Court Opinion

ID: 9575312
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:12:56.813751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:07.955443
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with Judge Benham that the judgment should be reversed for the reasons stated. The evidence of the first transaction was used to show not only motive, intent, scheme, or plan, but also identity. *603That is, it was used to show that since defendant was the person involved in the first and very similar transaction, he was beyond a reasonable doubt the person involved in this transaction for which he was on trial.
The whole issue in the case was whether defendant was the perpetrator on the later occasion. To prove it, the state offered the testimony of the officer that defendant was indeed the person on the occasion under scrutiny. To enhance the weight of that testimony which fingered defendant, the state offered proof that defendant was the person who committed a similar offense involving the same officer a week earlier. Three persons witnessed the first transaction: A, B, & C. Two persons witnessed the second transaction: A & B. At trial on the second transaction solely, A said defendant was B and defendant said he was not B, creating a stand-off. A then said defendant was B because he was B also on a recent nearly identical occasion. Defendant persisted in denial and said, C would say that I was not B; I do not know who C is but A does, and I am entitled to know who C is because C would verify my testimony as to the earlier occasion.
The state was permitted to use the evidence of the similar transaction, which was shielded from impeachment on the nondisclosure ruling as to count two, but was not allowed to use it due to a disclosure ruling as to count one.
The majority recites the law regarding the use of independent crimes and states that the first prerequisite is to prove that the independent crime was committed by defendant. Thus the defendant’s identity with respect to the independent crime became just as much an issue in the trial on the second transaction as if the independent crime was also being tried. The trial court had already ruled, on a sound basis, that disclosure of the informant was compelled if the first transaction was to be tried. Its reasoning was that since there was such a long delay from occurrence to trial, and such a long delay between the transactions and defendant’s knowing anything about being charged with it (he was first apprised upon arrest some seventeen months later), and since his sole defense was that he was not present but could not establish an alibi because he could not seventeen months later remember where he was at the particular time, disclosure was necessary because the third party’s testimony as to identity was the only evidence which could corroborate defendant’s otherwise bare denial. Obviously, then, since the state raised the issue of defendant’s identity at the first transaction in the trial on the second, the very same reasons compelled disclosure here. The evidence was just as relevant and crucial in the trial on count two as it would have been if the trial had embraced count one, although the consequences were different, i.e., two convictions instead of one.
The fact that the state was not required to disclose because the *604informant was a mere tipster is totally irrelevant. His testimony was not needed to test the accuracy of the officer’s version of how the transaction occurred (i.e., whether defendant was entrapped, for instance), but rather it was needed simply to establish identity of defendant as “B” or not. Whether full participant or mere tipster or innocent bystander, it was his role as visual observer of the person involved in the first transaction that was critical to defendant’s identification as the person involved in the second. When the state brought in this earlier transaction, the defendant had a right to challenge its relevancy by proof that it did not involve him. If it did not involve defendant, that proof was exclusively in the hands of the state. It had become the exclusive mode of proof because of the passage of time brought about by the state. Thus I agree that the court erred.
Decided July 15, 1985
Rehearing denied July 31, 1985
Larkin M. Fowler, Jr., Lester M. Castellow, for appellant.
H. Lamar Cole, District Attorney, James Thagard, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.