Title: Connell v. State
Citation: 318 So. 2d 710
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: November 14, 1974

318 So. 2d 710 (1974)
In re Ronald Keith CONNELL
v.
STATE of Alabama.
Ex parte STATE of Alabama ex rel. ATTORNEY GENERAL.
SC 899.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
November 14, 1974.
Rehearing Denied January 23, 1975.
*711 William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen. and Kermitt M. Downs, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State, petitioner.
Walker, Hill, Gullage, Adams &amp; Umbach, Opelika, for respondent.
HARWOOD, Justice.
We granted the State's petition for a writ of certiorari in order to review the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals which reversed the judgment of the lower court finding this petitioner guilty of murder in the first degree. The sole basis for the reversal of the judgment is set out below. We are not in accord with the conclusions and judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals reversing the judgment of the lower court.
The facts surrounding the murder of Burt Michael Froney by this petitioner and his three accomplices have been set out in detail in the opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals and we will not again detail these facts except as they may bear upon the conclusions we have reached.
Suffice to say that the deceased and his wife, traveling in a camper, in a spirit of charity, picked up the appellant and his three hitchhiking companions. Every hospitality was offered the quartet by the Froneys, even to the extent of proceeding beyond their destination in order to take the hitchhikers into Montgomery. On this extension of the trip, the Froneys' good will was rewarded by the quartet murdering Mr. Froney and attempting to murder Mrs. Froney. The facts as shown in the opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals discloses a heinous, vicious, and premeditated murder. Mrs. Froney was stabbed seven times, an attempt was made to suffocate her, and the camper was set afire in an apparent effort to destroy the evidence of the crime. The appellant and his accomplices were later apprehended in California with certain belongings of the Froneys' in their possession.
Despite the murderous assault on her, Mrs. Froney, after the quartet had fled the scene of their atrocity, was able to leave the camper and make her way to a highway where fortunately she was discovered by a patrolling State Trooper.
She was taken to a hospital where she was interviewed within two days by law enforcement officers.
No evidence was offered by the defense other than that of several witnesses whose *712 testimony was directed solely toward supporting appellant's plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. The trial judge in his instructions to the jury, charged the jury that there was no evidence tending to support the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, and the Court of Criminal Appeals approved of this action. Therefore, the only material question remaining is that of appellant's guilt in participating in the murder. The appellant offered no evidence contradictory of the evidence offered by the state in this regard, and the evidence offered by the state was overwhelming in its tendencies establishing the appellant's guilt.
The only question presented for our review on this certiorari is the action of the Court of Criminal Appeals in reversing the judgment of the lower court because of that court's refusal to permit counsel for the appellant to cross-examine Mrs. Froney, the only eye witness to the murder of her husband, relative to a transcript made of an interview between Mrs. Froney and investigating officers, the interview taking place a day or so after the murder, and while Mrs. Froney was in the hospital. This transcript had never been signed, nor ever seen by Mrs. Froney.
It is clear from the record that Mrs. Froney had not used any notes or memoranda of any kind during her direct examination.
It was undisputed that such interview was had. We have therefore gone to the record for a more complete understanding of this matter as treated in the opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals. Wilbanks v. State, 289 Ala. 171, 266 So. 2d 632.
In its treatment of the matter, the Court of Criminal Appeals has set out "a stipulation of the parties and a colloquy between counsel for the defendant, Mr. Walker, the District Attorney and the trial court * * *" No clear picture of the entire record in regard to the court's ruling comes through from this recitation, and as before stated, we have gone to the record for a fuller understanding of the situation.
As to the interview the investigating officers had with her in the hospital, and the transcript made by the officers following such interview, Mrs. Froney testified on voir dire examination as follows:
The officers' transcription of this interview had been furnished defense counsel.
At the time defense counsel attempted to cross-examine Mrs. Froney as to this transcription, the district attorney objected to such line of questions on the ground that Mrs. Froney had never seen the transcription. The court sustained the objections of the district attorney and the record shows the following in this regard:
We agree with the lower court that the examination of Mrs. Froney in regard to the transcription would appear to be in the realm of impeachment. No proper predicate was laid for impeachment. If defense counsel's contention that he was not trying to impeach Mrs. Froney but only trying to refresh her recollection be accepted, the court was yet justified in sustaining the objection. The murder was committed on the night of 26 January 1972. Mrs. Froney was interviewed by the officers on the 27th or 28th of January 1972. Her cross-examination was on 31 May 1972, some four months later.
As stated by Judge McElroy in his outstanding work on "Law of Evidence in Alabama," Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Sec. 116.02, (2), which section pertains to refreshing a witness' recollection by the use of memoranda:
Mrs. Froney of course had not seen the transcript of the memorandum prepared by the officers after their interview, had no knowledge of the contents of the memorandum, and was confronted with the same some four months later, during her cross-examination as a witness in petitioner's trial. The court's ruling denying petitioner's attempted cross-examination for the purpose of refreshing her recollection was therefore correct.
Counsel for petitioner Connell has directed his contention of error in the ruling hereinabove considered mainly on the basis that the ruling deprived the petitioner of the right to a full and sweeping cross-examination. It is true that Section 443, Title 7, Code of Alabama 1940 provides:
But this statutory provision is not unlimited. It is well settled by the decisions of this court, and of our appellate courts, that the latitude and extent of cross-examination, is a matter in the sound discretion of the trial court, and in the absence of prejudicial abuse, it is not reviewable on appeal. Turner v. State, etc., 289 Ala. 97, 265 So. 2d 883, and authorities cited therein; McCain v. State, 46 Ala.App. 627, 247 So. 2d 383, and authorities cited therein. On appeal, the party claiming that a trial judge has abused his discretion in such aspect bears the burden of persuasion. Buckelew v. State, 48 Ala.App. 411, 265 So. 2d 195; Seals v. State, 282 Ala. 586, 213 So. 2d 645.
Under the totality of the facts furnishing a background for the court's ruling in the instance now under consideration, it would seem highly doubtful that the petitioner has met his burden of showing prejudice in the ruling. We need not, however, decide this point as Section 443, above referred to, cannot properly be construed as vitiating the established requirements as to refreshing a witness' memory from a memorandum, which rule we have heretofore adverted to.
It is our conclusion that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in its conclusion that the court below erred in sustaining the state's objection to the questions seeking to refresh Mrs. Froney's memory from the transcript prepared by the investigating officers. The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is therefore due to be reversed.
Reversed and remanded.
*715 MERRILL, BLOODWORTH, MADDOX, McCALL, and FAULKNER JJ., concur.
HEFLIN, C. J., and COLEMAN, and JONES, JJ., dissent.
JONES, Justice (dissenting):
The majority opinion gives three reasons for upholding the actions of the trial Court in not allowing the defense counsel to use the transcription in the cross-examination of Mrs. Froney:
I respectfully disagree on all three points.
I fail to understand how it could be conceivably argued that defense counsel was here attempting to impeach this witness. He made clear in his offer of proof that he hoped never to be in a position of having to impeach Mrs. Froney, who was the only eye witness to the brutal murder of her husband, and who had herself been a victim to this atrocity. This offer of proof, coupled with the substance and nature of the questions asked, reflect a trial strategy which abhorred impeachment. On direct examination, Mrs. Froney had answered, "I do not know" and "I do not remember" to several questions to which she had given definitive and potentially favorable replies when questioned by the investigating officer, and which replies the defense counsel now held in his hand by way of a transcription of the initial interview. To call this impeachment is in effect to abolish the distinction between impeachment on the one hand and to refresh recollection on the other, and that this Court has always recognized a valid distinction is too clear to warrant further discussion.
The majority opinion states: "If defense counsel's contention that he was not trying to impeach Mrs. Froney but only trying to refresh her recollection be accepted, the court was yet justified in sustaining the objection."
The opinion then quotes from Judge McElroy's Law of Evidence in Alabama, which prescribes certain conditions as prerequisites to admissibility, and the Court concludes these prerequisites were not here met. The quote from McElroy is taken out of context and fails to recognize the distinction between present recollection recalled and past recollection recorded. Wigmore on Evidence (Vol. 3, Chap. 28), with which McElroy agrees, delineates the two thusly:
In the case of present recollection, it must be remembered that we are dealing *716 with primary evidence. It is the witness's present recall, aided simply by some previously written memorandum. By the use of some previously recorded data the witness is saying, "This refreshes my recollection so that now, independent of the writing, I have a present recollection of the matter." In the second situation the witness is saying, "There was a time shortly after the incident when I did remember certain of the facts and details, but I do not now, even after looking at and reviewing what was then written down, remember of my independent recollection what occurred." In this latter case, the document itself, as secondary evidence, may be admissible with certain safeguards designed to insure the document's reliability, i.e., that it was either written by a particular person, or was seen being recorded by that person, or testimony as to its validity by the person who did record it. The necessity of the safeguards for reliability in the case of secondary evidence (past recollection recorded) does not obtain in the case of primary evidence (present recollection recalled).
We are here dealing with a primary evidence issue only. Counsel for defendant, in cross-examining Mrs. Froney, was in nowise attempting to introduce the transcription of her earlier interview. He was, instead, seeking to refresh her present recollection of the events in question. Conceivably, if the attempt to refresh her recollection had failed and if she persisted, after reviewing her former statement, that her recollection had not been refreshed and that she continued not to remember,[1] then the past recollection recorded rule may have been invoked. In that event, the written statement would have been admissible as secondary evidence only if the conditions requisite to its introduction were properly proved. Alternatively, the witness might also have testified, when counsel sought to refresh her recollection, that she did not at the time of the interview make the statements which appeared in the transcription. In that event, counsel could have electedwith the proper predicate, of courseto impeach the witness. Neither of the latter two situations ever occurred.
This is not a new or novel distinction or one without practical or logical basis. Chief Justice Stone, in his celebrated opinion of Acklen's Executor v. Hickman, 63 Ala. 494 (1879), set out the rule:
The rule of this case has never been overturned or questioned, and that its wisdom has been consistently acknowledged is reflected by two and one-half columns of citations in Shepard's. In fairness to the majority, it should be noted that Acklen's was not pointed out in briefs or oral arguments and was discovered by the author of this dissent after conference in which the vote of the court was taken.
The fallacy in rejecting the conclusion reached by the Court of Criminal Appeals is clearly focused by reversing the context in which the question arises. Suppose, for example, on direct examination Mrs. Froney was unable to recall sufficient details of the occurrence to make out a prima facie case against this defendant. Thereupon, the district attorney recalled to her mind the interview with the investigating officer which resulted in the transcription of the questions asked and her answers thereto. Suppose, further, that she recalled the interview and upon examining the transcription her present recollection was refreshed and that she testified over the objection of the defendant from her present recollection independently of, although aided by, the written document. On appeal, this Court without question, and properly so, would sustain the trial Court's action in overruling the defendant's objection and affirm the conviction. To be sure, the rule should be even more liberally applied in the context of cross-examination. If the rule of law admitting this testimony under the above hypothesis is a valid one, then it must not be analogous to a one-way ticket on a railroadgood for today only.
The trial Court, of course, must of necessity have wide discretion in the general conduct of a trial, but to use discretion as a substitute for definitive, substantive rules of evidence distorts the concept and effectively eliminates appellate review of error. If the rule of evidence above enunciated by Chief Justice Stone is the law of this State and we allow its misapplication to be affirmed under the guise of "lack of abuse of discretion," of what value is the rule? Surely this question answers itself and precludes the use of the doctrine of discretion as a legal basis for the affirmance of the trial Court.
Indeed, the right of confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Art. 1, Sec. 6, Const, of Alabama, 1901, includes the right of cross-examination. Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 85 S. Ct. 1074, 13 L. Ed. 2d 934 (1965); Wray v. State, 154 Ala. 36, 45 So. 697 (1908); and reversal is mandated where the defendant's substantive rights to a thorough and sifting cross-examination of an important witness have been invaded. Tit. 7, § 443, Code of Alabama 1940 (Recomp.1958), provides in express language:
The trial Court's discretion was here abused, in my opinion, particularly since the Court cut off defense counsel's effort to develop the line of questions designed to refresh the witness's recollection not merely by sustaining the district attorney's objections, but by affirmatively asserting to defense counsel: ". . . I'll just take the bull by the horns right now and say that you can't ask her any more questions from that statement . . .".
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
HEFLIN, C. J., concurs.
[1]  The rule favoring admissibility under this hypothesis would likewise permit the use of the recording itself where the witness's recollection is not refreshed from the transcription. The sound of one's own voice might refresh one's present recollection even though the written transcription did not.