings of the house and she paid them for treating this portion of the house. Evidence introduced disclosed that the attic had not been infested with termites.
Miss Tooley also testified that subsequent to the payments to Johnson and Woods two men, a Mr. Davidson and a Mr. Williams, came to her home and represented that they were detectives. These men requested of and received from Miss Tooley the cancelled checks which represented payment to the defendants Johnson and Woods for the pretended termite extermination. They also obtained additional money from her which they represented was necessary as a bond to bring back the defendants Johnson and Woods. Miss Tooley later learned that one of these men was a brother of defendant Louis Woods and that his true name was Curtis Woods, and that the other man's true name was John Bunch.
During the trial the state called John Bunch as a witness, who purportedly had been with Curtis Woods when they represented themselves as detectives and obtained the cancelled checks from Miss Tooley. John Bunch was then under indictment and awaiting trial for his complicity in the fraud practiced upon Miss Tooley. Prior to the state calling this witness to the witness stand, counsel for the defendant Woods advised the district attorney and the trial court as follows:
After being so advised, the state nevertheless called the witness to the stand and the following occurred:
After further questioning of the witness by the trial court, a recess was taken until Mr. Maxwell Donnelly, the attorney for the witness, appeared in court, when the following occurred:
The defendant thereupon moved for a mistrial which was denied and the denial of this motion is assigned as reversible error.
After the jury had retired to the jury room for deliberation, and before it had returned a verdict, Mr. Donnelly, Bunch's attorney, was called to the trial court's chambers and when asked by the trial court made the following statement:
The defendant thereupon again moved for a mistrial, which was denied.
1. The precise question involved herein has not heretofore been passed upon by this court. However, this court has recognized the fact that reversible error is committed by permitting comment by the district attorney on the guilt of the defendant to be inferred from the refusal of a witness closely connected with the activities of the defendant to testify by invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination. State v. Harper, 33 Or 524, 55 P 1075.
2. The refusal of a witness to answer questions on *538 the basis of his constitutional right against self-incrimination is the personal privilege of the witness, a matter over which the defendant has no control. Beach v. United States, 14 Sawy 549, 46 F 754, cited with approval in State v. Harper, supra, 33 Or 524, 527. Cf. People v. Glass, 158 Cal 650, 112 P 281; Billeci v. United States, 87 App DC 274, 184 F2d 394, 24 ALR2d 881.
3. Since the witness's right is personal and beyond the control of either the defendant or the state, it is quite clear that the exercise of the right by the witness should be treated as casting no inference either of guilt or innocence.
In State v. Harper, supra, this court reversed the guilty judgment because the trial court permitted the district attorney to comment upon the guilt of the defendant to be inferred from the state's witness invoking his constitutional right. In this case, the district attorney refrained from making comment. Nevertheless, it would seem equally reversible error for the state to call a witness, who it appears from prior testimony, already in the record, may have been closely associated with the defendant in the scheme to defraud, and the witness has been indicted for but not convicted of his purported participation in that scheme, when the state knows that the witness will invoke his constitutional right, and, with this knowledge, asks questions from which the jurors themselves could infer that if the questions were answered truthfully the answers would tend to establish the guilt of the defendant.
In De Gesualdo v. People, Colo, 1961, 364 P2d 374, 86 ALR2d 1435, 1440, the Supreme Court of Colorado clearly sets forth that it is reversible error for the *539 state to call an unconvicted accomplice to the witness stand for the purpose of using the witness's claim of privilege "as a circumstance against the defendant on trial," citing with approval from Washburn v. State, (1956) 164 Tex Cr R 448, 451, 299 SW2d 706, 708,
The annotation following De Gesualdo v. People, supra, in 86 ALR2d at 1443, discloses that both state and federal jurisdictions agree that error is present in such circumstances, but some hold that the error is cured by properly instructing the jury. In the matter before us no instruction was given.
The state argues that the calling of a witness who is competent to testify should not be error since no one knows until the witness is on the stand that the witness will refuse to testify on the basis of self-incrimination.
4. In the present case no reasonable grounds for such belief existed, and the calling of the witness can be accounted for only on the basis of a purpose to prejudice the jury. If the state is at any time uncertain whether or not a witness will refuse to testify, this can be easily determined before the trial court in the absence of the jury and the appearance of purposeful prejudice avoided.
The defendant also sets forth numerous other assignments of error, which are without merit.
*540 Since, however, this case must be reversed for a new trial, we take note of the fact that, over the objection of the defendant, Miss Tooley was permitted to testify to the effect that the defendant Woods on an occasion subsequent to the pretended termite extermination wished to purchase some furniture from her; that she set a price of $250, and he took the furniture, but did not pay for it.
5. This evidence would not tend to prove any of the elements of the crime for which the defendant was being tried. It was entirely incompetent and irrelevant and should not have been admitted.
6, 7. We also note that the trial court gave extensive instructions on who is, in law, an accomplice. While the instructions are in general correct statements of the law, they are superfluous. To avoid confusion, instructions to juries should be made as short and concise as clarifying the law and the issues will permit. In the absence of the testimony of one defendant against another, the trial court should only instruct the jury that where two or more persons are charged jointly with the commission of a crime and they find from the evidence they were acting together for that purpose either one may alone be prosecuted and found guilty of all of the elements of the crime necessary to sustain a conviction. State v. Tucker, 36 Or 291, 61 P 894.
The judgment is reversed for a new trial.