Title: State Ex Rel. Shapiro Realty & Inv. Co. v. Cloyd

State: missouri

Issuer: Missouri Supreme Court

Document:

615 S.W.2d 41 (1981)
STATE ex rel. HARRY SHAPIRO, Jr., REALTY & INVESTMENT COMPANY, Relator,
v.
Honorable George W. CLOYD, Judge, Respondent.
No. 62505.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.
April 6, 1981.
Rehearing Denied May 11, 1981.
*42 Bernard Sussman, Robert M. Susman, St. Louis, for relator.
Glennon T. Moran, St. Louis, for respondent.
DONNELLY, Judge.
This is prohibition.
Believing that this case raises a question of general interest and importance, the Eastern District of the Missouri Court of Appeals, pursuant to Rule 83.02, ordered transfer of the case to this Court.
On October 21, 1976, relator secured a judgment against Oscar Wood in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County.
On September 9, 1979, pursuant to § 513.380, RSMo 1978, and Rule 76.64 [now encompassed in Rule 76.27], the trial court ordered Wood to appear and be examined under oath as a judgment debtor. Section 513.380 provides:
On October 10, 1979, Wood accompanied by his attorney, appeared as ordered. Upon being interrogated by relator's counsel, Wood answered the first question by giving his name, but thereafter refused to answer any other question. The judgment debtor's refusal to answer was grounded upon the privilege against self-incrimination secured by the Missouri Constitution in Article I, § 19, and the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Upon relator's objection that Wood's refusal to answer was improper, the respondent *43 judge overruled the objection and sustained the right of the witness not to answer the questions. Such was the action of the respondent toward the witness' refusal to answer each of the first fifteen questions. Respondent then adjourned the proceeding until the next day at which time he stated that he believed his ruling the previous day was correct, but that Cantor v. Saitz, 562 S.W.2d 774 (Mo.App.1978), was the controlling authority and that missing from the record was a statement in general terms by the judgment debtor or his counsel of a "rational basis" upon which the answers to relator's questions could conceivably incriminate him. Respondent then invited Wood's counsel to make such a statement.
Wood's counsel replied that, with respect to a question about where Wood lived and to a question which asked about two house addresses:
Thereafter, an additional twenty-two questions were asked, and to each Wood responded by claiming his constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. Relator then asked the respondent to ask the witness' counsel to state the "rational basis" upon which the answers to the twenty-two questions might conceivably incriminate him. Respondent told relator that Wood's counsel had already done so. Wood's counsel stated further:
Respondent refused relator's request that he ask Wood whether he was presently under any investigations.
It was then agreed that relator's counsel would read into the record all of his remaining questions and at the conclusion thereof ask the witness generally whether he would answer any of them. This was done, the witness stating that he would answer none of the questions. Upon inquiry by relator's counsel as to Wood's reason for not answering, Wood stated:
Stating that the witness' counsel had stated in general terms a "rational basis" upon which Wood's answers could conceivably incriminate him, and that there were no questions upon which it could be ruled that, as a matter of law, it would be impossible for the witness to incriminate himself, the respondent indicated that he intended to sustain Wood's refusal to answer, but that he would withhold his ruling to permit the filing of a petition for a writ of prohibition.
Relator then filed such a petition in the Court of Appeals, Eastern District. On November 28, 1979, that court issued its preliminary writ ordering the examination of the judgment debtor stayed pending disposition of this case and prohibiting respondent from sustaining the witness' refusal to answer each and every question put to him. The Court of Appeals then ordered this case transferred to this Court. We must dispose of the preliminary writ issued by the Court of Appeals.
The narrow question to be decided is whether the respondent will exceed his jurisdiction by sustaining the judgment debtor's refusal to answer the questions posed him at the § 513.380 examination. The *44 answer to this question turns on the scope of the privilege against self-incrimination afforded the judgment debtor by the United States and, most importantly, Missouri Constitutions.
From the facts submitted by the parties, it is clear that the respondent believed the scope of the privilege afforded a judgment debtor in a § 513.380 examination was outlined in Cantor v. Saitz, supra.
In Cantor, after noting that the privilege against self-incrimination has been extended by the Missouri courts to judgment debtors in § 513.380 proceedings, the Court of Appeals surveyed the history of the privilege:
Cantor, supra, 562 S.W.2d  at 777-78.
The Court of Appeals, in Cantor, then noted that several Missouri cases, including Presta v. Owsley, supra, appeared to conflict with Gauss and Chief Justice Marshall's discussion of the privilege in Burr, by imposing a "burden of proof" on the witness claiming the privilege to show that an answer to the question asked might tend to incriminate him. The Cantor court, quite correctly we believe, noted:
Cantor, supra, 562 S.W.2d  at 778.
Declaring it wrong to place a "burden of proof" upon the witness, the Cantor court nevertheless recognized that "the privilege is, absent some check, subject to abuse by anyone wanting to evade responding to a question." Id. The "check" the Court of Appeals in Cantor believed proper was "requiring the witness or his counsel to describe, in general terms, a rational basis upon which his answer could conceivably incriminate him." Id. Although the Court of Appeals cautioned trial judges, in making a determination whether they could say as a matter of law that it would be impossible for a witness to incriminate himself, to be "acutely aware that in the deviousness of crime and its detection incrimination may be approached and achieved by obscure and unlikely lines of inquiry," we do not believe the "rational basis" approach provides greater protection against compelling a witness to incriminate himself than the criticized "burden of proof" test. It would appear that many, if not all, of the dangers the Cantor court saw in placing a "burden of proof" on the witness to show that his answer might tend to incriminate him, are still present when the witness is required to state a "rational basis" upon which his answer could conceivably incriminate him. By requiring the witness to state a "rational basis," it is possible that the witness will "surrender the very protection which the privilege is designed to guarantee." Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486, 71 S. Ct. 814, 818, 95 L. Ed. 1118 (1951). "Logically, indeed, he is boxed in a paradox, for he must prove the criminatory character of what it is his privilege to suppress just because it is criminatory. The only practicable solution is to be content with the door's being set a little ajar, and while at times it permits the suppression of competent evidence, nothing better is available." United States v. Weisman, 111 F.2d 260, 262 (2d Cir. 1940). Both the "burden of proof" requirement and the less stringent "rational basis" requirement involve an element of compulsion which we *46 find inconsistent with the principles underlying the privilege.
We may neither "add to nor subtract from the mandates of the United States Constitution," North Carolina v. Butler, 441 U.S. 369, 376, 99 S. Ct. 1755, 1759, 60 L. Ed. 2d 286 (1979). However, in order to assure that the protection given by Article I, § 19, of the Missouri Constitution, is meaningful, we hold that once a witness claims the privilege afforded him under that provision, a rebuttable presumption arises that the witness' answer might tend to incriminate him, a presumption that can be rebutted by a demonstration by the party seeking the answer that such answer "`cannot possibly' have such tendency to incriminate." Temple v. Commonwealth, 75 Va. 892, 898 (1881), cited with approval in Hoffman v. United States, supra, 341 U.S.  at 488-89, 71 S. Ct.  at 819. We believe this rule to be consistent with the principle, early expressed by Chief Justice Marshall in Burr, supra, that "it belongs to the court to consider and to decide whether any direct answer [to a question propounded] can implicate the witness," for it will fall upon the court to decide whether the presumption has been rebutted and, therefore, whether the witness must answer the question.
Since the respondent applied the Cantor standard, we make the preliminary writ of prohibition issued by the Court of Appeals absolute, and prohibit respondent from proceeding further in a manner inconsistent with the standard enunciated in this opinion.
All concur.