Court Opinion

ID: 9626512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:15:14.799746+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:01:58.908482
License: Public Domain

*147NESBETT, Chief Justice
(dissenting in part).
I agree that the search of appellant’s apartment without a warrant on December 10, 1967, must be held to be invalid under Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in June of 1969. The three marijuana cigarettes which were found during the illegal search must be suppressed as evidence. Without the marijuana as evidence it is unlikely that the charge can be proved on a retrial in which case it will be necessary to dismiss.
However, the fact that appellant’s conviction of the offense of possession of marijuana on December 10, 1967 must be set aside does not, in my opinion, justify reversing appellant’s convictions of possession of marijuana on December 3, 1967, and of selling marijuana to a minor on that date, as the majority has done.
We are concerned with a man 41 years of age who took a leading part in effecting a sale of marijuana to a 16 year old Juneau girl. By his own testimony the appellant Fresneda established that he had been convicted of possession of marijuana in Los Angeles in 1950, plead guilty to. possession of marijuana in Nevada in 1953 for which offense he was sentenced by a federal court to serve four years in prison, was again convicted of possession of marijuana in 1958, had two drunk driving convictions, two or three drunk convictions, one joy riding conviction, and one conviction of falsification of police records on his criminal record.
The facts upon which the jury convicted appellant of the sale of marijuana to Sherri Meacham on December 3, 1967, and of possession of marijuana on that date, were clearly delineated in the testimony and occurred a full week prior to the search. The jury had before it the testimony of James Hastings, appellant’s accomplice, who had plead guilty and had been sentenced, of Sherri Meacham, Sergeant Cunningham, Chief of Police Wellington, Lieutenant Ciraulo, and Rodney Pieren. The only real conflict in the testimony was that created when appellant testified that all of the above witnesses, with the possible exception of the police officers, were lying.
The main thrust of the state’s case was that of proving that appellant was illegally in possession of marijuana on December 3, 1967, and that on that date he sold the marijuana to Sherri Meacham. These two offenses were charged in separate counts of the indictment. In a third and unrelated count of the indictment, appellant was charged with the illegal possession of marijuana on December 10, 1967. The latter offense was separated a week in time from the December 3 offenses, occurred at a different location in the city of Juneau, and was proved by evidence which necessarily related to a different time and place. The jury made separate findings as to each alleged offense as it was instructed to do by the court.
There is no reason presented by the record in this case to doubt that the jury followed its instructions and reached its verdict on each separate count of the indictment on the evidence which pertained solely to that count. Nevertheless, and in spite of the fact that there is nothing in the record to indicate any irregularity in the jury function, the majority equivocates and says: “We cannot say beyond a reasonable doubt that the introduction of the marijuana found in appellant’s apartment did not affect the jury’s determination of his guilt on the other two counts.” The result of the majority’s holding is that appellant’s convictions on all three counts are to be reversed and a new trial ordered. Almost two years after the original trial, the state must now attempt to locate and produce for another trial all of the six key witnesses. If the state is unable to produce certain key witnesses it may become necessary to dismiss the charges. Even if the necessary witnesses are located *148and produced the second trial will have been had only at great and unnecessary expense to the state.
Again, the observations of Professor Wigmore, made in connection with a discussion of the propensity of some courts to order new trials on technicalities seems applicable:
While on the one hand certain fundamental ideals of political liberty have come to be lightly questioned as impracticable or cynically ignored as obsolete, on the other hand the constitutional safeguards of procedure and evidence are invoked with such fatuous philanthropy and such misplaced magnanimity that their respect is lowered and their true purposes are defeated. ‘I do not understand,’ protested a great judicial interpreter of the organic law, ‘that the Constitution is an instrument to play fast and loose with in criminal cases, anymore than in any other; or that it is the business of Courts to be astute in the discovery of technical difficulties in the punishment of parties for their criminal conduct.’ Cooley, J. in People v. Murray, 52 Mich. [288] 291 [17 N.W. 843] (1883). Yet they seem to make it their business. A false sentiment misapplies their energies. This they must unlearn. The epoch of governmental oppression has passed away; the epoch of individualistic anarchy has taken its place. They must learn the lesson of transferring the emphasis of their sympathies, — a lesson more than once read to them by the voices of their own fellow-members of the judiciary. (Citing authorities) * * *.
This much has to be said here, in order to redeem the law of Evidence from that reproach which belongs rather to the law of new trials.1
No principle of justice or reason in logic requires that convictions based upon the events of December 3 be set aside merely because the offense of December 10 was proved by marijuana seized in a search which must now be held to be illegal.2 True, the search of December 10 caused to be placed before the jury three marijuana cigarettes which belonged to appellant. But it was also quite clearly established by the independent testimony of four witnesses, contradicted only by the testimony of appellant, that he had a week previously taken a leading role in arranging a rendezvous with Sherri Meacham at a bowling alley, had rolled and wrapped the three marijuana cigarettes which he assisted in delivering to her at the bowling alley, and had helped his accomplice Hastings to' spend the $10 received from the sale. To presume, under this state of evidence, that the jury was so impressed with the fact that three marijuana cigarettes were found in appellant’s apartment on December 10 that it could have found him guilty of possession and sale of marijuana on December 3, when it otherwise might have acquitted him, is unrealistic and carries to an impractical extreme the concern which the law should observe for the rights of one who has been convicted of separate and independent crimes upon substantial evidence.
The average juror is intelligent and conscientious. Our entire jury function operates on the assumption that the jurors will follow the instructions of the court. Since *149there is no basis in the record for a presumption that the jury confused the events or transposed evidence in reaching its separate verdicts it must be trusted to have performed its function according to its directive from the court.
I would affirm the convictions based on the events of December 3, 1967.
Addendum to dissent.
In a reply to this dissent, inserted on the last page of its decision, 145, the majority points out that under the rule announced by the Supreme Court of the United States in Chapman v. California1 this court held that a federal constitutional error is harmless, only if the court is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not affect the jury’s determination. The majority then reiterates its conclusion that it cannot say beyond a reasonable doubt that the admission of the evidence did not affect the jury’s determination on all three of the counts.
No discussion of the facts in relation to the rule is supplied which would explain how the majority arrived at its conclusion. As a result, the benefit of the judicial reasoning which the majority engaged in before reaching its conclusion is denied to the courts, the bar, and the public as a future guide in similar cases.
However, as support for its bare conclusion the majority quotes a portion of the majority opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Bumper v. North Carolina.2 In my opinion, Bumper is not relevant. In Bumper the rifle obtained by the illegal search was used in the commission of the crime of rape and of both felonious assaults. The rifle was the means by which the defendant was able to commit the crimes. All of the crimes were committed within the period of an hour and a half on the same night and with respect to the same victims. In committing the crime of rape the rifle was used to hold the boyfriend at bay while the girl was forced to undress and submit. The rifle was then used to fire bullets into both of their bodies. The bullets were proven to have been fired from the rifle obtained by the illegal search. In short, the rifle was such an integral part of the evidence needed to convict on each count that the application of the rule of reasonable doubt could be easily understood by a reader of the opinion.
In the case before us the crimes of possession and sale of marijuana to a minor on December 3 were separated in time by a week from the crime of possession committed on December 10. No error exists with relation to any of the evidence admitted to prove the December 3 offenses. The offenses of December 3 occurred at a different location and were proved by different testimony. The marijuana obtained in the search on December 10 was not used as evidence in proving the crimes of December 3. The jury made separate and distinct findings with respect to each offense. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the jury did not follow its instructions from the court and consider only the evidence applicable to each count in arriving at its verdict as to each count. The jury was instructed that it could not make a finding of guilt unless it was convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The majority of this court now finds, in effect, that it is not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury did not confuse, transpose, or misapply the evidence relating to the separate dates and furnishes no explanation of the basis for its doubt. I think the statement of United States Circuit Judge Warren. Burger, now Chief Justice Burger, in his dissent in Pea v. United States 3 when he said that:
*150* * * juries are to be trusted as much when they return verdicts of guilty as when they set an accused free. Jurors do not need judges to act in loco parentis.
is peculiarly applicable to the matter before this court.
The majority emphasizes the fact that appellant took the stand and offered an explanation for the events which was consistent with his innocence. His explanations, to a large extent, consisted of denials of the affirmative testimony against him and the claim that the witnesses were lying. The jury obviously placed no credence in his explanations and denials or it would have acquitted him. There is no justification for speculating that the jury disbelieved appellant solely because the marijuana revealed by the search destroyed his credibility when he voluntarily took the witness stand and established by his own testimony that he was a three time loser in the courts on marijuana charges during the preceding 18 years.

. 1 Wigmore, Evidence § 21, at ’375 (3d ed. 1940).

. The December 10 search was no doubt a legal search under the holdings of the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 70 S.Ct. 430, 94 L.Ed. 653 (1950) and Harris v. United States, 331 U.S. 145, 67 S.Ct. 1098, 91 L.Ed. 1399 (1947) then in force. See pages 141-143 of the majority opinion. However, since the United States Supreme Court had restricted the permissible area of a warrantless search in Chimel v. Calfiornia, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, which was decided on June 23, 1969, and before our decision in this case had been published, we are required to apply the new search standards of Chimel to a search which occurred almost two years ago.

. 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705, 710-711 (1967).

. 391 U.S. 543, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968).

.130 U.S.App.D.C. 66, 397 F.2d 627, 640 (1967).