Opinion ID: 2388781
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Claimed Error in Admission of Evidence Over Defendant's Objections

Text: The defendant contends that all the testimony which the State introduced in an attempt to prove concerted action between the defendant and two other persons, admitted in evidence over his objection, constituted reversible error on the ground that such evidence was irrelevant, immaterial and prejudicial. He lists this objectionable evidence as follows: 1. Tracks of a cowboy boot near the area of the alleged break; 2. tracks near a green pick-up truck; 3. tracks going away from the Wolfe residence; 4. description of the two men hitchhiking at approximately 7:30 p. m. between Ellsworth and Bangor on Route 1-A, one wearing cowboy boots; 5. testimony that a green pick-up truck stopped to pick up the two hitchhikers; 6. testimony relating to a green pick-up truck registered to Gloria Gagnon. We rule that all this evidence to which the defendant objected was relevant and material in the circumstantial setting which the State presented to the jury in proof of the defendant's concerted participation in the burglary of the Wolfe residence. But in order to demonstrate its relevancy and materiality, we must relate what this record reveals respecting the investigation conducted by the police following an initial warning through an automatic alarm system at about 1:00 p. m. on December 24, 1974 that a break-in at the Wolfe residence was taking place. Within very few minutes of the alert, the caretaker, Luray David Closson, and Officer Tweedy of the Ellsworth Police Department were at the premises. Closson made a quick entry into the dwelling house, noticing wet tracks on the kitchen floor and that certain articles, which he described, had been taken from other parts of the house and were lying on the floor in close proximity to an open window. Closson testified that he heard a rushing sound as if made from plastic as he approached the house, while Tweedy said that he heard a rustling noise coming from the woods located some 25 feet away from the rear of the building. Coordinating their pursuit of the intruder, Tweedy went northerly from the rear of the house towards the wooded area in the direction of the felon's tracks in the fresh snow, while Closson made a round-about run in the front of the building up the main road in an attempt to cut off the culprit at a woods road some 300 feet away. The strategy paid off as Closson met the defendant coming out of the woods, puffing and breathing heavily, armed with an axe. Asked what he was doing there, Gagnon replied that he was looking for beehives. He did say that he had gone by the house and noticed the open window. He denied having a car, but indicated that he had seen two other people in the area. When Tweedy reached them, he obtained for purposes of identification the defendant's driver's license which disclosed his residence as being in Oakland, Maine. Placed under arrest, the defendant was given his Miranda rights which he agreed he understood. Taken to the rear of the Wolfe residence in the vicinity of the open window which had a broken pane of glass in the area of the locking mechanism, the storm sash having been removed and lying against the building, Gagnon cooperated with Officer Tweedy by placing his right foot next to a footprint already in the area some two feet from the open window. The officer testified that fresh snow had fallen that morning and that the temperature in early afternoon was in the high thirty degrees. Both Closson and Tweedy described to the jury what they observed about the footprints, from which the jurors could infer that the two prints had common characteristics. There was testimony respecting other footprints in the area in the rear of the Wolfe residence, one of which was stated to be that of a cowboy boot. In addition, Officer Tweedy said that he noticed some fresh paint chips on the bottom of the lower white sash and observed white smudges on the blade of the defendant's axe. Later in the investigation, Closson met Officer Carter of the Ellsworth Police Department at a camp road some 500 feet north of the Wolfe residence, where both noticed a green Chevrolet pick-up truck with a green wooden camper-type homemade body built over the rear portion, in the vicinity of which some three sets of footprints were present. Lloyd D. Williams, a corporal in the Maine State Police, had joined the investigation at that time and corroborated the three sets of prints in that area, one of which was made, so he said, by a cowboy boot. He gave a description of the print. This same cowboy boot print, as well as a footprint from some other type of boot, he later followed from the wooded area in the rear of the Wolfe residence for a considerable distance toward the down-town area of Ellsworth. Officer Carter checked out the truck and found a registration for it in the name of Gloria Gagnon, Sawtelle Road, Oakland, Maine. The truck was removed by wrecker to the Ellsworth Police Department yard. Officer Reginald Bennett of the Ellsworth Police Department, who had previously inspected the Gagnon truck in the police yard, was at the Hancock County jail when Mrs. Gagnon, at about 6:45 p. m., arrived in a dark blue or black Pontiac to pick up the truck. Upon proper identification, Officer Bennett gave her the registration and keys to the truck. About one hour later, the officer was cruising on the Bangor Road in a northerly direction when he spotted two hitchhikers walking backwards in that same direction. He stopped and asked for identification. One fellow produced a driver's license which showed the name of Kelly, Oakland, Maine. He was wearing a lumberman's boot, with rubber bottom and leather top. The other fellow had a pair of cowboy-type boots with pointed toe and elongated heel. The officer's description that both were very wet half-way up their thighs was objected to after it was received, and the objection was sustained, but the evidence was never stricken from the record. Being suspicious of the two men, the officer then drove farther north in his cruiser, turned around and parked without lights. He recognized them as they came to pass his vehicle. He testified that shortly thereafter he saw a dark blue Pontiac automobile go by followed by the green Chevrolet pick-up truck which he had previously inspected at the police yard. The car did not stop, but the truck picked up the two hitchhikers. On the defendant's motion to strike all of Officer Bennett's testimony, the Court below did tell the jury: That part which the witness has testified about the green truck stopping to pick up these two people that he's identified will be excluded. My wife might have stopped to pick them up, I don't know. In explanation of his ruling, the Court stated in the presence of the jury that there's been no evidence to indicate who was driving that truck, and what connection, if any, the Jury could attribute to the driver of that truck picking up these two people he's described. Legal relevancy depends upon the legitimate tendency of the proffered evidence to establish or disprove a controverted fact in issue, while materiality goes to the weight of such evidence in helping resolve the matter. See Towle v. Aube, Me., 310 A.2d 259, at 265 (1973). All facts which tend to establish a chain of circumstantial evidence with respect to the act charged are relevant and admissible in evidence, unless excludable under some rule or principle of law. State v. Brown, Me., 321 A.2d 478 (1974); State v. Fitzherbert, Me., 249 A.2d 760 (1969). In the instant case, the evidence showed a close link between the footprints in the snow and the open window of the Wolfe residence, and a similar connection with the Gagnon pick-up truck. It was evident that there was some interrelation between these tracks in the snow. In view of such obvious group pattern, we hold that all the footprints in the fresh snow, those going away from the Wolfe residence, as well as those in the vicinity of the green pick-up truck, including the prints made by the cowboy boot, and all the testimony relating to the two hitchhikers, inclusive of that describing their wet garments and that relating to the green truck stopping and picking up these two individuals, constituted by rational inference a consistent knit of a chain of circumstantial evidence logically tending to establish the defendant's actual participation in the burglary. All this evidence to which the defendant was objecting on the grounds of irrelevancy and immateriality was admissible, with its probative value to be assessed by the jury. The Justice below committed no error in admitting the bulk of this evidence. His ruling on relevancy and materiality, anyhow, is not reviewable except for an abuse of discretion. See State v. Gagne, Me., 362 A.2d 166, 170 (1976); State v. Westphal, Me., 349 A.2d 168, 171 (1975); State v. Northup, Me., 318 A.2d 489, 493 (1974); State v. Graves, Me., 224 A.2d 57, 61 (1966). We see no abuse of discretion here. Relevant evidence is not required to be excluded merely because it suggests the defendant's involvement in the crime charged. Insofar as the evidence of the condition of the hitchhikers' garments and their pickup by the green Chevrolet truck is concerned, we believe that such evidence was clearly admissible as part of a consistent whole of circumstances tending to prove the defendant's active participation in the breaking of the Wolfe residence with intent to steal as charged against him. The ruling excluding said evidence for jury consideration was favorable to the defendant and we see no prejudice to him by reason of the fact that the jury received knowledge of that evidence. A defendant cannot be heard to complain about the trial court's rulings which are more favorable to him than he had a right to have. State v. Scott, Me., 343 A.2d 177, 179, n. 1 (1975). Where, in the instant case, the evidence was admissible, but erroneously excluded from jury consideration by the trial Court, the fact that such evidence came to the attention of the jury during the course of the trial will not support a reversal of the ensuing conviction, because the defendant was not deprived of any right to which he was entitled. State v. Peabody, Me., 320 A.2d 242, 244 (1974); State v. Foster, 490 S.W.2d 662, 663 (Mo.App.1973); Graham v. State, 25 Ala.App. 44, 140 So. 621 (1932). See also, Zimberg v. United States, 142 F.2d 132, 136-137 (1st Cir. 1944).