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107 Ohio App. 268

158 N.E.2d 406

8 OhioOp.2d 201

State v. Harmon

Ohio Court of Appeals

Decided January 15, 1958

Ohio Court of Appeals · decided 1958-01-15

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1958-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 1988

6 state decisions

201958196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Stevens, J.,

¶1 dissenting. I emphatically disagree with the conclusion reached by my associates.

¶2 I am unable to believe that the testimony of four delinquent boys, two and possibly three of whom are delinquent because of the commission of felonies, attains that degree of probity necessary to establish the guilt of defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. Especially is that true in view of the probability of a vindictive conspiracy on the part of the delinquents to get even with the defendant because he had the temerity to charge Bonald Frontz, one of the prosecuting witnesses, with burglary of his gasoline station, the commission of which offense Frontz admitted.

¶3 The testimony of the four minors, all willing accomplices to the offenses charged, assuming them to have been committed by defendant, was entirely uncorroborated, as to any of the offenses, by the direct testimony of any other witness.

¶4*274 In my opinion, this judgment is manifestly against the weight of the evidence, when the testimony of the state is balanced against the previous good reputation of defendant, his 4% years service in the army, his conduct in the army and during his incarceration at Lima State Hospital, and the testimony of witnesses as to his good character. See opinions of this court in Glowaski v. State, 20 Ohio App., 112, at pp. 115-116, 153 N. E., 157, and City of Lorain v. Jameson, 20 Ohio App., 528, at p. 529, 153 N. E., 301; and Cooper v. State, 121 Ohio St., 562, 170 N. E., 355.

¶5 In 1 Underhill’s Criminal Evidence (Fifth Ed.), Section 181, at pp. 372-373, the following appears:

“An accomplice’s testimony is subject to grave suspicion and should be acted on with the utmost caution. the rule that evidence of accomplices should be received with caution applies only when the 'witnesses joined in committing the particular crime for which the defendant is being tried.”

¶6 (Such was the case here, if we assume the commission of the offenses charged.)

¶7 Although I am fully aware of the rule that a reviewing court should not reverse a judgment of a lower court where there is credible evidence presented in support of the judgment, which, if believed by the trier of the facts, would justify the judgment rendered, I am firmly convinced that the evidence offered by the state in this case was not credible evidence.

¶8 It is my conclusion that this judgment should be reversed.

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