Court Opinion

ID: 9789653
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:39:43.924914+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:23.843347
License: Public Domain

OPINION
BUSSEY, Judge:
The appellant, Dwight H. Woodard, was charged, tried, and convicted in the District Court of Tulsa County of the crime of Possession of a Stolen Vehicle, After Former Conviction of a Felony. Prior to this conviction, the appellant was convicted of two counts of Uttering a Forged Instrument and was sentenced to five (5) years for each count with the five (5) years for each count suspended, subject to certain probationary rules and conditions. While on probation, the appellant violated the terms and conditions of his probation by having a stolen vehicle in his possession. At the sentencing hearing, the appellant was sentenced to twenty (20) years, and his five year suspended sentences were revoked. From this judgment, sentence and revocation, he appeals.
In the early morning hours of October 5, 1984, police officer Joe Vandiver of the Tulsa Police Department was on helicopter patrol, when he observed a person driving a vehicle in a residential area with no lights. After observing the vehicle for some time, he notified a patrol unit below, requesting that the officers check the vehicle. The officers located the vehicle, at which time the driver of the vehicle observed the police car, turned on his headlights, and sped through the city streets, attempting to evade the officers. The police continued to pursue the vehicle until the vehicle driver failed to negotiate a turn and ran into a street light pole. The officers then observed the appellant flee from the vehicle and subsequently apprehended him. Examination of the vehicle revealed a broken steering column and a screwdriver which was used to “hot wire” the vehicle. A forensic analysis also disclosed that latent fingerprints taken from the steering column and window of the vehicle belonged *664to the appellant. It was later discovered that the vehicle was stolen earlier in the day from Southroads Shopping Center in Tulsa.
In his first assignment of error, the appellant contends that the trial court erred in refusing to grant funds with which to employ a fingerprint expert to rebut the testimony of the State’s expert witness, Robert Yerton. The appellant cites Ake v. State, 470 U.S. 68, 106 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985), to support his proposition that indigent defendants must be provided with expert witnesses to rebut those experts who testify for the State. We disagree. Ake does not support such a broad interpretation. The rationale for the holding of Ake was that if those in need of psychiatric assistance were deprived of such assistance, there would be an extremely high risk of inaccuracy in resolving the issues of sanity.
In Plunkett v. State, 719 P.2d 834 (Okl.Cr.1986), this Court held that such a risk in other areas of scientific evidence was not necessarily present. The basis for our holding was that the scientific expert is often able to explain to the jury how a conclusion was reached, the defendant’s counsel can attack that conclusion, and then the jury can then decide whether there was a sound basis for the conclusion. Plunkett, 719 P.2d at 839. In the instant case, fingerprint expert Robert Yerton, related to the jury how he correlated the latent fingerprints taken from the automobile to the appellant. Defense counsel attacked these conclusions with extensive cross-examination, after which the jury determined there was justification for this conclusion. Therefore, we cannot say that the appellant was denied the “basic tools” of his defense. Standridge v. State, 701 P.2d 761 (Okl.Cr.1985). This assignment is without merit.
In his second assignment of error, the appellant contends that he was deprived of due process because the trial court revoked his suspended sentence after a subsequent conviction without an additional revocation hearing. At the outset, we note that the scope of due process for a revocation hearing is not as broad as in a criminal proceeding; therefore, the due process requirement is satisfied if the proceeding is fundamentally fair. Degraffenreid v. State, 599 P.2d 1107 (Okl.Cr.1979). In the present case, the appellant received a preliminary hearing in compliance with the due process requirement and 22 O.S. 1981, § 991b, and was represented by counsel at the proceeding. At a subsequent hearing, the trial court decided to carry the revocation hearing along with the jury trial, since the offense forming the basis for both proceedings was the same. We also note that the record is entirely void of any objection to this procedure by the appellant. Having determined the revocation was the result of a fundamentally fair procedure acquiesced to by the appellant, we find this assignment to be without merit.
The judgment, sentence and revocation are AFFIRMED.
BRETT, P.J., concurs.
PARKS, J., concurs in part, dissents in part.