Most people spend their summers swimming, grilling, and enjoying the sunshine. However, in the summer of 1987, the Mandan police spent their time investigating a petty crime that went to the North Dakota Supreme Court.
On July 12th, someone broke into the community center. There was a broken window and money missing from the video game machines. Eventually, on August 13th the police interviewed a Mr. B, a man with ten burglary convictions. Mr. B consented to have the police search his car and told them there was a tire iron on the roof of the community center that had been used for the break-in. Police may have suspected him, but they had no evidence for an arrest.
However, on this date, someone attempted to break-in at the Speedway restaurant. When police arrived, they followed footprints to a bag containing a pry bar and a flashlight like one found in Mr. B’s car. This discovery led to Mr. B’s arrest for attempted burglary, and for being an accomplice to the community center robbery.
These actions seemed to align with Mr. B’s record, and his guilt obvious, but the case was not that clean cut. Many believed that admitting Mr. B’s criminal record biased the jury, making his character the main evidence in the case.
The matter went all the way to the North Dakota Supreme Court where his conviction was upheld, but in a dissenting opinion, Justice Beryl Levine said the only purpose in allowing the defendant’s record into evidence was to show “…he is an unmitigated scoundrel who did it, and did it, and did it before, and obviously did it again.”
Without definitive proof, it’s a case that goes to show that one’s reputation can have continuing repercussions.
Dakota Datebook written by Lucid Thomas
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