Court Opinion

ID: 9674762
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:34:55.236808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:29.051296
License: Public Domain

CLEMENS, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent, and would reverse and remand. This, because the majority opinion condones the trial court’s admission of extraneous evidence that defendant possessed a-marihuana cigarette, thereby harnessing him with evidence of an uncharged and legally unrelated crime.
The majority relies heavily on this court’s case of State v. Williams, 539 S.W.2d 530 (Mo.App.1976). I believe that case is too slender a reed to support the conviction here. It runs parallel to ours only in that it concerns the evidentiary admissibility of marihuana possession in a case where the charge was possessing heroin. But as will be seen, the facts in Williams are distinguishable. There, the state showed that when officers bought heroin from defendant “the top of defendant’s dresser held quantities of heroin in foil packets, some syringes in foil packets, some syringes and a smoking pipe used for and containing marihuana”; and, in the dresser was “a large quantity of marihuana.”
The Williams court announced the general rule:
“The general principle is well-established that evidence of commission of separate and distinct offenses is not admissible unless it has a legitimate tendency to directly establish the defendant’s guilt of the crime for which he is being tried. Evidence of unrelated crimes is inadmissible, because it violates defendant’s right to be tried for the crime for which he is charged. State v. Granberry, 530 S.W.2d 714 (Mo.App.1975); State v. McElroy, 518 S.W.2d 459 (Mo.App.1975). ‘It has the misleading probative force of tending to prove one crime by proving another.’ State v. Martin, 506 S.W.2d 473, 474 (Mo. App.1974).”
The Williams court then declared an “intent exception” to the rule, permitting evidence that was “logically pertinent” since the challenged evidence there tended to prove the defendant’s intent to possess the heroin, holding:
“The contested evidence here (the marihuana and marihuana pipe) is logically relevant to establish that the defendant’s possession of the heroin was with full knowledge of its illegal character. Although proof of possession of marihuana is not ipso facto evidence of knowing possession of heroin, where the two controlled substances and paraphernalia for their use are found at the same time and in the same place in open view it has the tendency to prove a material fact at issue, that is, the knowing possession.” (My emphasis.)
The court adopted the state’s contention that “the evidence relating to the possession of a large quantity of marihuana by the defendant clearly demonstrates that his possession of heroin was knowing and that such evidence was admissible as part of the relevant facts surrounding the incident.” The Williams holding is based on evidence of two closely related incidents of narcotics possession, both substances being intermingled in open view. That distinguishes our case because here the acts of possessing two controlled substances were unrelated, both in time and place.
Two related issues are before this court. Was the challenged evidence about the marihuana cigarette relevant to the charge of possessing heroin? If not, was admitting it prejudicial or only harmless error?
“Relevance” was defined in Crowley v. Crowley, 360 S.W.2d 293[2] (Mo.App.1962), as “the relationship between the offered fact and the fact in issue to such a degree that the existence to the offered fact logically renders probable the existence of the fact in issue.” Thus, fact A is relevant to fact B only when the existence of fact A *394tends to render probable the existence of fact B. See Beiner v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 160 S.W.2d 780[1] (Mo.App. 1942), where we held that to determine whether a fact is relevant we must “consider whether or not it may be said to logically tend to establish any fact in issue.” In determining relevancy of the evidence now challenged, the marihuana cigarette, I would follow the test declared in State v. Boyer, 476 S.W.2d 613[1] (Mo.1972): “Proof of the commission of separate and distinct crimes is not admissible, unless such proof has some legitimate tendency to directly establish the defendant’s guilt of the charge for which he. is on trial; and that if the court does not clearly perceive the connection between the extraneous criminal transaction and the crime charged, that is, its logical relevancy, the accused should be given the benefit of the doubt, and the evidence should be rejected.”
Applying that underlying principle here, I find no logical relationship between defendant’s having a marihuana cigarette in his pocket when arrested — and the charged act of previously having been in possession of heroin. Fact A (possessing the marihuana cigarette) did not logically tend to establish fact B (possessing the heroin).
To justify the admission of the marihuana evidence as being relevant, we must be able to say it logically tended to prove the charge of possessing heroin. Compare State v. Reed, 447 S.W.2d 533[2] (Mo.1969). A leading case on the admissibility of evidence of another crime and the prejudicial effect thereof is State v. Reece, 274 S.W.2d 304[1] (Mo. banc 1954), where the court reversed a murder conviction for error in admitting evidence of a later robbery. The court declared: “The well established general rule is that proof of the commission of separate and distinct crimes is not admissible, unless such proof has some legitimate tendency to directly establish the defendant’s guilt of the charge for which he is on trial.” The court said the “acid test” of admitting evidence of the second crime is its logical relevance to prove the earlier, charged crime, and declaring:
“If it [the evidence] is logically pertinent in that it reasonably tends to prove a material fact in issue, it is not to be rejected merely because it incidentally proves the defendant guilty of another crime. But the dangerous tendency and misleading probative force of this class of evidence require that its admission should be subjected by the courts to rigid scrutiny. Whether the requisite degree of relevancy exists is a judicial question to be resolved in the light of the consideration that the inevitable tendency of such evidence is to raise a legally spurious presumption of guilt in the minds of the jurors. Hence, if the court does not clearly perceive the connection between the extraneous criminal transaction and the crime charged, that is, its logical relevancy, the accused should be given the benefit of the doubt.”
Here, as in State v. Hancock, 451 S.W.2d 6[2] (Mo.1970), the charged offense of possessing heroin was “a completed transaction, separate and apart from the commission of a second” offense — possessing marihuana.
In sum, I believe that evidence of the marihuana felony did not logically tend to prove the earlier, completed crime of possessing heroin, and therefore was inadmissible. The natural tendency thereof was to inform the jury of defendant’s criminal conduct for which he was not on trial. I believe this was error.
Having concluded that evidence of the marihuana cigarette was inadmissible because irrelevant to the heroin charge, the issue posed is whether admitting the challenged evidence was prejudicial or only harmless error.
I note two instances where the supreme court has reversed convictions for the admission of irrelevant evidence. In State v. Wynne, 182 S.W.2d 294[9] (Mo.1942) the prosecuting attorney improperly showed and cross examined defendant about a gun not connected with the charged crime. Despite the trial court’s admonition to the jury, the supreme court reversed, holding:
*395“Error in the admission of evidence ‘should not be declared harmless unless it is so without question. State v. Richards, 334 Mo. 485, 494, 67 S.W.2d 58, 61.’ The record does not demonstrate that the defendant was not injured by the error as by showing that the jury disregarded or could not have been influenced by the evidence.”
The court followed Wynne, supra, in State v. Hayes, 204 S.W.2d 723[l-5] (Mo. 1947). There the state charged defendant with raping a nine-year-old girl in his rented room. On cross examination defendant’s landlady was permitted to testify about him “having frequently brought women into his room.” Citing Wynne, the court reversed, holding: “The evidence, being inadmissible, should not be declared harmless unless it is so without question.”
In State v. Garrett, 564 S.W.2d 347 (Mo. App.1978) the trial court admitted irrelevant evidence. In reversing, we considered the distinction between prejudicial error and harmless error:
“We consider the judicial role in determining on appeal whether the improper admission of evidence was harmless error. For a court to so determine, of necessity it must be able to declare beyond doubt that the tainted evidence did not affect the jury in its fact-finding process. It is, of course, the jury’s sole prerogative to believe, or disbelieve, all or part of any item of evidence. An appellate court has no way of knowing — and should not speculate about — what evidence a jury did or did not believe and the extent to which that evidence entered into the jury’s decision-making process. The rationale of these principles is capsulized in the judicial pronouncements that ‘error in the admission of evidence should not be declared harmless unless it is so without question.’ (State v. Degraffenreid, 477 S.W.2d 57[14] (Mo.1972)), and that the record must ‘demonstrate that the jury disregarded or could not have been influenced by the evidence.’ ”
Here, where defendant was charged with possessing heroin, the trial court permitted the state to show the jury that defendant had committed another felony, one that had no logical bearing on the crime charged. The importance of the court’s ruling in admitting the marihuana evidence was emphasized to the jury in two ways. Over repeated objections, the state introduced an expert chemist who testified at length that he had meticulously examined the cigarette seized from defendant and it was in fact marihuana. And, in closing argument the prosecuting attorney twice referred to the marihuana cigarette. I do not believe this court can say — as it must to affirm — that the evidence was harmless without question.
Since the challenged evidence was irrelevant and improperly admitted, and we cannot declare it had no effect on the jury, the error was prejudicial and we should reverse the judgment and remand for a new trial.