Court Opinion

ID: 9775314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:53:51.410558+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:25.006077
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Presiding Judge
(concurring in the result):
121 I disagree with both the majority's interpretation of Anderson and its holding permitting additional evidence to be taken after a finding of guilt has been made. For this reason, I concur only in the result.
1 22 While Anderson clearly holds that an unsigned judgment may not "serve as the basis" for establishing the degree of a theft offense, see State v. Anderson, 797 P.2d 1114, 1117 (Utah Ct.App.1990) (emphasis added), I disagree with the majority that a prior conviction can never be established without a signed judgment, cf,, e.g., Abdullah v. State, 847 N.E.2d 1031, 1034 (Ind.Ct.App.2006) ("[There are numerous other means [besides a signed judgment] by which the State may elect to prove a prior conviction ... including but certainly not limited to copies of sentencing orders, case chronologies, plea agreements, testimony from prosecutors or others involved in or witness to the prior conviction, or transcripts from the convicting court's proceedings."); State v. Chaney, 128 Ohio App.3d 100, 713 N.E.2d 1118, 1121-22 (1998) (observing that a signed judgment is "one way, but not the exclusive way, of proving prior convictions"). Furthermore, I agree with the State that Anderson is distinguishable from this case. The unsigned Disposition Report in Anderson proved only that documents had been prepared based on an anticipated guilty plea and sentence. Because the Disposition Report was never signed, it provided no more evidence of a conviction than the unsigned judgment in this case did. However, the record provided to the trial court in this case, which included documents related to Stewart's "continued participation[ ] ... with Adult Probation and Parole" (AP & P) and his "failure to comply with probation on the sentencing for the theft," prove that Stewart was indeed con-viected and sentenced for the earlier offense. I would therefore affirm on the ground that the case file provided to the trial court sufficiently evidenced the 2008 conviction.
{ 23 However, even if I were to accept the majority's holding that Anderson requires a signed judgment to prove a prior conviction, I am troubled by its conclusion that this shortcoming in the State's evidence could be remedied after a guilty verdict was rendered. "[The burden of proving all elements of a crime is on the prosecution." State v. Swenson, 838 P.2d 1136, 1138 (Utah 1992). This means that the State must prove not only the elements of theft, but also the elements pertaining to the degree of the offense. See State v. Davis, 689 P.2d 5, 10 n. 12 (Utah 1984) (noting that the requirements of Utah Code section 76-6-412 must be satisfied in order for a theft conviction to be punishable as a felony); of State v. Lyman, 966 P.2d 278, 284-85 (Utah Ct.App.1998) (reducing defendant's felony conviction to a class B misdemeanor where the State failed to present sufficient evidence of the value of the stolen property). See generally Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-602 (2008) (listing the elements of retail theft); id. § 76-6-412 (listing the elements for determining the degree of a theft offense). In this case, the State alleged that *1062Stewart was guilty of third degree felony theft because he had been convicted of theft on two previous occasions. See generally Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-412(1)(b)@). Thus, it was the State's burden to present sufficient evidence at trial for the trier of fact to determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the 2003 conviction had taken place. If the majority's interpretation of Anderson is correct, then the State failed to meet its burden at trial.
1 24 The trial court did not defer its ruling or grant the State a continuance to obtain a signed judgment. Rather, on the strength of the evidence presented at trial, the court found "that the essential elements of the crime[ ] charged [had] been established" and that there was "ample evidence to establish the prior convictions" without the signed judgment.1 Accordingly, the trial court found Stewart "guilty of the ... crime of theft as charged in count one," (emphasis added), that is, as "retail theft with prior convictions, a third degree felony." The trial court then immediately referred Stewart to AP & P for a presentence report, which was conducted under the assumption that Stewart had been convicted of a third degree felony. Essentially, if the majority is correct that the evidence was insufficient until a signed judgment was provided to the court post-trial, then Stewart was convicted on insufficient evidence. Any subsequent convietion based on the signed judgment provided post-trial should be prohibited as double jeopardy. See generally State v. Cahoon, 2009 UT 9, ¶ 16, 203 P.3d 957 ("Utah's statutory double jeopardy protection ... [protects defendants] from subsequent prosecutions for the same eriminal act ... if the prosecution 'resulted in a finding of not guilty by the trier of facts or in a determination that there was insufficient evidence to warrant conviction'" (emphasis omitted) (quoting Utah Code Ann. § 76-1-408(2) (2008))).
125 While having the 2008 judgment signed nune pro tune may have retroactively validated the original 2008 conviction, it should not be permitted to retroactively validate the unsigned judgment as evidence of a prior conviction. Although Anderson suggests that "the lack of a signed judgment could perhaps have been corrected ... by entry nune pro tune," it does not suggest that such a correction may be made after trial, conviction, and referral to AP & P. See 797 P.2d at 1117 n. 18 (citations omitted). The proper approach in this case would have been for the State to obtain a nune pro tunc signature on the judgment in time to use it as evidence at trial. Once the trial court entered a judgment in this case, however, insufficient evidence could not be remedied by a post-trial submission of evidence. To permit such a remedy sets a dangerous precedent, permitting the State to achieve a conviction despite failing to meet its burden of proof at trial.

. Indeed, the trial court reaffirmed at sentencing that it believed the evidence the State had presented at trial was sufficient to prove the 2003 conviction, even without the signed judgment subsequently submitted by the State.