Title: State v. Deuter

State: tennessee

Issuer: Tennessee Supreme Court

Document:

839 S.W.2d 391 (1992) STATE of Tennessee, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jimmy DEUTER, Defendant-Appellant. Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Jackson. September 14, 1992. Mark W. Fowler, Union City, for defendant-appellant. Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen. and Reporter, Joel W. Perry, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, for plaintiff-appellee. REID, Chief Justice. This case presents an appeal by the defendant from the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals affirming five convictions of aggravated sexual battery. The record does not support the convictions. The trial court admitted as evidence videotaped statements of the alleged child victims taken by police officers during their investigation of charges of sexual battery. *392 The record does not show when, in relation to the time of the acts charged, the statements were taken. There is no showing that the witnesses were under oath. The only persons present were the witnesses and the police officers. The State presented no evidence justifying the use of the statements, but relied upon T.C.A. § 24-7-116(c)(1)(I)(ii) (since repealed). The Court of Criminal Appeals found that although the admission into evidence-in-chief of the ex parte, unsworn video testimony of the alleged victims violated the defendant's federal and state constitutional rights to confront the witnesses against him, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The State originally conceded that the admission of the video testimony was error under this Court's holding in State v. Pilkey, 776 S.W.2d 943 (Tenn. 1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1032, 1046, 110 S. Ct. 1483, 1510, 108 L. Ed. 2d 619 (1990) in which the Court, relying upon Coy v. Iowa, 487 U.S. 1012, 108 S. Ct. 2798, 101 L. Ed. 2d 857 (1988), found that the admission of the statements into evidence deprived the defendant of his federal constitutional right of confrontation. However, in a supplemental brief, the State contends that the procedure followed in the case before the Court meets the requirements of the rule announced in Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836, 110 S. Ct. 3157, 111 L. Ed. 2d 666 (1990), and does not offend the confrontation clause of the federal constitution or of the state constitution. Pilkey held, in reliance upon Coy, that to "permit a videotape procured outside the defendant's presence to be used as evidence in chief by the prosecution, in our opinion impermissibly infringes upon the confrontation rights of the accused." 776 S.W.2d at 951. The taped statements used in Pilkey were taken, as were the statements in this case, prior to trial with only the investigators and the child present. The Court compared the facts in Pilkey with the facts in Coy, as follows: Id. at 949 (footnote omitted). The Court concluded, "[i]n summary, therefore, we hold that the attempt to use the videotape in the manner shown in this case violates the confrontation rights of the accused, and insofar as the statute purports to authorize such use, it is unconstitutional." Id. at 951. The State contends that the federal constitutional right of confrontation was relaxed in Maryland v. Craig, supra. In that case, the United States Supreme Court held that the Confrontation Clause does not guarantee a criminal defendant an absolute right to physical confrontation with witnesses against him and upheld a Maryland statute that allowed the claimed victim to testify at trial by one-way television. The Court in Maryland v. Craig first explained *393 the limitations of its holding in Coy as follows: 110 S. Ct. at 3162-63 (emphasis in original). In deciding the question reserved in Coy, the Court stated: Id. at 3165. The Court in Craig adopted an interest balancing analysis and found that in some cases the right to physical confrontation may be denied if necessary to further an important public policy and reliability of the testimony is otherwise assured. Id. at 3166. The Court held that even in cases when face-to-face confrontation is not an absolute constitutional requirement, it may be abridged only where the procedure followed "adequately ensures that the testimony is both reliable and subject to rigorous adversarial testing in a manner functionally equivalent to that accorded live, in-person testimony," id. at 3166, and where there is a "`case-specific finding of necessity.'" Id. at 3170. After discussing the arrangement under which the witness in Craig testified, the Court concluded: Id. at 3170. The case was remanded for a determination of whether the trial court had made the requisite finding of necessity. The "necessity" finding required under Craig is "a specific finding that testimony by the child in the courtroom in the presence of the defendant would result in the *394 child suffering serious emotional distress such that the child could not reasonably communicate." Id. at 3170 (emphasis in original). It should be noted that the interest to be protected is the child-witness's ability to testify and that to satisfy this interest, the trial court must determine that the trauma to the child would be such that the child's ability to communicate would be impaired by the presence of the defendant rather than the courtroom and the proceedings generally. The procedure under scrutiny in Craig required that the child-witness, prosecutor, and defense counsel withdraw from the courtroom to another room where the child was examined and cross-examined. The proceedings in the separate room were transmitted to the courtroom, where the defendant, judge, and jury remained, by one-way, closed-circuit television. The defendant could talk with his counsel by telephone, and the judge conducted the proceedings in the same manner as if the examination were being held in the courtroom. The procedure followed in Craig was totally different from that followed in the case before the Court, in which the questioning occurred several months before the trial, and only each child and investigators were present. In addition to the ex parte video testimonies of the victims, the inculpatory evidence consisted of the victims' in-court testimony and the defendant's confession. The parties stipulated that there was no medical evidence of abuse. The alleged victims were three brothers who were ages 14, 11, and 8 when the case was tried in November 1988, and the incidents on which the charges were based were alleged to have occurred approximately one year earlier. Following the showing at trial of each child's video testimony, the child was called to the stand for cross-examination by defense counsel and redirect examination by the prosecuting attorney. The testimony of each child at trial was reluctant, uncertain, and vague. A few statements of fact were extracted but only by the persistent effort of the prosecuting attorney with the assistance of the trial judge. Their testimonies included no information as to when, where, or under what circumstances the acts occurred; what their relationship with the defendant and co-defendant Edwards was (whether relatives, friends, or other); how long, where, or with whom they lived; or how the acts were discovered. The unreliability of the victims' in-court testimony is indicated by the 11 year old's inability to state the name of the town where he lived when the acts were committed, the town where he lived at the time he testified, or even the name of his schoolteacher. There is no indication in the record, nor does the State even claim, that the children's implausible testimony at trial was caused by the defendant's presence. The videotaped pre-trial testimony, elicited by leading questions, was more definite and included acts more numerous and more serious than those mentioned in the witnesses' in-court testimony. For instance, in his video testimony, the eight-year-old brother testified to acts of fellatio and anal penetration. In court, his testimony was that the defendant did "nasty things." In their video testimonies, the witnesses also made references to incestuous acts involving other family members, acts which are not relevant to this case. The record shows conclusively that the procedure followed did not meet the requirements set forth in Craig. The conclusion is that the defendant was denied the right to confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The State also contends that the unsworn, ex parte videotaped statements taken several months prior to the trial satisfy the requirements of Article I, § 9 of the Tennessee Constitution, which provides that "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused hath the right ... to meet the witnesses face-to-face." Justice Scalia's dissent in Craig puts the issue in a starker and perhaps more realistic perspective than does the majority's balancing test. The dissent suggests that an *395 explicit constitutional safeguard is being denied to facilitate the conviction of those charged with sexual offenses against children. The dissent asserts that the constitutional right of confrontation is more than a "preference." It begins: 110 S. Ct. at 3171 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Justice Scalia then set forth why, in his opinion, any procedure involving less than personal confrontation fails to accomplish the purpose of the constitutional provisions: Id. at 3172 (Scalia, J., dissenting). A critical analysis of the essential premise of the Craig decision, that the presence of the defendant may undermine the truth-finding function of the trial, is found in Vol. VIII, Thomas M. Cooley Law Review: Note, Something More Than a Generalized Finding: The State's Interest in Protecting Child Sexual Abuse Victims in Maryland v. Craig Outmuscles the Confrontation Clause, 8 Thomas M. Cooley L.Rev. 389, 406 (1991) (footnotes omitted). The "face-to-face" language found in the Tennessee Constitution has been held to impose a higher right than that found in the federal constitution. In an opinion decided since Craig, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, construing language of that state's constitution identical to the confrontation provision in the Tennessee Constitution, first addressed the practical significance of personal confrontation: Commonwealth v. Ludwig, 527 Pa. 472, 594 A.2d 281, 284 (1991). In refusing to follow the balancing of interests test announced in Craig, the Pennsylvania court stated: Id. 594 A.2d at 283. The Pennsylvania court stated, however, that even under the explicit "face-to-face" language of the Pennsylvania Constitution "no right is absolute." The court found that the Pennsylvania Constitution allows exceptions to the right of confrontation "only in those instances in which the accused has already had the opportunity to confront the witnesses against him face to face." Id. at 284. See also Brady v. Indiana, 575 N.E.2d 981 (Ind. 1991), in which the Indiana Supreme Court also recently found that that state's face-to-face provision was violated by admitting into evidence a previously recorded videotaped statement during which the defendant could view by one-way television the witness while testifying and could communicate electronically with his defense counsel during the testimony. However, the court suggested that two-way television communication between the defendant and witness could pass constitutional muster. Id. at 989. Even though, as stated above, the face-to-face language found in the Tennessee Constitution has been construed to permit exceptions to the right to confrontation, the procedure followed in the case before the Court falls far short of providing the protection afforded by Article I, Section 9. The statute under which the statements were admitted into evidence was found in Pilkey to violate the defendant's constitutional right to confrontation. That statute has since been repealed and no other statute is before the Court for consideration. Consequently, as noted by this Court in Pilkey, the extent to which our constitution exceeds the protection provided by the federal constitution need not be decided in this case. The State further contends that, as found in Pilkey, admission of the tapes was harmless when measured by Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S. Ct. 824, 17 L. Ed. 2d 705 (1967), in which the United States Supreme Court held: The proof in Pilkey, 776 S.W.2d at 943, in which the Court found that the use of video testimony was harmless error, was significantly different from the proof in the present case. In Pilkey, there was medical evidence of abuse, and the defendant's confession was corroborated by evidence other than the victim's testimony. In this case, the parties stipulated that there was no medical evidence of abuse, and, although the victims' testimony shows abuse, their testimony with regard to specific acts is not consistent with the defendant's confession. The evidence in the present case is much less convincing than that in Pilkey. The prejudicial effect of the video testimony further appears from examination of the co-defendant's case. The victims described in their video testimonies several sexual acts committed upon them by co-defendant Edwards. However, in their in-court testimony, they consistently denied that Edwards molested them in any way. Nevertheless, Edwards was found guilty on four charges of assault with intent to commit sexual battery. The children's in-court testimony with regard to particular acts was not consistent with Edwards's confessions. Without the video testimony, there was no corroboration of Edwards's confession. Prejudice is apparent. The State has failed to show that the constitutional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The judgments of the Court of Criminal Appeals and the trial court are reversed, and the case is remanded for a new trial. Costs will be borne by the appellee. DROWOTA, O'BRIEN, DAUGHTREY and ANDERSON, JJ., concur.