Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/99325/hawkins-vs-united-states
Timestamp: 2016-12-09 15:47:15
Document Index: 742445896

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3771', '§ 1328', '§ 600', '§ 2227', '§ 488', '§ 2240']

Hawkins Vs United States - Citation 99325 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize Hawkins Vs. United States - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/99325CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnNov-24-1958Case Number358 U.S. 74AppellantHawkinsRespondentUnited StatesExcerpt:
hawkins v. united states - 358 u.s. 74 (1958)
though the wife did not object to testifying, admission of her testimony over his objection was error. pp.
358 u. s. 74
(a) though congress or this..... Judgment:
(a) Though Congress or this Court, by decision or under its rulemaking power, can change or modify the rule where reason or experience dictates, and some specific exceptions have been made, this Court is not now prepared to abandon so much of the old common law rule as forbade one spouse to testify against the other over the latter's objection. Pp.
358 U. S. 75
(b) On the record in this case, it cannot be said that the wife's testimony did not have substantial influence on the jury, and its admission was not harmless error. Pp.
358 U. S. 79
to use his wife as a witness against him. [
Yoder v. United States,
80 F.2d 665, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that this was not error. 249 F.2d 735. As other Courts of Appeals have followed a longstanding rule of evidence which bars a husband or wife from testifying against his or her spouse, [
] we granted certiorari. 355 U.S. 925.
The common law rule, accepted at an early date as controlling in this country, was that husband and wife were incompetent as witnesses for or against each other. The rule rested mainly on a desire to foster peace in the family and on a general unwillingness to use testimony of witnesses tempted by strong self-interest to testify falsely. Since a defendant was barred as a witness in his own behalf because of interest, it was quite natural to bar his spouse in view of the prevailing legal fiction that husband and wife were one person.
1 Coke, Commentary upon Littleton (19th ed. 1832) 6.b. The rule yielded to exceptions in certain types of cases, however. Thus, this Court, in
Stein v. Bowman,
13 Pet. 209, while recognizing the "general rule that neither a husband nor wife can be a witness for or against the other," noted that the rule does not apply "where the husband commits an offence against the person of his wife." 13 Pet. at
38 U. S. 221
. But the Court emphasized that no exception left spouses free to testify for or against each other merely because they so desired. 13 Pet. at
38 U. S. 223
Aside from slight variations in application, and despite many critical comments, the rule stated in
was followed by this and other federal courts until 1933, when this Court decided
] That case rejected the phase of the common law rule which excluded testimony by spouses for each other. The Court recognized that the basic reason underlying this exclusion of evidence had been the practice of disqualifying witnesses with a personal interest in the outcome of a case. Widespread disqualifications because of interest, however, had long since been abolished both in this country and in England in accordance with the modern trend which permitted interested witnesses to testify and left it for the jury to assess their credibility. Certainly, since defendants were uniformly allowed to testify in their own behalf, there was no longer a good reason to prevent them from using their spouses as witnesses. With the original reason for barring favorable testimony of spouses gone, the Court concluded that this aspect of the old rule should go too.
case, however, did not criticize the phase of the common law rule which allowed either spouse to exclude adverse testimony by the other, but left this question open to further scrutiny. 290 U.S. at
336 U. S. 704
336 U. S. 714
-715. More recently, Congress has confirmed the authority asserted by this Court in
to determine admissibility of evidence under the "principles of the common law as they
may be interpreted . . . in the light of reason and experience." Fed.Rules Crim.Proc., 26. The Government does not here suggest that authority, reason, or experience requires us wholly to reject the old rule forbidding one spouse to testify against the other. It does ask that we modify the rule so that, while a husband or wife will not be compelled to testify against the other, either will be free to do so voluntarily. Nothing in this Court's cases supports such a distinction between compelled and voluntary testimony, and it was emphatically rejected in
Stein v. Bowman, supra,
a leading American statement of the basic principles on which the rule rests. 13 Pet. at
. Consequently, if we are to modify the rule as the Government urges, we must look to experience and reason, not to authority.
Of course, cases can be pointed out in which this exclusionary rule has worked apparent injustice. But Congress or this Court, by decision or under its rulemaking power, 18 U.S.C. § 3771, can change or modify the rule where circumstances or further experience dictates. In fact, specific changes have been made from time to time. Over the years, the rule has evolved from the common law absolute disqualification to a rule which bars the testimony of one spouse against the other unless both consent.
See Stein v. Bowman, supra; Funk v. United States, supra; Benson v. United States,
146 U. S. 331
-333;
137 F.2d 1006, 1008. In 1887, Congress enabled either spouse to testify in prosecutions against the other for bigamy, polygamy or unlawful cohabitation. 24 Stat. 635.
See Miles v. United States,
103 U. S. 315
-316. Similarly, in 1917 and again in 1952, Congress made wives and husbands competent to testify against each other in prosecutions for importing aliens for immoral purposes. 39 Stat. 878 (1917), reenacted as 66 Stat. 230, 8 U.S.C. § 1328 (1952).
Other jurisdictions have been reluctant to do more than modify the rule. English statutes permit spouses to testify against each other in prosecutions for only certain types of crimes.
Evidence of Spouses in Criminal Cases, 99 Sol.J. 551. And most American States retain the rule, though many provide exceptions in some classes of cases. [
] The limited nature of these exceptions
Notwithstanding the error in admitting the wife's testimony, we are urged to affirm the conviction upon the alternative holding of the Court of Appeals that her evidence was harmless to petitioner.
Fed.Rules Crim.Proc. 52(a). But, after examining the record, we cannot say that her testimony did not have substantial influence on the jury.
-765. Interstate transportation of the prosecutrix between Arkansas and Oklahoma was conceded, and the only factual issue in the case was whether petitioner's dominant purpose in making the trip was to facilitate her practice of prostitution in Tulsa, Oklahoma. [
The prosecutrix testified that petitioner agreed to take her to Tulsa where she could earn money by working as a prostitute with a woman called "Jane Wilson." Petitioner denied any intention on his part that the prosecutrix engage in such activity, and testified, in effect, that her transportation was only an accommodation incidental to a business trip he was making to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Petitioner's dominant purpose for the trip was thus a sharply contested issue of fact which, on the evidence in the record, the jury could have resolved either way depending largely on whether it believed the prosecutrix or the petitioner. The Government placed "Jane Wilson" on the stand. In response to questions by the Assistant United States Attorney, she swore that she was petitioner's wife and that she was a prostitute at the time petitioner took the prosecutrix to Tulsa. Not wholly satisfied with this testimony, the prosecutor brought out for the first time on redirect examination that "Jane Wilson" had been a prostitute before she married petitioner. The mere presence of a wife as a witness against her husband in a case of this kind would most likely impress jurors adversely. When to this there is added her sworn testimony that she was a prostitute both before and after marriage, we cannot be sure that her evidence, though in part cumulative, did not tip the scales against petitioner on the close and vital issue of whether his prime motivation in making the interstate trip was immoral.
336 U. S. 444
-445. At
See e.g., Paul v. United States,
79 F.2d 561 (C.A. 3d Cir.);
Brunner v. United States,
168 F.2d 281 (C.A. 6th Cir.);
176 F.2d 564 (C.A. 2d Cir.).
was a civil action involving testimony of a wife about conversations she had with her husband. The opinion shows, however, that the Court was concerned with the broader question here involved.
See, e.g., Miles v. United States,
103 U. S. 305
Graves v. United States,
150 U. S. 118
Compare Benson v. United States,
-333. For criticism of the rule,
7 Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence (Bowring ed. 1843), 480-486; 2 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed. 1940), §§ 600-620; 8
§§ 2227-2245; Hutchins and Slesinger, Some Observations on the Law of Evidence: Family Relations, 13 Minn.L.Rev. 675.
2 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed. 1940), § 488; 8
§ 2240; Note, 38 Va.L.Rev. 359, 362-367.
Mortensen v. United States,
322 U. S. 369
322 U. S. 374
See Cleveland v. United States,
329 U. S. 19
Cf. Hansen v. Haff,
291 U. S. 559
291 U. S. 563
The rule of evidence we are here asked to reexamine has been called a "sentimental relic." [
] it was born of two concepts long since rejected: that a criminal defendant was incompetent to testify in his own case, and that, in law, husband and wife were one. What thus began as a disqualification of either spouse from testifying at all yielded gradually to the policy of admitting all relevant evidence, until it has now become simply a privilege of the criminal defendant to prevent his spouse from testifying against him.
38 U. S.
13 Pet. 209;
291 U. S. 14
Any rule that impedes the discovery of truth in a court of law impedes as well the doing of justice. When such a rule is the product of a conceptualism long ago discarded, is universally criticized by scholars, and has been qualified or abandoned in many jurisdictions, it should receive the most careful scrutiny. [
] Surely "reason and experience" require that we do more than indulge in mere
assumptions, perhaps naive assumptions, as to the importance of this ancient rule to the interests of domestic tranquillity. [
Comment, Rule 23(2) of the Uniform Rules of Evidence.
We are not dealing here with the quite different aspect of the marital privilege covering confidential communications between husband and wife.
See Wolfle v. United States,
Apparently some nineteen States have either abolished or substantially modified this privilege.
Note, 38 Va.L.Rev. 359, 365. In England, the process has been a selective one, accomplished by legislation.
Evidence of Spouses in Criminal Cases, 99 Sol.J. 551. In 1938, the American Bar Association's Committee on Improvements in the Law of Evidence favored the abolition of the privilege on the part of the accused, 63 A.B.A.Rep. 595.
It is obvious, however, that all the data necessary for an intelligent formulation "in the light of reason and experience" could never be provided in a single litigated case. This points to the wisdom of establishing a continuing body to study and recommend uniform rules of evidence for the federal courts, as proposed by at least two of the Circuit Judicial Conferences.
Annual Report of the Proceedings of the Judicial Conference of the United States, September 18-20, 1957, p. 43.
Joiner, Uniform Rules of Evidence for the Federal Courts. 20 F.R.D. 429.