Opinion ID: 1679195
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: evidence of school board's consent

Text: Fahlk also sought to offer evidence regarding the school board's consent to the printer exchange. In response to the State's pretrial motion in limine, the trial court prohibited Fahlk from eliciting testimony or presenting evidence to show that the board of education had either condoned or ratified any alleged criminal behavior on the part of Fahlk. At trial, Fahlk offered the testimony of Ann Nienkamp, president of the Nebraska City Board of Education, regarding board authorization of Fahlk's use of school property. In an offer of proof, Fahlk's attorney stated that if Nienkamp were allowed to testify, she would testify that she and the board of education did in fact charge the defendant with the responsibility for completing budget work, teacher negotiations work, bond issue work, computer acquisition work, and school asbestos removal work in whatever means that he could accomplish those tasks with all due dispatch and that he was authorized and permitted to use his own equipment to accomplish those tasks and that the board of education neither voiced nor indicated an objection and indeed shared and communicated to the defendant a willingness to permit him to do so on terms that would allow the use of his equipment by the school district and equipment owned by the school district of lesser value and lesser utility by him or members of his family at that same time that the school district was using his computer. Following the offer of proof, the trial court questioned Nienkamp outside the presence of the jury. The court probed the witness to determine if the board had given explicit prior consent to Fahlk to exchange his family's printer for the school printer. After the witness responded negatively, the trial court restated its prior ruling that any evidence of subsequent condonation of an unlawful act is not relevant or admissible. Counsel for Fahlk attempted to explain that his intention in reciting that narrative offer was not to suggest that I would elicit from this witness testimony about ratification of the defendant's conduct after the fact. Fahlk asserts that the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court's exclusion of evidence regarding consent of the school board to the computer printer exchange. The Court of Appeals held that such evidence was not relevant because the existence of the board's permission, or the lack thereof, is not a fact of consequence in this case and is therefore not material evidence. State v. Fahlk, 2 Neb.App. 421, 430, 510 N.W.2d 97, 103 (1993). In order to decide this issue, this court must first determine whether the testimony as to the existence of the board's consent to Fahlk's exchange of the school's printer for his family's printer would have been relevant to the issues in the case and therefore admissible. All relevant evidence is admissible.... Evidence which is not relevant is not admissible. Neb.Evid.R. 402, Neb.Rev.Stat. § 27-402 (Reissue 1989). 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. Neb.Evid.R. 401, Neb.Rev. Stat. § 27-401 (Reissue 1989). There are two components to relevant evidence: `[M]ateriality and probative value. Materiality looks to the relation between the propositions for which the evidence is offered and the issues in the case. If the evidence is offered to help prove a proposition which is not a matter in issue, the evidence is immaterial. What is in issue, that is, within the range of the litigated controversy, is determined mainly by the pleadings, read in the light of the rules of pleading and controlled by the substantive law.... `The second aspect of relevance is probative value, the tendency of evidence to establish the proposition that it is offered to prove....' State v. Bell, 242 Neb. 138, 141, 493 N.W.2d 339, 342-43 (1992). Is evidence regarding an owner's consent relevant to the issues in this case? Fahlk was charged with violating § 28-511(1). Section 28-511 states that [a] person is guilty of theft if he or she takes, or exercises control over, movable property of another with the intent to deprive him or her thereof. Conduct denominated theft in Neb.Rev.Stat. §§ 28-509 through 28-518 (Reissue 1989) constitutes a single offense encompassing the previously separate offenses known as larceny, embezzlement, false pretenses, etc. State v. Copple, 224 Neb. 672, 401 N.W.2d 141 (1987). Section 28-511(1) proscribes or condemns only that conduct in which criminal intent is present, distinguishing theft from activity which is otherwise permissible as noncriminal conduct. Copple, 224 Neb. at 682, 401 N.W.2d at 150. The statutory prohibitions of § 28-511(1) must be read with other pertinent parts of the Nebraska Criminal Code. Copple, supra . The definitional statute pertaining to the crime of theft states that [p]roperty of another shall mean property in which any person other than the actor has an interest which the actor is not privileged to infringe. Neb.Rev.Stat. § 28-509(6) (Reissue 1989). If Fahlk was privileged to exchange his family's printer for the school's printer by virtue of the school board's consent, then Fahlk would have a complete defense to the crime of theft. Although the general rule is that consent of the victim is not a defense to a crime, [a] crime may be so defined that the absence of the victim's consent is an element thereof. Since, in such case, the presence of the victim's consent would negate an element of the crime, consent would be a defense. Thus, consent destroys the criminal character of an act of... taking the property of another which would otherwise constitute larceny. 1 Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law § 46 at 302-04 (15th ed. 1993). See, also, 21 Am.Jur.2d Criminal Law § 189 (1981). Prior consent or privilege to use the property of another must be distinguished from subsequent condonation by the owner. Condonation or ratification is, generally speaking, no defense to a crime. State v. Higgin, 257 Minn. 46, 50, 99 N.W.2d 902, 906 (1959). [A] crime is by definition a public wrong against the State, it is not usually an acceptable defense that the person wronged by a criminal has condoned the offense. Pratt v. State, 167 Ga.App. 819, 820, 307 S.E.2d 714, 716 (1983). In the case before us, the trial court properly excluded evidence regarding condonation or ratification. However, the court may also have excluded evidence regarding prior implied or general consentthrowing out the baby with the bath water, so to speak. In rejecting Fahlk's assignment of error regarding the relevancy of Nienkamp's testimony, the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the existence of an owner's (i.e., the school board's) permission, or lack thereof, is not a fact of consequence in this case involving a charge of theft by unlawful taking. State v. Fahlk, 2 Neb.App. 421, 510 N.W.2d 97 (1993). Consent is a valid defense to a charge of theft by taking. That consent may be implied or general consent. Fahlk was deprived of the opportunity to present testimony regarding the board's alleged prior implied or general consent to his taking of school property. Few rights are more fundamental than that of an accused to present witnesses in his own defense. State v. McSwine, 231 Neb. 886, 438 N.W.2d 778 (1989) (citing Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973)). In that case, we reversed the defendant's conviction for the reason that he was not allowed to put on a witness whose testimony related to the proffered defense. `The right to offer the testimony of witnesses ... is in plain terms the right to present a defense, the right to present the defendant's version of the facts as well as the prosecution's to the jury so it may decide where the truth lies....' McSwine, 231 Neb. at 892, 438 N.W.2d at 781 (quoting Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967)). Of course, defendants in criminal cases have no right to present irrelevant evidence or adduce evidence from an incompetent witness. McSwine, supra . As discussed above, the testimony of the school board's president regarding prior implied or general consent was relevant. Accordingly, Fahlk was partially deprived of his right to present a defense to the charge of theft.