## Facts

- Blank checks and a check-writing machine belonging to General Roofing Company were stolen on November 11, 1947.
- The state charged Bock with second-degree forgery, alleging that on November 12, 1947 he passed a stolen General Roofing check for $62.20 at a grocery store to buy $3.21 in goods and obtain the remaining amount in cash.
- The charged check was drawn on a bank where no account existed under the purported drawer’s name and was made payable to “Harold A. Camden.”
- The prosecution introduced similar-transaction evidence that, at three furniture stores, a man purchased lamps using other stolen General Roofing checks payable to “James Wagner,” written for amounts exceeding the purchases and receiving cash back; employees identified Bock as the passer.
- Bock offered defense evidence that, on the same day, two other checks closely matching the charged “Camden” check were passed at other stores by someone store employees would identify as not Bock; the trial court excluded this evidence.
- Bock presented an alibi and challenged eyewitness identifications but was convicted.
- After trial, Bock submitted an affidavit from Roland William Miller confessing that he cashed the checks Bock was accused of passing; the trial court denied a new trial.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by excluding defense evidence that similar checks were passed by someone other than Bock, offered to contest identity.
2. Whether the trial court erred by admitting the state’s similar-act evidence to show a common scheme or plan and support identity.
3. Whether denying a new trial was an abuse of discretion where newly discovered evidence included a third-party confession materially undermining the state’s identification evidence.

## Decision

- The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held it was error to exclude the defense’s similar-act evidence because it was competent and material to the central issue of identity and could cast doubt on the state’s identification.
- The court held it was not error to admit the state’s similar-act evidence because it tended to show a common system, scheme, or plan connected to the charged offense.
- The court held the denial of a new trial was an abuse of discretion in light of newly discovered evidence—Miller’s sworn confession—which substantially impeached the state’s identification evidence and raised a serious question of guilt.

## Legal Principles

- Other-acts evidence is generally inadmissible to prove propensity, but may be admitted if relevant to a common system, scheme, or plan embracing the charged offense, subject to limits against unfair prejudice.
- When identity is disputed and the prosecution uses similar-act evidence to link the defendant to the crime, the defendant must be permitted to offer comparable similar-act evidence pointing to a different perpetrator if the evidence is relevant and material to guilt or innocence.
- A new trial may be required on newly discovered evidence when it could not reasonably have been found for trial, is not merely cumulative, and is likely to affect the result; a credible third-party confession may satisfy this standard, especially where it undermines key identification evidence.

## Conclusion

The court ordered a new trial because the defendant was wrongly barred from presenting relevant similar-act evidence tending to show misidentification and, in any event, a post-trial confession by another person so weakened the state’s identification proof that denying a new trial was an abuse of discretion.


State v. Bock, 229 Minn. 449, 39 N.W.2d 887 (Minn. 1949)