Case Title: Cooper v. State

Citation: 628 So. 2d 1371

Docket Number: 91-KA-0889

State: mississippi

Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Date: 1993-12-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
628 So. 2d 1371 (1993) David Lee COOPER v. STATE of Mississippi. No. 91-KA-0889. Supreme Court of Mississippi. December 9, 1993. Martin A. Kilpatrick, Greenville, for appellant. Michael C. Moore, Atty. Gen., John R. Henry, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee. Before HAWKINS, C.J., and JAMES L. ROBERTS, Jr., and SMITH, JJ. HAWKINS, Chief Justice, for the Court: David Cooper, indicted, tried, and convicted in the Circuit Court of Washington County *1372 for the sale of cocaine, was sentenced to serve 30 years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Because the trial judge's exclusion of proffered evidence was reversible error, the cause is reversed and remanded for a new trial. On November 27, 1990, Michael Diggs (Diggs), a paid confidential informant working as part of the special operations unit of the Greenville Police Department, fitted and equipped with a body wire transmitter, and furnished a $20 bill, embarked on a mission to purchase illegal drugs and secure evidence of the transaction. Two officers of the unit, Herbert Partlow (Partlow) and Earnest Blackley (Blackley), accompanied Diggs in a vehicle to his point of departure near the scene of the proposed drug purchase. They monitored the venture on their receiver. Diggs returned shortly with a small amount of cocaine and absent the $20. He accompanied the officers via their vehicle to the scene of the alleged drug purchase and pointed out Cooper as the culprit who made the sale. No arrest was made in order to protect the anonymity of Diggs while he purchased drugs from others. Cooper was arrested approximately five weeks later when the "roundup" of alleged violators occurred. At the time of his arrest, Cooper had no marked money or any other physical evidence in his possession linking him to the transaction. Cooper requested and was granted a preliminary hearing. The case was dismissed. Cooper's case was subsequently presented to a grand jury resulting in an indictment. At trial, the State based its case exclusively on the confidential informant's testimony. Officer Blackley testified: The State made no attempt to show voice identification of Cooper by use of the recorded sales transaction. On cross-examination, Officer Partlow, when questioned about an investigation of Diggs relative to the disappearance of cocaine and money during the Greenville operation, testified: Diggs denied that he was the only person suspected of taking the missing drugs. Cooper sought to impeach Diggs' credibility through testimony of Major Kenneth Winter, Chief of Criminal Investigations in the Greenville Police Department. The State objected to Major Winter's testimony on the ground that the issue of Diggs' truth and veracity was not properly before the court. Cooper then made the following proffer of Winter's testimony outside the jury's presence: The court effectually sustained the State's objection to Cooper's proffer of Winter's testimony. The defense rested. The jury convicted Cooper. Aggrieved, Cooper appeals maintaining the trial court erred reversibly in rejecting the proffered testimony offered for impeachment of Diggs. M.R.E. 608(a) provides: The official Comment to Rule 608 states: "Subsection (a) provides that the evidence may be produced in the form of an opinion or reputation." In 3 Weinstein's Evidence § 608(01), pp. XXX-XX-XX (1993), we are told: Section 608(04), pp. XXX-XX-XX of Weinstein's treatise also states the effect of Rule 608 as follows: M.R.E. 103(a)(2) provides, in part: Cooper substantially complied with Rule 103. The trial court erred in ruling that an opinion as to truth and veracity is not admissible. M.R.E.. 608(a). Its ruling interrupted a proffer which may have established that Winter had sufficient knowledge to express such an opinion, M.R.E. 602, that he had such an opinion, and in his opinion Diggs' character for truth and veracity was bad. Under the provisions of M.R.E. 103(a)(2), Cooper had the right to make his offer of proof. We, therefore, consider the effect of the court's action. The State's case hinged upon the credibility of the confidential informant, Diggs. While conviction for the sale of cocaine may rest on the uncorroborated testimony of an undercover agent, Doby v. State, 532 So. 2d 584, 590 (Miss. 1988), we recognize that a paid informant is in some ways comparable to a "bounty hunter," having an interest in the outcome of the case. This salient distinction is important in our consideration of the effect of Cooper's offer of proof. *1375 In Ashford v. State, 583 So. 2d 1279 (Miss. 1991), we reversed a conviction resting solely on eyewitness identification by a paid confidential informant who described the cocaine seller as being several inches shorter and almost 50 pounds lighter than the defendant. In Ashford, we stated: 583 So. 2d at 1282. The sparsity of evidence by the State makes this case a close one. The record shows: While the admissibility of evidence is largely within the discretion of the trial court and reversal may be had only where that discretion has been abused, the discretion of the trial judge must be exercised within the boundaries of the Mississippi Rules of Evidence. Johnston v. State, 567 So. 2d 237, 238 (Miss. 1990). In United States v. Davis, 639 F.2d 239 (5th Cir.1981), the United States Court of Appeals held that the district court in a criminal prosecution abused its discretion and committed reversible error of constitutional magnitude where it refused to permit defendant to present two character witnesses who would testify that the chief prosecution witness had a poor reputation for truthfulness and veracity in the community and that he was, in the excluded witnesses' opinions, not worthy of belief. The Court of Appeals stated: 639 F.2d at 244-45. Under the circumstances existing in this case, the trial court's action in excluding the *1376 proffer of testimony offered to attack the informant's credibility became all important, perhaps crucial, to Cooper. The trial court's reasoning that "under the rules ... what an individual thinks about another person's veracity is not admissible" does not comport with the provisions of M.R.E. 608. The proffer exclusion was highly prejudicial to Cooper's fair trial rights, and constituted reversible error. REVERSED AND REMANDED. DAN M. LEE and PRATHER, P. JJ., and SULLIVAN, BANKS, McRAE, JAMES L. ROBERTS, Jr., and SMITH, JJ., concur. PITTMAN, J., not participating.