Opinion ID: 2079765
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the exclusion of the replacement license

Text: Barnville testified at trial that during the month of July he had made a trip to Boston with Auger and his wife. He stated that during the course of this trip he put his wallet into his jacket, which in turn had been placed on the rear seat of his car. Upon his return he discovered that the wallet was lost or had been taken from his jacket. Barnville asserted that the wallet had contained a spare key to the Lincoln. In order to corroborate this testimony, Barnville attempted to introduce a temporary or replacement driver's license that he had been required to obtain since his regular license was inside the missing wallet. The trial justice rejected this evidence on the ground of remoteness. The defendant argues that the rejection of his offer to introduce a replacement license issued by the Registry of Motor Vehicles approximately one week before the robbery constituted reversible error. Generally relevant evidence has been defined as evidence that has a tendency to prove or disprove a fact provable in the case. State v. Santos, R.I., 413 A.2d 58, 69 (1980); McCormick's Handbook of the Law of Evidence § 185 at 435 (2d ed. Cleary 1972); see 1 Wigmore, Evidence §§ 12, 25-29(a) (3d ed. 1940); James, Relevancy, Probability and the Law, 29 Cal.L.Rev. 689 (1941); see also Fed.R.Evid. 401 (`Relevant evidence' means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence). Although the foregoing principles are not difficult to state, in particular cases such principles are often not easily applied. This is particularly true in respect to the admission or exclusion of circumstantial evidence. It is for this reason that we have frequently stated that questions of relevancy are addressed to the sound discretion of the trial justice. State v. Camerlin, 116 R.I. 726, 729, 360 A.2d 862, 865 (1976); State v. Verdone, 114 R.I. 613, 617, 337 A.2d 804, 808 (1975); State v. Mastracchio, 112 R.I. 487, 491, 312 A.2d 190, 193 (1973); State v. Duffy, 112 R.I. 276, 286, 308 A.2d 796, 802 (1973), overruled on other grounds, State v. McGehearty, R.I., 394 A.2d 1348, 1351 (1978). Thus, we review only for an abuse of such discretion. [3] We find no such abuse in the case at bar. The trial justice's exclusion on the ground of remoteness was tantamount to a finding that the evidence was not relevant. Certainly, reasonable minds, in applying the technique of syllogistic deduction, could have reached differing conclusions concerning whether the replacement license tended to prove that the defendant's car had been stolen or borrowed. The existence of the replacement license was strongly probative of the proposition that the defendant's original license had been stolen, lost, or misplaced. The existence of the replacement license would be mildly probative of the proposition that the defendant's wallet may have been stolen, lost, or misplaced. However, on the crucial issues of the purloining of the defendant's automobile key and the use of that automobile key by Karen Auger or her confederates to steal or borrow the defendant's car for use in the robbery, the existence or nonexistence of a replacement license is reduced in probative value almost to the vanishing point. We have said that the exclusion of evidence on the ground of relevancy is not reversible error unless (1) the trial justice abused his or her discretion and (2) thereby caused substantial injury to the party seeking the admission of such evidence. Gaglione v. Cardi, R.I., 388 A.2d 361, 363 (1978). Substantial injury occurs only if such evidence was relevant and material to a crucial issue and if the evidence, if admitted, would have had a controlling influence on a material aspect of the case. Id.; Urbani v. Razza, 103 R.I. 445, 449, 238 A.2d 383, 386 (1968). Applying these tests to the exclusion of the replacement license in the case at bar, we are of the opinion that the defendant has demonstrated neither an abuse of discretion nor substantial injury resulting from such exclusion. For the reasons stated, the defendant's appeal is denied and dismissed. The judgment of conviction is affirmed. The papers in the case may be remanded to the Superior Court.