Court Opinion

ID: 9525199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:00:43.640883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:13:22.083213
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
PALED PROBATIVE FORCE
Two statutes which stem from this Court’s adopted rules of evidence are cen*376tral to an analysis of the admissibility of the medical records dating from 1968, 1969, 1973, and 1980. SDCL 19-12-5 provides:
Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident.
And SDCL 19-12-3 provides:
Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.
In addition, we have adopted the federal requirement that the prior crimes, wrongs, or acts must have occurred close in time to the act at bar. State v. Pedde, 334 N.W.2d 41 (S.D.1983); State v. Johnson, 316 N.W.2d 652 (S.D.1982).
A particularly clairvoyant application of the above legal requirements is provided in United States v. Two Eagle, 633 F.2d 93 (8th Cir.1980), and my analysis is grounded therein. Initially, we start with the foundational rule that the prior medical records are not admissible to prove Carl Iron Shell, Jr.’s character as a violent person in order to show he acted in conformity therewith on October 24, 1981, when Theresa Iron Shell was beaten to death. SDCL 19-12-4; SDCL 19-12-5. An exception to this rule is that the prior medical records are potentially admissible to show Carl Iron Shell, Jr.’s motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident. SDCL 19-12-5. Of course, one of the delineated exceptions must be a material issue raised at trial. Two Eagle, 633 F.2d at 96. Here, the majority opinion asserts that the identity of Theresa Iron Shell’s assailant was at issue.
The next analytical juncture is that the medical records must be relevant to the issue of identity. State v. Johnson, 316 N.W.2d at 654. As the majority opinion notes, the relevancy hurdle is not particularly difficult in criminal cases. Unfortunately, the majority opinion neglects the import of the next analytical step which is that the prior medical records must be close in time to the act at bar. Pedde, 334 N.W.2d 41. I have considerable trepidation with the majority opinion’s treatment of this issue as embodied in this passage: “As to the age of the documents, even if the old records were ruled inadmissible, the more recent evidence of abuse would still be admissible. Thus, the evidence is, at worst, cumulative and not prejudicial error.”
Medical records of incidents dating back to the late 1960s, aged respectively 13 years, 12 years, and 8 years, simply fail to make reliable, trustworthy, and cogent evidence. Indeed, in a distinct, yet conceptually related area, this Court has judicially adopted that as a general rule of evidence, convictions of prior serious crimes are not admissible to attack a witness’ credibility if the crime or sentence is aged over 10 years. SDCL 19-14-13. The majority opinion seems to concede, or wants to concede, that the antiquated medical records were inadmissible. Yet, with a truncated analysis, the majority opinion labels the medical records “cumulative and not prejudicial error.” I question this approach as it short-circuits the close-in-time requirement and destroys the integrity of our analytical framework.
Labeling these dated medical records “cumulative” is a misnomer. These records dredged up from other decades do not replicate the December 1980 medical records. Rather, the aged medical records serve to taint and prejudice the proceedings by implanting in the jurors’ minds an inflammatory chain of events from the distant past. Events of which the jurors knew precious little. Events stored for so long that they necessarily were riddled with unanswerable questions and speculation. Events whose probative force has paled.
This presents the final analytical step: a determination if the probative value of the medical records is substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice. SDCL 19-12-3. As *377the majority opinion recognizes: “[TJhere is no question that this evidence adversely affected appellant’s case .... ” However, the majority concludes the evidence was not prejudicial because:
“ ‘prejudice’ does not mean the damage to the opponent’s case that results from the legitimate probative force of the evidence; rather, it refers to the unfair advantage that results from the capacity of the evidence to persuade by illegitimate means.”
What more illegitimate means of persuasion could one find than the introduction into evidence of significantly aged inflammatory evidence to prove the identity of an individual in a crime committed 13 years later? This hardly seems to be the type of evidence which we associate with the idea of “legitimate probative force.” Is not the real message from this stale evidence exactly the one prohibited by SDCL 19-12-4 and SDCL 19-12-5: “Once a spouse abuser, always a spouse abuser.” No, you cannot prove a person’s bad character to show he acted in conformity therewith on the occasion in question. Therein lie the gravamen of evidentiary error.
PREJUDICIAL JOINDER
Trial counsel for appellant filed a three-page Affidavit and Brief in Support of Separate Trial. A motion that appellant and his codefendant be tried separately was denied by the trial court. It was reversible error for the trial court to deny this motion, as there was prejudicial joinder.
In reading the cases throughout the United States on prejudicial joinder, it appears to me that there is never a good time to assert prejudicial joinder. Asserting it before the trial seems to be speculative. If it is asserted during the trial, it is disruptive. And to advocate it on appeal, begs hindsight which deems the error harmless. However, there can be no doubt that the refusal to grant severance in criminal trials carries substantial risks of manifest unfairness. There was a foreseeable prejudice against this appellant as demonstrated to the trial court by the pretrial showings and evidence. The trial court knew that an out-of-court incriminatory statement was made by appellant’s codefendant to a third-party witness and that this third-party witness would testify, namely a police officer.
During a period of approximately 18 hours, at some time in which Theresa Iron Shell died, appellant and his codefendant were the only persons continuously present. The facts revealed that both appellant and codefendant had Type “0” Blood on their clothing. Theresa Iron Shell had Type “0” Blood. The uncle has Type “0” Blood and appellant has Type “A” Blood. The State argues that both appellant and codefendant had not bled. Appellant had blood on his pant legs and parka. Codefendant had blood on his T-shirt and a plaid shirt. Neither appellant nor codefendant testified. Appellant’s counsel vigorously urged, before trial, that joinder would be extremely prejudicial, and specifically cited codefend-ant’s felony record for having severely beaten his wife. Appellant’s counsel protested to the trial court that there were antagonistic defenses and the interests of his client and codefendant were absolutely conflicting and antagonistic. Notwithstanding, the interests of economy and efficiency were considerations vaulted over the fairness of appellant and codefendant being tried together. The circuit court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Bennett County, State of South Dakota, is not a court deluged or swamped with litigation. This author takes judicial notice of the Unified Judicial System records of this state which reflect no felony court trials and two felony jury trials, other than this consolidated trial, in Bennett County for calendar year 1982. The circuit court had the time, court personnel, and the judicial manpower to conduct two trials in the name of fairness to this appellant. Rather, the ruling precipitated antagonistic defenses that could not be properly raised, conflicts in trial strategy which could not be properly advocated, and the preclusion of cross-examination of a codefendant.
The most damning evidence in the trial against appellant came on direct examination of Officer Thomas L. Jensen by State’s *378Attorney Long. When Officer Jensen was asked what codefendant witnessed, he stated: “Yeah, he indicated to me that he woke up and the car was parked along the roadway and that somebody was hollering, Carl, stop it, Carl, stop it. Then he went back to sleep again.” This was an out-of-court in-culpatory statement as to appellant, made by his codefendant and related in court by a third-party witness. The prejudicial error of constitutional dimension arose in this case from appellant’s inability to cross-examine the declarant (codefendant making the inculpatory statement), when he, the declarant, invokes his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to take the stand. The landmark case in the United States is Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). The codefend-ant did not take the stand. As a result, this appellant was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to confront his accuser. Yes, his accuser sat at the counsel table with him and he could not ask a question.
The impact of Bruton, 391 U.S. 123, was curtailed by Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 91 S.Ct. 210, 27 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970), and was limited to out-of-court statements not falling within any exception to the hearsay rule for the nondeclarant. It is true, under Dutton, that the right of cross-examination is not absolute. Cross-examination is not called for if the following four criteria are met: (1) the declaration contains assertions of past fact; (2) the declarant had presumed knowledge of the identity and role of the participants in the crime; (3) the de-clarant’s recollection was not faulty; and (4) the declarant was not misrepresenting appellant’s involvement in the crime.
The trial court knew that the death of Theresa Iron Shell arose in a rural highway setting with the participants deeply intoxicated. The indicia of reliability of code-fendant’s statement as to what transpired necessarily was clouded by faulty recollection. Therefore, the cross-examination of codefendant, his uncle, was vital to test the strength of his recollection.
Under the facts of this case, the trial court abused its discretion in denying the motion for severance. State v. Reiman, 284 N.W.2d 860 (S.D.1979). I would reverse and grant appellant a separate trial.
I am authorized to state that Justice WOLLMAN joins in this dissent.