Court Opinion

ID: 9775313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:53:51.406842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:25.004443
License: Public Domain

ROTH, Judge
(concurring):
« 14 I concur in Judge McHugh's opinion. I write separately to address why I believe that it was not appropriate for the trial court to consider the case file offered by the State as the basis for its conclusion that there was a prior enhancing conviction.
115 I agree with Judge McHugh that State v. Anderson, 797 P.2d 1114 (Utah Ct. App.1990), is unequivocal in requiring an appropriately signed judgment to prove a prior conviction for purposes of enhancement. See id. at 1117 ("Our ruling thus requires that a judgment of prior conviction be written, clear and definite, and signed by the court (or the clerk in a jury case) in order to serve as the basis for enhancing a penalty. ..."). A significant concern underlying the court's holding was the historical practice, apparently then persisting in some of Utah's courts, "of rendering oral judgments in criminal cases." See id. at 1115. The court set out a number of reasons for putting an end to this practice and requiring written criminal judgments, one of which is particularly pertinent to this case: providing "clear evidence of the defendant's conviction in later proceedings.1 See id. at 1116. Anderson recognized that the requirement of a written criminal judgment was not novel but was already addressed by rule 58A of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, made applicable to eriminal cases by rule 81(e), "which serves generally to unify civil and criminal procedure in Utah." Id. at 1116-17. Rule 58A requires "that the court (or the clerk in the case of a verdict) sign and file a written judgment." Id. at 1116.
T16 The issue before the court in the present case raises the broader question of how a prior criminal conviction is to be proved in a case where the fact of a prior conviction is at issue as an enhancement. The starting point for such an inquiry must be the Anderson /rule 58A requirement, which I read as establishing a signed judgment as the sine gua non. In other words, the existence of a written judgment, appropriately signed by the clerk or by a judge, must be established in order to meet the burden of proof of a prior conviction.
17 Thus, if it appears that a conviction occurred but a written judgment was never executed or entered, as in this case, the oversight must be remedied in order to prove the conviction for enhancement purposes. As suggested by Anderson, rule 60(a) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure may serve the purpose by permitting the creation after the. fact of an original, signed judgment to remedy the original omission. See 797 P.2d at 1117 n. 18 ("Depending on the cireumstances of a particular case, the lack of a signed judgment could perhaps have been corrected as a clerical error or by entry nune pro tunc, with any required opportunity for the defendant to respond." (citing Utah R. Civ. P. 60(a) (additional citation omitted))); see also Utah R. Civ. P. 60(a) ("Clerical mistakes in judgments ... and errors therein arising from oversight or omission may be corrected by the court at any time of its own initiative or on the motion of any party...."). The ability of a trial court to correct such errors after the fact has long been acknowledged. See, e.g., Frost v. District Court of First Judicial Dist., 96 Utah 106, 83 P.2d 737, 740 (1938) ("[Thhe trial court had inherent power to correct clerical errors at any time and to make the judgment entry correspond to the judgment of the court."). Nevertheless, "[the correction contemplated by Rule 60(a) must be undertaken for the purpose of reflecting the actual intention of the court and parties." Lindsay v. Atkin, 680 P.2d 401, 402 (Utah 1984). In contrast, errors of substance, such as judicial errors, cannot be corrected under this rule but must be addressed by appeal or under other rules, see id., such as, for example, rule 59 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, which governs mo*1060tions for new trial or to amend judgment, see Utah R. Civ. P. 59. "'The distinction between a judicial error and a clerical error does not depend upon who made it'"; " '{rlather, it depends on whether [the error] was made in rendering the judgment or in recording the judgment as rendered." Lindsay, 680 P.2d at 402 (quoting Richards v. Siddoway, 24 Utah 2d 314, 471 P.2d 143, 145 (1970)) (additional citation omitted). Thus, rule 60(a) seems to encompass the kind of error of omission that results in a failure to reduce to writing or sign a judgment that was actually rendered by a judge or jury. Such an omission should be correctable nune pro tune under this rule, as it was in this case.2
{18 Once it is determined that a valid written, signed judgment of conviction was created in the prior case, whether at the time it was rendered or later, the most straightforward way to prove the conviction is to produce the original, which is the best evidence of its existence. See Utah R. Evid. 1002 ("To prove the content of a writing, ... the original writing ... is required, except as otherwise provided" by rule or statute.). Our rules of evidence provide a broad exception to the best evidence rule, however, in that "[3] duplicate is admissible to the same extent as an original," barring some question "as to the authenticity of the original" or some unfairness. See id. R. 1008. Indeed, rule 1005 of the Utah Rules of Evidence provides a specific method for securing the admission into evidence of copies of public records: "The contents of an official record may be proved by copy, certified as correct in accordance with Rule 902, or testified to be correct by a witness who has compared it with the original." Id. R. 1005. A judgment is clearly an "official record" subject to this rule. See id. In my experience, this is the way most prior judgments of conviction are offered into evidence.
{19 In the case before us, however, the prior case file did not contain a signed final judgment of conviction. In such a cireum-stance, it must be determined whether a final written judgment was ever created and signed. If it is determined that a final judgment was not signed through oversight, then the oversight can be addressed through rule 60(a), as discussed above.4 If a final judgment was signed but a copy is not available, rule 1005 provides a way to prove the convietion occurred: "If a copy which complies with [the specified requirements] ... cannot be obtained by the exercise of reasonable diligence, then other evidence of the contents may be given." Id. R. 1005. Thus, assuming that a copy of the entire case file was the kind of "other evidence" that would be admissible for this purpose, in my view, the prosecution would first have to show that (1) a signed, written judgment of conviction had been executed and entered and (2) a copy of the final judgment was not reasonably ob*1061tainable, before such "other evidence" of the conviction could be considered by the court. I do not believe that the prosecution met that burden in this case because it failed to provide proof of the threshold fact, that is, that a written final judgment complying with rule 58A and Amderson had ever been signed. Rather, in the absence of such a document in the file or any proof that a written judgment had ever been executed, the State simply offered "other evidence" of the conviction.5 Because the necessary prerequisite for the consideration of such evidence had not been established, I believe that the trial court could not consider it. However, the State ultimately corrected the problem by obtaining a nune pro tune final judgment, which it offered within the time frame the court allowed.
(20 I agree that the prior conviction was adequately proven based on Judge McHugh's analysis. I therefore join in her opinion.

. The other reasons include clearly fixing the date of judgment, ensuring that the judgment is both free of error and the actual decision of the responsible judge (or jury), and providing an initial basis for "meaningful review of the judgment." See State v. Anderson, 797 P.2d 1114, 1115-16 (Utah Ct.App.1990).

. It appears to me that rule 60(a) contemplates that such an oversight would necessarily be corrected in the case in which it occurred and not in a case, such as the one before us, where the fact of a conviction is of collateral interest. If there were a question of any substance, such a process could still involve examination of the prior case file to determine whether a conviction had occurred, but both the examination and the determination would be made by the judge assigned to the prior case "with any required opportunity for the defendant to respond." See id. at 1117 n. 13. Confining resolution of the question of whether a conviction had occurred to the case in which it was tried would have the salutary effect of avoiding the possibility of conflicting results were the issue to be separately resolvable in any other case where the fact of a prior conviction was at issue.

. Rule 902, entitled "Self-authentication," provides that "[elxtrinsic evidence of authenticity as a condition precedent to admissibility is not required with respect to" a number of categories of public and private documents, including "[clerti-fied copies of public records," Utah R. Evid. 902(4) (emphasis omitted); see also id. R. 902(1), (2) (identifying other categories of public documents that may also be self-authenticated). For each such category, the rule describes the kind of document and the requirements for self-authentication applicable to each. See id. R. 902.

. It is conceivable that in the case of a prior conviction, no signed judgment appears in the file and it is not reasonably possible to determine if one ever existed, due to, for example, the age of the conviction, the retirement of the original judge, or the loss or destruction of records, though there is evidence that a conviction did occur. Whether rule 60(a) could be used to produce a signed judgment in such a case or whether the admission of "other evidence" of the conviction would be appropriate is a question that I do not address here.

. The "other evidence" permitted under rule 1005 must itself be independently admissible, of course. Whether there was a sufficient factual and legal basis for admission of the case file in the prior case as such "other evidence" (for example, by taking judicial notice or through evidence rules applicable to public records) is beyond the scope of this analysis.