Court Opinion

ID: 9541470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:25:48.426633+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:56.943784
License: Public Domain

Schroeder, J.,
dissenting: In my opinion the prior conviction of the appellant for an offense committed twenty-eight years prior to the trial herein was erroneously admitted in evidence to prove the element of intent required of the offense charged in the information —murder in the first degree. It is inconceivable to me that the prior conviction had any probative value whatever and it should have been excluded from evidence. (State v. Owen, 162 Kan. 255, 176 P. 2d 564.) The court concedes the admission of this prior conviction into evidence was error, but it regards the error as technical and insufficient to require a reversal.
In the instant case the material issue before the trial court was the existence of the requisite intent. The admission of the prior *233conviction went to this very issue. There were no independent eye witnesses to the shooting and the appellant was claiming self defense, in substance.
The rules of evidence in our new code of civil procedure are applicable to the trial of criminal cases. Pursuant to the new code Supreme Court Rule No. 116 (201 Kan. xxxi) was adopted. It provides in part:
“. . . If evidence was admitted over proper objections, and in his reasons for the decision the judge does not state that such evidence, specifying the same with particularity, was not considered, then it shall be presumed in all subsequent proceedings that the evidence was considered by the judge and did enter into his decision.”
Here the appellant objected to the admission of the 1939 Missouri conviction in evidence, and it must be presumed the trial judge considered the evidence and that it entered into his decision.
It is respectfully submitted the judgment of the trial court should be reversed and a new trial granted.