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State v. Kramp9/23/1982
Submitted May 14, 1982.
John M. Kramp appeals from a judgment of conviction of felony theft in the District Court, Fifth Judicial District, Beaverhead County. The conviction was based on a jury verdict. Kramp was sentenced to five years in the Montana Prison and designated a nondangerous offender for purposes of parole eligibility.
In 1980, Red Pine Exploration and Development, Ltd., contracted with Coyote Mining Company, of which Kramp is president, to perform $15,000 worth of development work on the Red Pine Mine near Sheridan, Montana.
Kramp and his employees arrived at the mine on December 23, 1980, and found the mine's air compressor was not functioning. The agreement between the companies allowed Kramp to rent equipment necessary for the performance of the development work. Kramp acquired an air compressor valued at $23,000 for use at the mine. The disputed facts pertaining to that acquisition are set forth here.
On January 8, 1981, the Beaverhead County Sheriff's Department received a telephone call from a foreman of General Construction Company reporting a stolen Ingersoll Rand Compressor from a construction site. The sheriff later went to the construction site and saw tire tracks indicating that the compressor had been pulled onto the highway from the General Construction Company site.
When a local miner heard the January 10 report of the theft on the radio, he called the sheriff's office to report that he had seen the Red Pine Mine's truck pulling an air compressor past his home at 6:45 a.m., January 7, 1981. Another man also reported seeing the Red Pine Mine's truck pulling an air compressor on the morning of January 7, 1981.
On the basis of these reports, the sheriff's officers went to the mine and found the missing air compressor parked on the side of the road leading to the mine.
Kramp testified that he and one of his employees went to a rental agency in Butte, Montana, on January 5, 1981, to rent an air compressor. Kramp spoke to a man in the parking lot at the rental agency who informed Kramp that although he did not have an air compressor for rent, a friend of his did. The man then telephoned the friend, one "Ed," and Kramp negotiated rental terms with Ed over the telephone. Ed agreed to deliver the compressor at the bottom of a hill near the mine on the following day. Kramp agreed to pay Ed $1,000 in cash for one month's rental of the compressor.
At 5:30 p.m., January 6, 1981, Kramp and one of his employees went to the bottom of the hill where they found Ed, with the compressor, and Ed's dual wheel pickup truck which he had used to tow the compressor. Kramp paid Ed $1,000 in cash but received no receipt. Before leaving, Ed agreed orally to return for the compressor in about a month. Kramp hitched the compressor to a truck owned by the Red Pine Mine and began towing the compressor up the hill to the mine. The trailer hitch on the truck broke, however. One of Kramp's employees welded the hitch and again they tried to tow the compressor up the hill. The road was too slippery to proceed, so they unhitched the compressor and returned to the mine.
Kramp and his employees spent the next few days at the mine site attempting to repair a caterpillar which they would use to pull the compressor the rest of the distance of the mine. The men were repairing the caterpillar on January 10, when sheriff's deputies arrived at the mine site and placed them under arrest.
Kramp raises the following issues on appeal:
1. Did the State's suggestion on cross-examination that Kramp had an FBI criminal record constitute prejudicial error?
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