Court Opinion

ID: 9662315
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:05:38.08494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:34.959309
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
DISSENT
“Notwithstanding the need for efficiency, a joint trial is inappropriate if it sacrifices a defendant’s right to a fair trial.” State v. Reiman, 284 N.W.2d 860, 866 (S.D.1979). The ease herein provides another example of a situation wherein judicial economy must be delegated a lesser priority in order to promote justice. (See my dissent in State v. No Heart, 353 N.W.2d 43, 49 (S.D.1984).) I dissent on the affirmance of the order of joinder, which order was entered upon motion by the State and after stiff resistance by defendants.
Three defendants were charged separately with perjury by Information. However, the perjury related to different specific factual statements at a previous trial and were not identical. Differing evidence was applied to the individualized facts of each information. As reflected by the rulings and cautionary instructions to the jury, as the trial progressed, the joinder of three trials into one was an evidentiary nightmare. Perjury cannot be jointly charged against several persons each of whom was separately called and sworn as a witness and each of . whom separately testified falsely in the same criminal prosecution. 2 C. Torcia, Wharton’s Criminal Procedure § 298 (12th ed. 1975), citing State v. Herrera, 28 N.M. 155, 207 P. 1085 (1922). This holding is buttressed by federal authority. “[WJhere the offense is such as not to permit of participation or agency, several offenders cannot be joined, — as for perjury ... or the like; because such offenses are in their nature several.” United States v. Chamay, 211 F.Supp. 904, 907 (S.D.N.Y.1962). To expect a trier of fact to discern and delineate the differences was impossible, indeed, highly prejudicial. Additionally, evidence was introduced against certain of these defendants which was held inadmissible against certain others. Thus, totally irrelevant and damaging evidence was heard by the jury against the defendant which would not have survived in an ordinary trial. Although this Court held that there was not a particularized showing of any possible prejudice concerning evidence submitted in a joint trial, see State v. Runge, 263 N.W.2d 876, 879-80 (S.D.1978), this Court did express this salient thought: “The record does not reflect any testimony was introduced which would not be applicable to all of the defendants.” Obviously, that is not the case here. Had these three trials not been joined, the irrelevant and damaging evidence would not have been admitted. The prosecution, by the artful ploy of the Motion for Joinder, tried two brothers and a sister under a guilt by association theory. Even the trial court itself had second thoughts about trying all three defendants together, for it commented on the record, during the trial, “it is difficult when there are three Defendants to be sure that the evidence that is presented is used against the party that [it] is intended to be used against.”1 For a crystalization of this troubled trial judge’s comment and conscience, I respectfully refer the reader to the dissent of this author in the case of State v. Iron Shell, 336 N.W.2d 372, 377 (S.D.1983), wherein I expressed: “[T]here *812can be no doubt that the refusal to grant severance in criminal trials carries substantial risks of manifest unfairness.” Under these circumstances, repeated admonitions (found in the trial transcript) to the jury by the trial court that the jury consider the evidence only as to certain individuals was a mere gesture, having no practical or substantive effect. The damage was done. A juror cannot nicely cleave bench admonitions like a sharp scalpel excises a tumor. During the trial, because of the joinder, the trial court was required on several occasions to strike certain evidence against Thomas R. Maves and Kathleen Maves. This cumulatively created an adverse impact upon the jury which would not be existent if the trials were separately conducted. Defendants should have been tried individually in separate trials.2 Justice, at its zenith, does not flounder for fairness but finds it and makes it a real, living thing. Defendants simply did not get a fair trial as there was an abuse of discretion by the trial court in granting the join-der. Therefore, under the rule announced in Reiman, 284 N.W.2d 860, I would reverse and remand for three separate trials. Our criminal justice system and this country cannot survive without basic fairness in criminal trials of our citizens. “A great compelling motivation for the formation of the American Union was a hunger by our forefathers for justice by their peers. This hunger begot, within the Bill of Rights, the right to a speedy public trial by an impartial jury.” Henderson, J., dissenting in State v. Auen, 342 N.W.2d 236, 241 (S.D. 1984).3
SEQUEL
In the distance, came the sound of men marching and equipment moving, and the quiet, which accompanies terror, became as if time had stood still. Along the highway, a little boy looked up at his grandfather and queried: “Grandpa, where did our freedom go?” Often, he had heard his grandfather talk of freedom. And the grandpa answered: “My good grandson, it was not lost on the battlefields by our men overseas, it was lost in the halls of Congress and in the courts of our land.” His lips trembling, his eyes misty, he cried aloud: “Dear God, it was lost in print, my son.” Startled by the fervor and anguish in his grandfather’s voice, the little boy nestled closer. Steadily, the marching became louder and ominous. Fearing what he did not totally understand, but sensing the woe of his grandfather, he nudged against him and whispered: “Grandpa, let’s go home.” In the land of the free, where has freedom gone?

. Joe Hauge, Todd DeBeer, and Dennis Falken were the first three witnesses called in the trial. Their testimony was stricken, all as to appellant Kathleen Maves, pursuant to motion by her counsel.

. See ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 13-3.2 and 13-3.3 setting forth standards as to when there should be joint trials. Joinder should not be allowed where “severance is appropriate to promote or necessary to achieve a fair determination of one or more Defendant’s guilt or innocence for each offense, the Court in so determining should consider among other factors whether, in view of the number of offenses and Defendants charged and the complexity of the evidence to be offered, the trier of fact will be able to distinguish the evidence and apply the law intelligently as to each offense and as to each Defendant."

. For litany of dissents against the erosion of that guaranteed liberty, see Auen, 342 N.W.2d at 241; Brush v. Klauck, 347 N.W.2d 165 (S.D.1984). See also, State v. Braun, 351 N.W.2d 149, 153 (S.D.1984) (Henderson, J., dissenting), for general principle cited by this author that defendant who exercises his constitutional right to trial by jury to determine his innocence or guilt must not have his sentence adversely affected thereby.