Court Opinion

ID: 9685093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:23:02.094628+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:02.222999
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
This case focuses on the night the lights went out in Mitchell, South Dakota, namely December 10, 1978. A radiator at the Northwestern Public Service substation, located near the Hormel plant, was shot thus rendering a transformer inoperable and re-*115suiting in a power outage. Four young men, including defendant, were involved in the shooting incident. Through a conspiracy of silence and lies, both in and out of the courtroom, the participants have all sought to avoid prosecution, to include perjury charges. They have been quite successful.
There is sufficient evidence, under the traditional sufficiency of the evidence standard, to support the jury’s guilty verdict. This standard is set forth in State v. Shank, 88 S.D. 645, 226 N.W.2d 384 (1975), and basically confronts the reviewing authority with this question: Is there sufficient evidence, if believed by the jury, to sustain a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? State v. Dietz, 264 N.W.2d 509 (S.D.1978); State v. Wilson, 297 N.W.2d 477 (S.D.1980). There was conflicting evidence in this trial; it is, however, within the province of the jury to weigh conflicting evidence. The credibility of witnesses became an issue in this trial; again, this was a question of fact for the jury and not one for this reviewing body. See State v. Masteller, 272 N.W.2d 833 (S.D.1978).
Defendant was charged with committing the crime of perjury as follows:
That on or about the 30th day of June, 1980, in the County of Davison, State of South Dakota, [defendant], did commit the public offense of perjury (SDCL 22-29-1) in that he did willfully, wrongfully and feloniously, after taking an oath that he would testify truthfully before a jury impaneled to try the case of State of South Dakota v. Robert Lee Granger in which the defendant, Robert Lee Granger was charged with intentional Property Damage (felony) (SDCL 22-34-1) and intentional interruption of Utility Service (felony) (SDCL 22-34-28), intentionally and contrary to such oath, state a material matter, to-wit: that he was not present with Robert Lee Granger in the vicinity of the Northwestern Public Service transformer on December 10, 1978, and that at the time he was at his home, contrary to statute in such case made and provided against the peace and dignity of the State of South Dakota.
The crime of perjury is defined in SDCL 22-29-1, which states:
Any person who, having taken an oath that he will testify . . . truly before any competent tribunal ... in any of the cases in which such an oath may by law be administered, intentionally and contrary to such oath, states any material matter which he knows to be false, is guilty of perjury.
Fourth Judicial Circuit Court Reporter Gary Lutgen testified in the case before us that defendant took an oath in his companion’s case (State v. Granger) and that defendant testified he was not at the shooting scene, but, rather, was home asleep in bed. This testimony is at absolute variance with a previous written statement signed by defendant and given to the investigating officer, Detective Reinesch of the Mitchell Police Department. In this statement defendant admitted that he, Gene Morehead, Bob Granger, and Gene Dog Soldier were in Morehead’s car, a late model Ford, and Dog Soldier and Granger fired three shots. State rebuttal witness Gerald Ruden testified that he observed a late model Ford leaving the vicinity of the Hormel plant shortly after three shots had been fired on the night of December 10, 1978. Ruden’s testimony was corroborative of the facts as related by defendant in his written statement to Detective Reinesch. Defendant’s written statement was introduced and received into evidence without objection from the defense. Under the evidence, the jury could have reasonably concluded that defendant told the truth when the entire episode was initially under investigation and then perjured himself at the Granger trial; hence, the jury entered a verdict of guilty. The majority opinion concedes that defendant’s written statement to Officer Reinesch and defendant’s testimony at the Granger trial were substantive evidence for the jury’s consideration. Ruden’s testimony is independent corroboration of the crime and it is likewise substantive evidence.
Viewing the evidence as a whole, and not with a preoccupation of a technical disserta*116tion on the niceties of the rules of evidence, the record reasonably bears out that defendant, Dog Soldier, Morehead, and Gran-ger were all present at the shooting scene and that the initial statements given by them to the Mitchell Police Department were consistent.
Defendant testified at his own trial; his testimony that his earlier written statement to Detective Reinesch came from (a) information supplied through his sister or (b) fabricated from his own imagination is incredible for, under the cold, cutting knife of cross-examination, his answers to questions by the prosecution reflected that he had personal knowledge of the shooting incident and implicitly placed himself at the scene.* Hence, defendant had to have been present at the shooting scene the night in question and the jury had the right to believe that he deliberately perjured himself by saying in an earlier trial that he was home, fast asleep. This incriminating testimony was likewise substantive and this Court may indulge in a consideration of this evidence which, if believed by the jury, was sufficient to sustain a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Our Court has adopted the “two-witness rule.” State v. Reidt, 56 S.D. 539, 229 N.W. 398 (1930); State v. Pratt, 21 S.D. 305, 112 N.W. 152 (1907). This rule has neither a statutory nor constitutional mandate. It evolved from eighteenth century English cases which essentially held that a perjury conviction should not be based upon oath against oath. This rule, however, is not without exception due to the courts’ discovery that a strict adherence thereto would often result in unconscionable results. See Wigmore on Evidence, vol. VII, § 2040, Chadbourne Revision (1978).
A notable exception to the two-witness rule is discussed in 88 A.L.R.2d 852 (1963) and is referred to as the “documentary evidence exception”; basically, it expresses that if direct documentary evidence emanates from the accused, then such evidence may act as a substitute for the testimony of a witness. It reasons, under such circumstance, that there need not be any witness testifying directly to the falsity. Obviously, if the two-witness rule is founded upon the necessity of corroborating the oath of one witness regarding false testimony by the accused, then corroboration may be in a form other than a witness on the witness stand. See Hammer v. United States, 271 U.S. 620, 46 S.Ct. 603, 70 L.Ed. 1118 (1926).
Wharton’s Criminal Evidence, vol. 2, (13th ed. 1972 and 1981 Supp.) indicates that a conviction of perjury can be sustained on the testimony of one witness which is corroborated by other circumstances. To me, this makes sense; evidence does not always come into the record by oral testimony of a witness. There is no magic in proving up perjury by two warm bodies in the courtroom. The corroborating evidence may be direct or circumstantial, testimonial or documentary and may consist of a prior inconsistent statement by the defendant, whether oral or written, and whether under oath or not. This includes “matters constituting a part of the res gestae of the fact or issue in respect of which accused testified falsely.” 70 C.J.S. Perjury, § 59, § 67 (1951). There is sufficient and respectable authority in the United States to justify a modification of our decisions of 1907 (State v. Pratt, supra) and 1930 (State v. Reidt, supra) which established the two-witness rule. Accordingly, I would modify the decisional law of this state.
I do not read United States v. Davis, 548 F.2d 840 (9th Cir. 1977), as absolute authority for reversing this particular conviction of perjury. Rather, that decision may be interpreted to sustain the conviction herein. In Davis, as in this case, a law enforcement officer (FBI agent) took a signed, unsworn statement from the accused. This statement contradicted the testimony given by the accused at trial. The FBI agent testified as to these inconsistencies; the government used the FBI agent’s testimony as *117corroboration of the accused s signed statement. In upholding the accused’s statement to satisfy the two-witness rule and in discounting the accused’s argument that this was “bootstrapping,” the court in Davis said at 843:
[The defendant’s] statement amounted to a written admission by [him] and was entirely consistent with the testimony given by [the FBI agent]. In Vetterli v. United States, 198 F.2d 291, 293 (9th Cir.), vacated on other grounds, 344 U.S. 872, 73 S.Ct. 175, 97 L.Ed. 675 (1952), we emphasized:
“Admissions of a party charged with perjury, if made under such circumstances as render them clearly admissible, seem to us to have a sound corroborative value.”
The defendant contends that the use of this signed statement to satisfy' the corroborative evidence requirement of the two-witness rule amounts to bootstrapping in that the statement was written and composed by [the FBI agent]. We disagree. Where one witness testifies to the fact of perjury, independent corroborative evidence suffices under the two-witness rule if it tends to confirm the truth of the witness’s testimony in material respects and thereby induces belief in his testimony. Since the corroborative evidence need not be strong nor even independently sufficient in itself, it may be supplied by the defendant’s own conduct.
Assuming arguendo that the two-witness rule should be adhered to in this case, I would hold that the trial court properly denied the motion for judgment of acquittal. The testimony of Detective Reinesch, the unsworn statement of defendant, the testimony of the court reporter, the independent corroborative testimony of Ruden, and defendant’s own statements under cross-examination at trial all provided sufficient evidence — as a matter of law — to establish a factual question for the jury to render a verdict of guilty or not guilty on the perjury charge. Collectively, there were three statements made by defendant which incriminated him: (1) his unsworn statement, (2) his testimony at the Granger trial, and (3) his testimony at his own trial. Each was substantive evidence.
Thus, I would not reverse defendant’s conviction on grounds of insufficient evidence and therefore I dissent on this aspect of the majority opinion.
I concur, however, with that aspect of the majority opinion which would reverse the conviction due to jury instructions. Defendant proposed an instruction identical to South Dakota Pattern Jury Instruction, vol. II, § 1-17-8, and the trial court refused to give the instruction. In State v. Gage,, 302 N.W.2d 793 (S.D.1981), this Court set out four requirements for the use of a prior inconsistent statement for the limited purpose of impeachment. The final requirement is that the trial court “adequately instruct the jury about the limited purpose for which the prior inconsistent statement is admitted.” Id. at 798.
There were prior inconsistent statements introduced during the course of this trial and some of them were for purposes of impeachment. These consisted of inconsistent versions of the same shooting incident. The trial court was fearful of using the stock instruction due to the probability of confusing the jury as to whether the inconsistent statements were substantive or impeachment evidence. The trial court not only refused the proposed stock instruction but gave no other type of cautionary or limiting instruction with the result being that the jury was free to consider the prior inconsistent statements as substantive proof of defendant’s guilt. The sorting out of these statements, and to instruct on each under the repeated lies brought before this jury, constituted an instruction nightmare for the trial judge. As difficult as it would have been, though, the trial judge should have given a limiting or cautionary instruction on the limited purpose for which the prior inconsistent statements were admitted. Although the state advocates that this was harmless error at best, I believe that the failure to give any distinguishing instruction on inconsistent statements consti*118tuted prejudicial error. Having been on the trial bench for four years, I can understand the dilemma the trial judge was in. Our 20-20 hindsight now impales his on-the-spot decision. In fairness to the' trial court, it should be said that the ruling on instructions was made prior to this Court’s decision in State v. Gage, supra.
Men who paralyze a city’s sight and lifeblood, having fulfilled their devilment, and then conspire to tell false stories to escape punishment should be brought to the bar of justice for trial. The thrust of this writing is that defendant would be retried for perjury and thus the reason I have again toiled so long in this valley of endless legal brush.

 To paraphrase Shakespeare: “Methinks he doth protest too much.” Defendant bespeaks his innocence, yet his lips indict him.