Opinion ID: 1677762
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: did the trial court commit reversible error in excluding the testimony of jewell rotenberry harvey?

Text: After the State rested, outside the presence of the jury, the court heard the proffered testimony of Jewell Rotenberry Harvey. Jewell testified that she is Minnie's daughter. In 1978, she was in contact with her mother and visited her mother, who at that time owned about a thousand acres of land in the Delta and was worth close to a million dollars. Jewell stated that her mother was in the habit of making gifts to people. Jewell testified that she discussed the sale of dirt with her mother and that her mother mentioned that she had given Lamar a check for dirt from the property. Jewell believed that her mother gave the money to Lamar of her own free will. On cross, Jewell could not recall the specific amount of the money given to Lamar. She said nothing under oath about the conversation with her mother until December, 1985 because she did not know what the case was about until then. She volunteered to testify. She estimated that the conversation was about seven or eight years ago. The trial court sustained the objection of the prosecution to allowing Jewell's testimony because her evidence would be hearsay. The defendant requested the witness be allowed to testify as to her knowledge about her mother's habits at that time of making gifts to people, but the trial judge sustained that objection on hearsay grounds as well. As conceded by the State, Jewell Harvey's hearsay testimony is admissible under the hearsay exception contained in Mississippi Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3), as to the statement against interest of an unavailable witness. Therefore, instead of arguing that the ruling of the trial judge was correct, the State argues that the exclusion of the testimony was harmless because it was merely cumulative. This argument is clearly without merit. Because Jewell's testimony was excluded, the defendant put on absolutely no evidence. He neither called witnesses nor testified himself. Hooker correctly notes that it is rather difficult to see how the State can seriously maintain that having witnesses state that Mrs. Rotenberry never told them that she gave the money away has the same force and effect as having her daughter testify that her mother told her that she gave the money to Hooker. Apparently aware of its weak position, the State alternatively argues that there was no reversible error here because the testimony of Jewell Harvey was irrelevant. It appears that the State is arguing that proof showing the check to be a gift would not give Hooker a defense to the charge of embezzlement. The State notes that the trustee was required by the trust agreement to take and receive the trust property, handle and manage the same and collect the income therefrom and during the lifetime of Minnie B. Rotenberry pay her all of the net income annually and that the trust was absolute and irrevocable. Hooker responds that the State's argument is entirely inconsistent with the indictment alleging that the $43,500 was the property of Minnie B. Rotenberry. Hooker then notes that the State may not allege ownership of the property embezzled to be that of one legal entity and support that conviction with proof that the ownership is in another legal entity. State v. Black, 399 So.2d 1331 (Miss. 1981). The statute under which Hooker was indicted, Miss. Code Ann. § 97-11-25 (Supp. 1986), provides the following: If ... any trustee of an express trust ... shall unlawfully convert to his own use any money or other valuable thing which comes to his hands by virtue of his office or employment, or shall not, when lawfully required to turn over such money or deliver such thing, immediately do so according to his legal obligation, he shall, on conviction, be committed to the Department of Corrections for not more than twenty (20) years, or be fined not more than five thousand dollars ($5,000). The conversion would not be unlawful if the owner of the property consented thereto or made a gift of the property upon receipt. Any evidence not repugnant to the general rules governing the admissibility of evidence may be received which tends to show ... the fact of, and acts constituting, the conversion, including the question of the owner's consent or nonconsent thereto... . 29A C.J.S. Embezzlement § 39 (1965). In Dyer v. State, 86 Ga. App. 835, 72 S.E.2d 781, 784-786 (1952), the lower court committed prejudicial error in a prosecution for conversion of money by a bailee after trust, by refusing testimony of the bailor's son, who acted as the bailor's agent, that the bailor's son told the bailee he could use the money in the regular course of his private banking business. Similarly, the testimony of the beneficiary's daughter here that the money was a gift is certainly relevant. Furthermore, the indictment charged that Hooker willfully, unlawfully and feloniously embezzled the money, the instructions have similar language, and the State assumes that fraudulent intent is an element of the crime delineated by the above statute. Jewell's testimony is clearly relevant on the issue of fraudulent intent. This Court holds that the testimony of Jewell Harvey was admissible under the hearsay exception cited above and was the critical defense in Hooker's case, and exclusion thereof was reversible error.