Court Opinion

ID: 9741060
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:48:51.385068+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:22.045844
License: Public Domain

M. J. Kelly, J.
(dissenting). The question of due diligence aside, I now believe that the trial judge was correct in excusing the production of the missing res gestae witness on the ground that her testimony would be cumulative. This forces me to reverse myself on our previous holding that "there was no evidence that Mrs. Roth’s [sic] testimony would be merely cumulative”. In our remand opinion we posited that defendant and the teller might have had a conversation. It is totally inconceivable to me how any conversation the defendant could *494have had with Miss Roth could be exculpatory. The main part of the transaction was between the bank manager, Mr. Gully, and the defendant. Mr. Gully had an extensive conversation with the defendant. Both Mr. Gully and the defendant testified. The details of the transaction are clearly and unequivocally supported by the teller in the stall adjoining Miss Roth’s. I was hasty in signing the remand order and I should not have done so.
There is absolutely no reasonable quarrel with the positive identification of the defendant at the time and place of the theft of the checks. There also was positive identification of the defendant at the bank. The missing witness was merely a conduit — the teller to whom defendant presented the check. Having been previously alerted, the teller’s supervisor and the bank manager obtained the defendant’s driver’s license and the license plate number on the car he entered when he left the bank. There was ample testimony at the trial that the defendant came into the bank and presented the check to one of the tellers for payment. This establishes the corpus delicti. The money need not have been paid. People v Brigham, 2 Mich 550 (1853).
Furthermore, the jury had the defendant’s own confession to weigh against his belated and unsupported alibi defense. After a Walker hearing, the court admitted the defendant’s statement given to interrogating police officers, which I quote in part:
”Q. What else did he say to you about that check?
“A. Well he said that he went into the bank with the check but that he did not get any money from it. He also named another person that was with him present at the time that he went into the bank.
”Q. Well it is alright to tell us what he said.
"A. Well you’ve got to understand when we first *495started talking to him, after he signed that card it took us a little while to get down to what we really wanted to talk about because he kept beating around the bush. I finally told him that if he agreed to talk if he couldn’t tell the truth I didn’t want to talk to him at all and I got up to leave. I was going to take him back. I told him that we already had his prints on the check, he didn’t have to tell us anything if he didn’t want to. I got ready to leave then he said well, just a minute I’ll talk to you I will tell you the truth. This is when he told me that he did try to cash the check, that he didn’t get the money from the check. And I asked him who was with you and he told me that Smith, a guy named Smith was with him and a man by the name of Yarbrough was driving the car. He said that when he left Smith was the one that was supposed to have been in there after change. When he left that Smith laid down in the seat of the car and this is why the man only saw two people in the car when he saw the car.”
I am compelled to agree with the trial court that the teller’s production was excusable because her testimony would be cumulative. Sandra Lynn Ham, a teller at the bank, clearly and unequivocally identified the defendant. She was stationed in the stall next to the one manned by the missing res gestae witness. After identifying the defendant she was asked:
"Q. How far were you away from these things going on?
"A. Two feet maybe I was pretty well — I saw who the check was made out to and the driver’s license matched the check.”
Shelton Gully, the branch manager of the bank, not only identified the defendant but testified as to the conversation he had with the defendant and then followed the defendant out of the bank, drove his own automobile into direct confrontation with *496the defendant’s automobile: " * * * our cars were face to face”, and wrote down the make, model and license number of the vehicle.
The people had an extremely strong case. Under the circumstances I am compelled to agree with the trial court that the production of the teller was excusable because her testimony would be cumulative. The defendant’s last minute alibi defense was flimsy on his own testimony, completely unsupported by any corroborating witness whatsoever. The notice of alibi had contained the names of supporting witnesses but they were not called and did not testify. The excuse given was that they had the dates confused.
I would affirm on the basis of the second exception to the res gestae witness rule: that the production of the witness was excusable because her testimony would have been cumulative. People v Koehler, 54 Mich App 624; 221 NW2d 398 (1974).