Court Opinion

ID: 9590052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:51:09.495403+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:02.370260
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ANDERSON:
(dissenting).
The concern.of this court, sitting as a court of last resort, is not with the guilt or the innocence of the accused for that is the concern of the jury. Our concern is to determine whether the defendant had a fair trial without being prejudiced by violations of the rules which have been promulgated to safeguard every person from improper and malicious prosecution. If we find that the rules have been transcended, then it is our duty to send the cause back to the district court for further action or to otherwise direct a disposition of it.
The defendant was charged with and convicted of forgery. The facts dealing solely with the crime with which defendant was convicted are predicated upon the testimony of Theodore L. Tomlinson and Richard W. Lake. Without the testimony of *399these two witnesses no ease was made out against the defendant, if one was in fact made out at all. The testimony of other witnesses merely completes the overall story, i. e., the manner in which the warrant was processed by the State of Montana and the manner in and the circumstances under which the warrant was cashed by the defendant. No substance is added to the case by this evidence in that anyone, in the usual course of his business, may have similarly cashed a state warrant whether it had been forged or genuine.
There is some testimony in the record by one LaValley to the effect that he was in the Blue Moon Bar at the time the alleged forged endorsement took place but he remembered little and as to any conversation between the defendant, Tomlinson, and Lake, the admitted forger, he remembers nothing. There is some testimony by one LaFontaine that adds nothing to the story of the other witnesses.
Theodore L. Tomlinson testified, in effect, that he, the. defendant and others entered into a nefarious scheme to defraud the State of Montana out of gas refund tax money. Tomlinson said he was an employee of the defendant; that a method was devised whereby he, Tomlinson, was to make out fictitious invoices and claims and procure a post office box by the use of a fictitious name and that there was a conversation with defendant about notary seals and such other things as were necessary to accomplish the ends sought by the scheme, i. e., to get the State of Montana to issue a state warrant in favor of the fictitious claimant. Tomlinson testified that he procured a post office box in Three Forks, Montana, in the name of Paul Karst; that he signed the name Paul Karst on the application for refund of gasoline tax. He further testified that he and one Robert Chamberlain (who was not a witness in this cause) made out the necessary applications for the tax refund for gasoline all of which he testified was done at the defendant’s auto court and impliedly with defendant’s knowledge. There was absolutely no corroboration of the above story of Tomlinson and under our system of criminal jurisprudence the only possible effect of it *400was to create prejudice against the defendant in the minds of the jury. He, Tomlinson, then testified that he picked up the warrant, which is the subject of the crime here involved, at Three Forks, Montana, brought it to Helena and on November 29, 1950, showed it to the defendant at his place of business, the Blue Moon Bar, in Helena, Montana.
Tomlinson then testified that the defendant asked him to endorse the warrant which he refused to do. Thereupon defendant directed Tomlinson to get Richard W. Lake to endorse the warrant by signing the name Paul Karst, which Tomlinson said was done at the direction of and with the knowledge of the defendant. Tomlinson then said he gave the check to the defendant. The defendant admits that he endorsed the warrant and it was given to the Montana Power Company in payment of bills.
The crime with which the defendant is charged is tliat of uttering a warrant, knowing at the time that the endorsement on the warrant was forged presumably by Lake. It was unnecessary and prejudicial to show that the warrant was illegally obtained by Tomlinson to prove that the endorsement was forged. The same offense could have been charged, and equally proven, even if the warrant had been genuine.
I agree with JUSTICE ANG-STMAN where it is said in the majority opinion: “Transactions which are so related to, and connected with, the forgery charged as to be otherwise admissible are not inadmissible because they tend to prove a wholly dissimilar crime, particularly where they constitute part of a connected or continuous transaction on the part of accused. ’ ’ However, as in the instant case, where it is solely the statement of an accomplice that tends to connect the defendant with the other crimes without any corroboration, circumstantial or otherwise, then it is my judgment that such evidence is improper and should not have been introduced. The accomplice, Tomlinson, said that Robert Chamberlain was a party to the nefarious scheme but no effort was made by the state to bring this man forward for the purposes of shedding further light on the story of Tomlinson.
*401The defendant took the stand on his own behalf and denied each and every statement of Tomlinson and Lake. The defendant was the only defense witness. Richard Walter Lake corroborated the testimony of Tomlinson as to the signing of the forged endorsement but said nothing regarding the scheme to defraud the state.
I find no corroborative evidence of any kind which was offered to back up the statements of the witness Tomlinson as to the nefarious scheme to defraud the State of Montana and unlike my colleagues I do not think the evidence of the state employees in any way corroborates Tomlinson’s story in so far as the defrauding scheme is concerned. If such were true any person who committed the crime of forgery or any other crime, could involve innocent persons and a conviction could be had by merely bringing into court for corroborative purposes those persons who could show that the document was a forgery or that a crime was committed without any showing as to what connection the accused may have with its commission other than the words of the admitted perpetrator.
The general rule is that evidence of the commission of other crimes is inadmissible. State v. Ebel, 92 Mont. 413, 15 Pac. (2d) 233. The reason for the rule is that such evidence tends to draw the minds of the jurors from the real point on which their verdict is sought, and to excite prejudice and mislead them.
Even if the facts of the ease bring the proof of other crimes within one of the exceptions to the general rule that evidence is not admissible, the courts generally require that evidence of the accused’s guilt of another crime shall not be admitted unless the proof of the other crime is clear and sufficient to authorize a finding of the defendant’s guilt of such other crime. 20 Am. Jur., Evidence, sec. 318, p. 299; Annotation, 3 A. L. R. 784.
If what Tomlinson said about the defendant was true, the defendant was implicated in several crimes other than the one with which he was charged here, both state crimes and federal crimes, but it is so obvious that there was insufficient evidence to even suggest the guilt of the accused as to the other crimes *402that comment seems unnecessary, that is, if the rule against uncorroborative evidence means anything at all.
This court said in State v. Sauter, 125 Mont. 109, 232 Pac. (2d) 731, 734, and in effect reaffirmed the language in a later case, State v. Searle, 125 Mont. 467, 239 Pac. (2d) 995: “Proof that accused committed other crimes, even if they were of like nature to that charged, is not admissible to show his depravity or criminal propensities, or the resultant likelihood of his committing the offense charged; nor may such evidence be offered if it only tends to create a prejudice against accused in the minds of the jury.”
The most that could be said of the testimony of Tomlinson in connection with what happened prior to the time that Lake endorsed the state warrant, wherein he linked the defendant with other crimes, is that it would create prejudice against the accused and prove no crime at all.
If the state had a case against the defendant which it may well have it was unnecessary to put in prejudicial testimony regarding other offenses to prove it, and the cause should be reversed on this ground alone, especially when no evidence tending to connect the defendant with the alleged other crimes was introduced save the accusing nod of Tomlinson an accomplice.
If this court condones the practice used by the state in this case then we are recommending such practice for the use of county attorneys in future cases. Such practice admits of too many uncertainties to be allowed and is dangerous to say the least.
It is my judgment that there is other error in the record but no useful purpose would be served by comment upon it. It is my opinion that the cause should be reversed and a new trial should be ordered.