Court Opinion

ID: 9845534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:23:56.22329+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:13.192372
License: Public Domain

Fromme, J.,
dissenting. Defendant’s convictions on two separate and unrelated counts of arson are being set aside for two procedural errors which in my opinion were not of sufficient gravity to change the results of the trial.
The first concerned the admission of statements made by defendant during interrogation. Even if we accept the premise that defendant made a direct request for counsel and refused to talk without counsel, the statements made by him were not admissions of guilt and were nothing more than was established by other evidence of the facts and circumstances surrounding these two fires. His periods of depression were evident and his statements tended to support his defense rather than his guilt. He said he did not intentionally burn these buildings, and if he accidently set the fires he remembered nothing about such an accident. There may have been an inference that he could have set the fires and remembered nothing about it, but there was an equally strong inference that if he had set the fires he would have remembered doing so.
The second claimed error which forms the basis for reversal of these two convictions was evidence of the defendant’s prior confession to a crime of arson, which confession was made seven years earlier. Evidence of this prior crime was admitted under authority of K.S.A. 60-455 which permits such introduction when relevant to prove some material fact such as motive, intent or several other possible issues in a trial of a defendant. Although *290evidence of this former crime had no bearing on motive for committing the two crimes with which he was charged, it was relevant to establish the intent of the defendant. There was defendant’s own testimony that during one of his periods of depression he might have accidently caused the fire and would not remember doing so. There was no direct evidence to establish how the fires started. His intent was in issue.
The case of State v. McCorgary, 224 Kan. 677, 585 P.2d 1024 (1978), cited in the majority opinion, is only one of many cases in which evidence of a prior crime has been admitted for the purpose of showing both motive and intent. We affirmed McCorgary and many similar cases because intent was relevant, even though motive was not. In the present case, the State failed to urge the admission of evidence of the prior offense on the ground of intent but I am sure on the new trial if there is evidence to infer an accidental setting of the fires the State will not have this same oversight again. In my opinion the result would have been the same without evidence of the prior arson. Defendant stood charged and was convicted of two separate unrelated arsons. Each separate conviction had some bearing on the other in the eyes of the jury.
In this case the Kansas harmless error rule (K.S.A. 60-2105) should be applied as recognized in State v. Thompson, 221 Kan. 176, Syl. ¶ 5, 558 P.2d 93 (1976). I would declare that these two procedural errors had little, if any, likelihood of having changed the result of the trial. I would declare such a belief beyond a reasonable doubt and affirm these convictions.
Schroeder, C.J., and McFarland, J., join in the foregoing dissent.