Court Opinion

ID: 9743178
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:27:22.168535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:39.764125
License: Public Domain

CONOVER, Judge,
dissenting.
I concur with the majority's determination Mogle was properly convicted of see-ond offense drunk driving, but respectfully dissent from its finding the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction for operating a motor vehicle after being adjudged an habitual traffic offender.
This is not a case in which parol testimony alone connected Mogle with the prior habitual offender conviction as in Morgan v. State, (1982) Ind., 440 N.E.2d 1087, nor one where court records alone were used to make the connection, as in Duncan v. State, (1980) 274 Ind. 144, 409 N.E.2d 597, 601. Here we have both oral testimony and the court record.
The oral testimony established the Mogle officer Schermerhorn arrested that evening previously had been convicted of being an habitual traffic offender because at the scene, Schermerhorn requested a computer printout of Mogle's driving record from the bureau of motor vehicles via the Elkhart County Sheriff's police radio dispatcher. Thus Mogle's record was isolated from any others because Schermerhorn identified him by his
(1) name,
(2) date of birth, and
(8) operator's license number.
The bureau of motor vehicle's return that evening indicated Mogle's status was "questionable suspended." Schermerhorn then requested and received a certified copy of Mogle's driving record. It revealed Mogle was suspended, he was an habitual traffic offender. State's exhibit no. 1, the officer's report, further shows Mogle's name as "Thomas E. Mogle," of South Bend. The name of the defendant in the Elkhart Cireuit Court action was identical to the defendant's name in the present action, and he came from an adjoining county.
From the totality of this oral testimony and documentary evidence, I believe the jury could reasonably infer the Mogle before it was the same Mogle who had been convicted of the habitual offender offense in the same court four years before the present action began.
On review, we need not find the evidence at trial overcame every reasonable hypothesis of innocence, cf. Choate v. State, (1984) Ind., 462 N.E.2d 1037, 1047. Rather, we reverse only where the jury's conclusion defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt could not reasonably have been drawn, cf. Turner v. State, (1981) Ind., 428 N.E.2d 1244, 1247.
I would also affirm Mogle's conviction for operating a motor vehicle after being adjudged an habitual traffic offender.