Court Opinion

ID: 9577226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:33:16.359569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:12.790557
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.,
(concurring). The shotgun was not identified as the very gun used when the crime was committed, nor was it part of a chain of circumstantial evidence sufficient in the aggregate to support a verdict or finding of guilty. It should not have been admitted in evidence.
We, nevertheless, concur in the affirmance of Howard’s conviction of armed robbery because the attention of the trial judge was not directed to the fact that the gun was not part of such a chain of circumstantial evidence and because we are satisfied that the admission of the gun was of relatively little importance and if a new trial were held with the gun excluded it is unlikely Howard would be acquitted.1
I
The people assert that the shotgun, found 15 days after the robbery when the police stopped an automobile in which Howard was a passenger, might have been used by Howard in the robbery. *608The gun was found between the legs of the driver of the automobile.
None of the eyewitnesses could identify the gun as the gun used by the robber who was armed with a shotgun. The most any of the witnesses could say was that it was "similar” to the robber’s gun.2
Howard was identified by five eyewitnesses as the robber who was carrying a shotgun. On the basis of their identification testimony the jury could properly convict him of the crime. Without the identification testimony Howard could not have been convicted; manifestly he could not have been convicted because 15 days after the robbery he was a passenger in an automobile where there was found a shotgun similar in appearance to the shotgun used in committing the crime.
II
The admissibility of weapons which might have been used to commit a crime is an important issue to both the people and accused persons.
We agree that merely because evidence that a defendant may have had access to a gun is damag*609ing ("prejudicial”) to the defendant does not warrant its exclusion. We also agree that a gun is not rendered inadmissible merely because there is other evidence of the defendant’s guilt. The people are entitled to prove their case by more than one route.
The people should not, however, be permitted to exploit a tenuous relevance to put before the jury evidence which does not truly tend to prove a defendant’s guilt, evidence which may very well divert the jury from an objective appraisal of the probative evidence.
There are many general statements that where a weapon or tool was used to commit a crime, a weapon or tool which might have been used in its commission, found in the defendant’s possession, may be introduced without proof that it was the very weapon or tool used.3 These generalizations overstate the true rule. In the only Michigan Supreme Court cases of which we are aware where weapons or tools found in the defendant’s possession were held admissible to show capacity to commit a crime, they were part of a chain of circumstantial evidence against the defendant.4
*610Guns found some time after the commission of a crime which might have been used to commit it are admissible where:
1. There is testimony or other evidence tending to identify the gun as the very gun used to commit the crime. The testimony of the eyewitnesses in this case was not of that quality.5 ***5
2. Although the gun is not so identified, it is part of a chain of circumstantial evidence which in the aggregate is sufficient to support a verdict or finding of guilty.6
Here the relevance of the evidence of Howard’s access to a shotgun was a theoretical relevance unrelated to any other proof, bearing no logical or rational connection to any other evidence. It was not part of a composite of circumstantial proofs from which Howard’s guilt could have been deduced.7
*611The people did not seriously seek to prove their case by more than one route. The evidence of Howard’s access to a shotgun was left suspended before the jury unrelated to any other evidence. If this evidence served any purpose, it could only have been possibly to divert the jurors from the central issue of whether to believe the identification testimony of the eyewitnesses or the testimony of the alibi witness, thus encouraging the jurors to resolve any doubts regarding the conflicting testimony on the evidence that Howard was riding with other men at night with a sawed-off shotgun and the legally irrelevant inference that he must be a bad man.
If the attention of the trial judge had been directed to the fact that the shotgun was not admissible on either of the two grounds mentioned or if the evidence tending to establish Howard’s guilt were less overwhelming or if the rebuttal evidence offered by Howard were more impressive, a different result might be in order.
T. G. Kavanagh, J., concurred with Levin, J.
J. W. Fitzgerald, J., did not sit in this case.

 While we are not prepared to say that the judge’s ruling was reversible error, we favor a rule requiring a prosecutor, before a weapon which might have been used to commit the crime is displayed to the jury, to state his theory of admissibility and to outline the proofs which he expects to offer in support of that theory so that weapons are not displayed unless the prosecutor expects to be able to establish admissibility on one of the two bases mentioned in this opinion (see text,accompanying fns 5 and 6).

 Four eyewitnesses testified that the shotgun offered in evidence was "similar” to the weapon used by one of the robbers.
One witness "thought” the shotgun taken from the car was approximately four inches longer than the gun used during the robbery.
A self-proclaimed confederate testified that the gun was similar, but "I’m not positive if that’s the exact one we used on that night”.
Evelyn Vaughn, the barmaid, did say on direct examination, "It’s the one he was carrying”. But she was then asked by the prosecutor, two questions later, whether there was anything "unusual” about the gun which she recognized. She responded, "It’s a difference, but I don’t know — I don’t know that much about guns but — .” The question was repeated in a somewhat different form and she responded, "I really couldn’t say positively”. She was then asked by the prosecutor: "All right. Was the weapon that you saw on that particular evening very similar to this one in total length?” Answer: "Yes”. The trial judge’s view of her testimony, as set forth in his cautionary instruction, was "There had been no testimony that this is the sawed-off shotgun”. (Emphasis supplied.) ■.

 1 Wharton, Criminal Evidence (13th ed), § 157, pp 289-290; § 211, pp 440-442; 3 Underhill, Criminal Evidence (5th ed, Herrick), § 633, p 1507; 1970 Cum Supp p 30; § 634, p 1508, et seq. But see 1 Gillespie, Michigan Criminal Law & Procedure, § 461, p 572; State v Kehr, 133 Iowa 35; 110 NW 149 (1907); State v Crawford, 60 Utah 6; 206 P 717 (1922). See discussion in 22A CJS, Criminal Law, § 712, pp 956-969.

 In People v Courtney, 178 Mich 137, 153; 144 NW 568 (1913), People v Lahnala, 193 Mich 144; 159 NW 352 (1916), and People v Winney, 196 Mich 347, 365; 163 NW 119 (1917), the accused person had been in possession of the weapon or tools before as well as after the commission of the crime with which he was charged.
Lahnala owned the gun before the crime was committed. Winney admitted stealing the gun the night before the victim was murdered. In both cases the guns were of the same caliber as bullets found at the scene. In Courtney, a satchel resembling one seen in the defendant’s possession before the crime was seized by the police simultaneously with the seizure of burglary tools.
In People v Kelly, 386 Mich 330, 338; 192 NW2d 494 (1971), the gun *610was seized by the police as they arrested the defendant. In addition to the identification testimony of the victim, there was a chain of circumstantial evidence: testimony of the victim of a like crime committed by a similar modus operandi, identification of the gun by the victim of this other crime as "the same one” used when that crime was committed, and motel room keys found in defendant’s possession for various rooms including the motels where both the charged offense and this other crime were committed.

 There are a large number of guns in circulation and many look alike. A person at the blunt end of a gun is not likely to be able to say whether a gun offered in evidence is the gun that was actually used. There are, however, exceptions as indicated by the prosecutor’s question of the barmaid asking whether there was anything unusual about the gun which enabled her to identify it (see fn 2).
In the following cases the weapon used in the commission of the crime was unusual: People v Jones, 22 Ill 2d 592; 177 NE2d 112 (1961) (crome-plated, long-barreled revolver); People v Pinelli, 24 App Div 2d 1023; 265 NYS2d 918 (1965) (gun described as large steel gray, like a Luger).

 The fact that the gun was not in Howard’s physical possession when it was found would be a factor to be considered in determining whether the aggregate of the circumstantial evidence was sufficient to convict.

 Cf. State v Thompson, 228 Or 496, 501-502; 364 P2d 783, 785-786 (1961), where the Court held that the "prejudicial character of the evidence [a handgun] outweighed its probative value”. The defendant *611was arrested at his home two months after the commission of an armed robbery. The gun was found in his bedroom. He was identified as the robber. The gun "was not unique or distinguishable from other .22 caliber revolvers that could probably have been found in many homes”. Nor was there testimony that it was "similar” to the gun used by the felon.