Court Opinion

ID: 9724536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:00:34.597438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:02.174645
License: Public Domain

Souris, J.
(dissenting). Except for purpose of impeachment, evidence of other crimes committed by a defendant in a criminal case may be admitted only if such evidence tends “to show his motive, intent, the absence of, mistake or accident on his part, or the defendant’s scheme, plan, or system in doing *260the act, in question”. OL 1948, § 768.27 (Stat Ann 1954 Rev § 28.1050), and Court Rule No 1, § 3 (1945),  applicable at trial of this case. There was such evidence introduced in this case of Nawrocld, but the jury was in no way instructed, either at the time of its admission or in the trial judge’s charge to the jury, of the limited use to which such evidence could be put.
Indeed, considering the evidence of such prior crimes, the prosecutor’s references thereto during his oral argument, and the judge’s jury charge, it is impossible to believe that the jury did not take such evidence as substantive proof of defendant’s guilt of the single act of forgery and uttering and publishing for which ho was charged.
Defendant’s trial counsel’s inexplicable failure to request a cautionary instruction at the time such evidence was received and as part of the formal charge to the jury at the conclusion of the case, does not relieve the trial judge of his duty to instruct the jury as to the law of the case. See People v. Oberstaedt (1964), 372 Mich 521, and People v. Guillett (1955), 342 Mich 1, and cases cited therein.
While normally we will not review assignments of error regarding the trial judge’s jury instructions unless objection thereto was timely made (see currently applicable GCR 1963, 516.2 and Court Rule No 37, § 9 [1945], which was applicable at trial herein), to prevent manifest injustice we do not hesitate to correct instructional errors relating to basic and controlling issues in a case even absent timely objection. See Hunt v. Deming (1965), 375 Mich 581. The error here was of that magnitude.
I would reverse and remand for new trial.
T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., and Smith, J., concurred with Souris, J.