Opinion ID: 2010322
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Joinder with Fraudulent Handling Charges

Text: The defendant next contends that the trial court erred when it joined the theft by deception and fraudulent handling offenses. We will uphold the trial court's decision to join the charges unless we conclude that the decision constitutes an unsustainable exercise of discretion. State v. Ramos, 149 N.H. 118, 120, 818 A.2d 1228 (2003). To show that the trial court's decision is unsustainable, the defendant must demonstrate that the ruling was clearly untenable or unreasonable to the prejudice of his case. Id. Because the defendant does not contend on appeal that Superior Court Rule 97-A governs this case, we examine his joinder arguments under the law as it existed before the rule became effective on January 1, 2008. The law of joinder before Superior Court Rule 97-A became effective gave a defendant an absolute right to sever unrelated charges. State v. Brown, 156 N.H. 440, 442, 938 A.2d 909 (2007). Related offenses were those that were based upon the same conduct, a single criminal episode, or a common plan. Id. The trial court ruled that joinder was proper in this case because the theft and fraudulent handling offenses were part of a common plan. The defendant contends that this was error because the theft and fraudulent handling offenses were independent and not mutually dependent or part of a common plan. The distinguishing characteristic of a common plan is the existence of a true plan in the defendant's mind, which includes the charged crimes as stages in the plan's execution. Id. That a sequence of acts resembles a design when examined in retrospect is not enough; the prior conduct must be intertwined with what follows, such that the charged acts are mutually dependent. Id. In State v. Schonarth, 152 N.H. 560, 562, 883 A.2d 305 (2005), for instance, we upheld the consolidation of seventeen counts of theft by deception, all against the same elderly victim. We ruled that, viewed objectively, the defendant's actions were part of a common plan because they demonstrated a prior design that included the charged acts as part of its consummation. Schonarth, 152 N.H. at 562, 883 A.2d 305. Not only did the charges all involve the same victim, but they were also all based upon the defendant's efforts to defraud the victim of his property through increasingly grandiose schemes connected to the defendant's alleged desire to repay his debt to the victim. Id. By contrast, in Petition of State of New Hampshire ( State v. San Giovanni ), 154 N.H. 671, 919 A.2d 762 (2007), we affirmed the trial court's decision to deny the State's motion to join fifteen theft by deception indictments, which all involved different victims. The defendants operated St. Jude's Residence, a supposed drug and alcohol treatment center. San Giovanni, 154 N.H. at 672, 919 A.2d 762. Certain patients complained that the defendants had obtained their money by creating false impressions about St. Jude's services. Id. at 673, 919 A.2d 762. Seeking to join fifteen complaints made by fifteen different victims, the State alleged a common plan by the defendants. Id. The trial court found that the charges were not part of a common plan because [t]he defendants could have committed their alleged conduct as to one victim, but not to another, and still succeeded as to the first. Id. at 674, 919 A.2d 762 (quotation omitted). We upheld this decision, noting that the indictments involved discrete offenses committed against multiple victims. Id. at 676, 919 A.2d 762. In Brown, as in San Giovanni, we concluded that the charges at issue were not part of a common plan. In that case, the defendant sold drugs on four different occasions to one person who was cooperating with the police, and on two different occasions to another cooperating person. Brown, 156 N.H. at 441, 938 A.2d 909. All the charges were joined for trial. Id. We reversed, observing that each of the sales committed by the defendant was a discrete event and involved different people. Id. at 443, 938 A.2d 909. The sales were not so intertwined as to be mutually dependent because the success of any individual sale did not depend upon the success of any other sale. Id. In the instant case, we are persuaded that the trial court reasonably could have found that the theft by deception and fraudulent handling charges constituted mutually dependent acts that were part of a prior design. The record supports the trial court's finding that the defendant strove to develop an exclusive relationship with the operators of Bayview to increase the number of examination fees he could collect. To do this, he maximized his availability to the crematory, by, for example, signing cremation certificates when he had not conducted the requisite examinations. The more fraudulent transactions he participated in, the more reliant Bayview's operators became upon his services to carry out their own ends of processing as many bodies as possible. Based upon these findings, the trial court reasonably found that each fraudulent transaction or theft in which the defendant engaged was part of an overarching plan of furthering his increasingly profitable relationship with Bayview, and, in this way, the charges were mutually dependent. The trial court reasonably could have found that the defendant was not merely taking advantage of opportunities as they arose, but instead was exhibit[ing] forethought and premeditation in his scheming. Id. Under these circumstances, we cannot say that the trial court unsustainably exercised its discretion by joining the fraudulent handling and theft by deception charges.