Opinion ID: 213787
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: False Allegation Claims

Text: Turning first to the prior false allegations of sexual assault, Mr. Sussman takes the view that we should not apply the deferential standard set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) because the state court did not resolve on the merits the question of whether Mr. Sussman was prejudiced by his counsel's actions. Mr. Sussman's own submission, however, belies his assertion. He states in his brief that, [a]s to the false accusation, the state court held Sussman did not meet the prejudice test because no prejudice could accrue from defense counsel's failure to file a pre-trial motion that would have been denied. Petitioner's Br. 16. At bottom, Mr. Sussman's argument is not that the state court failed to resolve the issue of prejudice, but that, because the state appellate court incorrectly concluded that the motion would have been unsuccessful, the court never weighed the potential impact of the omitted evidence on the jury. Resolving a claim on an improper or faulty basis is not the same as failing to adjudicate the claim on the merits. See Malinowski v. Smith, 509 F.3d 328, 332-34 (7th Cir.2007). Here, there is no question that, as Mr. Sussman tacitly acknowledges, the state court held that Mr. Sussman had not been prejudiced by his counsel's error. Therefore, we must evaluate this determination of the state appellate court under the deferential AEDPA standard. See Harrington, 131 S.Ct. at 787-88.
The state appellate court determined that Mr. Sussman was not prejudiced by his counsel's failure because, based on its balancing of the DeSantis factors, [18] it would have sustained the denial of a timely motion to introduce the prior false allegations of sexual assault. Mr. Sussman maintains that the state court both misunderstood the nature of the prior false accusations as well as underestimated their probative value. DeSantis makes it clear that Wisconsin's rape shield law is an effort by the Wisconsin legislature to balance the need to protect complainants' dignity with the defendant's constitutional rights to a fair opportunity to defend and to a jury trial. 456 N.W.2d at 607. Indeed, considerations critical to a Wisconsin state court's determination of admissibility under Wisconsin Statutes sections 972.11(2)(b)3 and 971.31(11) are also important to a federal court's Confrontation Clause analysis. See infra pp. 352-55. To the extent that the state court weighed the factors embodied in the state statute, it engaged in a purely state-based process mandated by its legislature. [I]t is not the province of a federal habeas court to reexamine state-court determinations on state-law questions. In conducting habeas review, a federal court is limited to deciding whether a conviction violated the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991). Consequently, we cannot engage in the reweighing of the DeSantis factors urged by Mr. Sussman. However, as Mr. Sussman argues and as DeSantis requires, the state court also must take into consideration the principles animating the federal Confrontation Clause in its final determination whether to admit evidence. [19] According to Mr. Sussman, the state court's ruling independently violated his rights to confront witnesses against him. When placed within the overarching context of his ineffective assistance claim, therefore, Mr. Sussman maintains that he did suffer prejudice as a result of his counsel's failures because, although not meritorious on state evidentiary grounds, the motion ultimately would have been granted because of the importance of the federal rights involved. As we shall explain in greater detail in the paragraphs that follow, this inquiry is a proper subject for habeas review.
Regardless of how a state court applies state evidence rules, a federal habeas court has an independent duty to determine whether that application violates the Constitution. Jones v. Cain, 600 F.3d 527, 536 (5th Cir.2010). Mr. Sussman relies heavily on our decision in Redmond, to support his claim that the state court's evidentiary rulings adversely impacted his rights under the Confrontation Clause. In Redmond, we considered whether the defendant's rights under the Confrontation Clause were implicated by the Wisconsin state court's exclusion of evidence related to prior false allegations of sexual assault. [20] We found it unnecessary in Redmond to elaborate in great detail on the nature of those rights. However, as our references in Redmond suggest, Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974), provides an appropriate starting point for such a discussion.
In Davis, the Court reiterated that [c]onfrontation means more than being allowed to confront the witness physically. `Our cases construing the [confrontation] clause hold that a primary interest secured by it is the right of cross-examination.' Davis, 415 U.S. at 315, 94 S.Ct. 1105 (alteration in original) (quoting Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 418, 85 S.Ct. 1074, 13 L.Ed.2d 934 (1965)). The Court observed that [c]ross-examination is the principal means by which the believability of a witness and the truth of his testimony are tested. Id. at 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105. The Court noted that a witness's credibility could be called into question in two ways. First, the defendant could launch a general attack on the credibility of the witness, for instance, by introduc[ing] evidence of a prior criminal conviction of that witness. Id. By so doing, the Court explained, the cross-examiner intends to afford the jury a basis to infer that the witness' character is such that he would be less likely than the average trustworthy citizen to be truthful in his testimony. Id. The Court contrasted a general attack with [a] more particular attack on the witness' credibility [] effected by means of cross-examination directed toward revealing possible biases, prejudices, or ulterior motives of the witness as they may relate directly to issues or personalities in the case at hand. The partiality of a witness is subject to exploration at trial, and is  always relevant as discrediting the witness and affecting the weight of his testimony. 3A J. Wigmore, Evidence § 940, p. 775 (Chadbourn rev.1970). We have recognized that the exposure of a witness' motivation in testifying is a proper and important function of the constitutionally protected right of cross-examination. Greene v. McElroy, 360 U.S. 474, 496 [79 S.Ct. 1400, 3 L.Ed.2d 1377] (1959). Id. at 316-17, 94 S.Ct. 1105 (emphasis added) (parallel citations omitted). Thus, exposing a witness's reasons for fabrication in a specific case is at the heart of the Confrontation Clause. Despite this weighty interest, a defendant's right to cross-examine is not unlimited. [T]rial judges retain wide latitude insofar as the Confrontation Clause is concerned to impose reasonable limits on. . . cross-examination based on concerns about, among other things, harassment, prejudice, confusion of the issues, the witness' safety, or interrogation that is repetitive or only marginally relevant. Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 679, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986). In a criminal case, restrictions on the defendant's rights `to confront adverse witnesses and to present evidence may not be arbitrary or disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve.' White, 399 F.3d at 24 (quoting Michigan v. Lucas, 500 U.S. 145, 151, 111 S.Ct. 1743, 114 L.Ed.2d 205 (1991) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Such language, clear although general, calls for a balancing of interests depending on the circumstances of the case. Factors that the Supreme Court has deemed relevant are the importance of the evidence to an effective defense, Davis [,415 U.S. at 319, 94 S.Ct. 1105]; the scope of the ban involved, Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 679 [106 S.Ct. 1431]; and the strength vel non of state interests weighing against admission of the evidence. See Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 295 [93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297] (1973). White, 399 F.3d at 24 (parallel citations omitted). Thus, we have upheld a court's limitation of cross-examination when the questions were designed not to elicit information regarding the witnesses' possible bias, but rather to mine for further details concerning [a witness], whose importance to the case already had been deemed minimal. United States v. Valles, 41 F.3d 355, 359 (7th Cir.1994). Similarly, we determined that there had been no Confrontation Clause violation when a court limited cross-examination that possibly could have impacted on [the witness's] general credibility but would not have exposed a bias in favor of the government. United States v. Saunders, 166 F.3d 907, 919 (7th Cir.1999). More closely related to the present situation, we have upheld a court's decision not to allow cross-examination of a child witness about prior, allegedly false, accusations of sexual assault when the state trial court explicitly found that the complainant was not clever enough to concoct false allegations of sexual abuse. Cookson v. Schwartz, 556 F.3d 647, 655 (7th Cir.2009). That is, on habeas review, we would not disturb a state trial court's factual finding that a witness was incapable of giving effect to the type of motivation that the defense wished to expose. By contrast, a trial court's limitation on cross-examination aimed at exposing a witness's motive or bias reaches the core of Confrontation Clause concerns. To justify limiting a defendant's right to confront his accusers on issues of motive and bias, the countervailing policy interest must be concrete and articulable, not based on surmise or speculation. See Olden v. Kentucky, 488 U.S. 227, 232, 109 S.Ct. 480, 102 L.Ed.2d 513 (1988). [21] Furthermore a defendant has the right to explore fully each potential motive or source of bias. In United States v. Martin, 618 F.3d 705, 728 (7th Cir.2010), for example, the defendant alleged that his Confrontation Clause rights had been violated when he was not permitted to cross-examine a witness concerning any link between [the witness's] involvement in [a] pending state murder investigation and his testimony in the federal action. We agreed that [t]he timing, nature and status of the [state] murder investigation was probative of bias[,] and the defense had the right to explore it fully and allow the jury to draw its own conclusions. Id. at 730. Additionally, we determined that the fact [t]hat the defendants were permitted to examine other matters relating to [the witness's] alleged bias, such as the written plea agreement and [the witness's] prior convictions, does not resolve the Sixth Amendment violation. The alleged bias arising out of the [state] murder investigation was a separate and independent area of bias, which the defendants sufficiently had distinguished from the other areas of bias. Id. (internal citations omitted). [22]
With this background in mind, we return to our evaluation of the Confrontation Clause claims set forth in Redmond. In that case, the petitioner, Redmond, had been a counselor at an institution for minors suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. He was convicted of statutory rape of a fifteen-year-old resident, Heather; it was alleged that he had given her cocaine in return for sexual favors. At trial, the principal evidence was the testimony of Heather and of another resident, who merely repeated what Heather had told her had happened. Redmond, 240 F.3d at 591. The evidence that the defense wished to introduce was based on the following facts: Eleven months before the alleged offense, Heather had told her mother that she had been forcibly raped, and she had offered her torn clothes as evidence. She had repeated the story of the rape, with many circumstantial details, to a hospital nurse and to a police officer investigating the incident, but later had admitted making up the story (and ripping her clothes herself) in order to get her mother's attention. Her new story was that she had had sex with the man she had accused of forcible rape, but that it had been with her consent. Since she was underage, the police continued to investigate the incident as a crime. The man was never found, and there is no evidence other than Heather's say-so that the incident actually occurred. There is no serious doubt that her recantation of the forcible-rape story was truthful. Redmond offered more than thirty police reports of the investigation of Heather's claim that she had been forcibly raped, convincingly demonstrating its falsity, and in addition the district attorney had instituted contempt charges against Heather. Id. The state court had held that the evidence was inadmissible because, under section 972.11(2)(b)3, Heather's false charge did not have `sufficient probative value to outweigh its inflammatory and prejudicial nature.' Id. We, however, determined that Redmond had made out a prima facie case of a constitutional violation for several reasons. First, the state court had treated the prior false allegation of sexual assault as a general attack on Heather's credibility. This was incorrect; we explained: With all due respect, we believe that the court of appeals' analysis and conclusion cannot be considered a reasonable application of the Supreme Court's confrontation doctrine. The evidence of the false charge of forcible rape was not cumulative of other evidence bearing on Heather's credibility, because none of the other evidence either involved a false charge of being sexually assaulted or furnished a motive for such a charge. The fact that a teenage girl has a disordered past and lies a lot (who doesn't?) does not predict that she will make up stories about having sex. To indulge such an assumption would be to place such persons largely beyond the protection of the law. But the fact that the girl had led her mother, a nurse[] and the police on a wild goose chase for a rapist merely to get her mother's attention supplied a powerful reason for disbelieving her testimony eleven months later about having sex with another man, by showing that she had a motive for what would otherwise be an unusual fabrication. The evidence thus was not cumulative, or otherwise peripheral, considering that testimony by Heather was virtually the only evidence of Redmond's guilt that the prosecution had. Nor was the evidence of her previous false charge of rape prejudicial to the state. . . . Id. at 591-92 (internal citations omitted). Additionally, we believed that the state court had given excessive weight to the possibility of jury confusion: [I]n concluding that there was a danger of confusion[,] the court committed a fatal analytical mistake. It assumed that Heather would be required or permitted to testify that she had had consensual sex with the alleged rapist, evidence barred by the rape-shield law. The only evidence that was relevant to her credibility in Redmond's case, however, the only evidence she would or should have been permitted to give on that subject, was that within the preceding year she had made up a story about being forcibly raped. Whether or not she had had sex with the alleged rapist was irrelevant, since Redmond was not prepared to try to prove that she had not. For unexplained reasons the Wisconsin court of appeals thought that if Redmond's lawyer had been permitted to ask Heather whether she had ever made a false charge of forcible sexual assault, the door would have been opened to an inquiry into whether she had had sex on that occasion at all. We cannot think of any reason why. Id. at 592.
We have the same concerns here as we did in Redmond. In seeking to examine Scott on the false allegations against his father, Mr. Sussman's counsel was not attempting simply to expose another incident of Scott's lack of truthfulness; instead, he was attempting to reveal[] possible biases, prejudices, or ulterior motives of the witness as they may relate directly to issues or personalities in the case at hand. Davis, 415 U.S. at 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105. The offer of proof established that Scott made false allegations of sexual abuse against his father at a time when he had no contact with his father and in an attempt to get his father's attention. See St. R.151 at 18, 22. Similarly, Scott's allegations against Mr. Sussman came shortly after Scott moved back to Indiana and was seeing less of Mr. Sussman. The jury reasonably could have concluded that Scott was prone to use allegations of sexual abuse against father figures as a means either of gaining their attention or as a means of punishing them for abandoning him. See Redmond, 240 F.3d at 591-92 ([T]he fact that the girl had led her mother, a nurse[] and the police on a wild goose chase for a rapist merely to get her mother's attention supplied a powerful reason for disbelieving her testimony eleven months later about having sex with another man, by showing that she had a motive for what would otherwise be an unusual fabrication.). In short, [w]e are dealing here with something far more potent than `general credibility' evidence which, under confrontation clause standards, may have a lower status. White, 399 F.3d at 26. We are addressing evidence that exposes a motive to fabricate a specific kind of lie under a specific set of circumstances and, therefore, directly implicates Mr. Sussman's rights under the Confrontation Clause. Furthermore, the State's interest in limiting the testimony appears exaggerated. As explained by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in DeSantis, the State's rape shield law was designed to respond to claims that rules of evidence served to humiliate and degrade complainants by allowing the defendant to put the complainant on trial and served to deter complainants from pressing charges. 456 N.W.2d at 607. However, these worthy concerns cannot be the only factors for judicial consideration when there is a false allegation of sexual assault. The State maintains that the trial court's refusal to admit evidence of false allegations also was justified because the evidence could have confused the jury. The State maintains that there was insufficient evidence that Scott's allegations were false. It argues that it is important that Scott did not take the initiative in making allegations against his father, but merely responded to questions about inappropriate touching by child protective services. Scott, the State claims, never accused his father of any actual wrongdoing. Consequently, the State believes that, had Mr. Sussman been allowed to question Scott about his false allegations, the jury's attention would have been diverted to a peripheral matter. We believe the State's attempt to trivialize the importance of Scott's allegations against his father evinces a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of the guarantees of the Confrontation Clause in the truth-finding process of a criminal trial. In any event, the State's argument overlooks the fact that Scott did not make the false allegation only once to the representative from child protective services. Scott repeated the allegation to his therapist on two occasions after child protective services had determined that the allegations were unsubstantiated. See St. R.206, Ex. 2 at 25; id., Ex. 4. The State also insists that, if the evidence concerning the prior false accusations had been admitted, the focus of the trial would have shifted to the interaction between Scott and his father as opposed to the interaction between Scott and Mr. Sussman. As in Redmond, we believe that these fears largely are unfounded. It is Scott's motive in bringing and repeating the allegations against his father that makes those allegations relevant, not the specific underlying actions that prompted the allegations. Allowing Mr. Sussman to probe Scott's motive would not necessitate lengthy discussion of what actually had occurred between Scott and his father. Based on our analysis in Redmond [23] and the cases on which Redmond relies Davis, Van Arsdall and Olden we believe that, if Mr. Sussman's counsel had filed a timely pretrial motion with respect to the accusations, and, furthermore, if the court had prohibited Mr. Sussman from introducing that evidence, the state court's ruling would have run afoul of Mr. Sussman's rights under the Confrontation Clause. Therefore, we must conclude that, by construing the task of evaluating the admissibility of Scott's accusation against his father without any reference, much less a plenary reference, to the principles of the Confrontation Clause, the state courts applied unreasonably the applicable federal constitutional guarantees as construed by the Supreme Court of the United States. [24] Nevertheless, even if the state court committed this error, we still are faced with the question, for purposes of ineffective assistance of counsel, whether counsel's failure to introduce this evidence prejudiced Mr. Sussman. In assessing whether there is a reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding would have been different, we must consider the evidence in its totality. Wright v. Gramley, 125 F.3d 1038, 1042 (7th Cir.1997). Whether such a reasonable probability exists depends, of course, on the nature and strength of the government's case against the defendant, and the nature of his attorney's failures. United States v. Morrison, 946 F.2d 484, 500 (7th Cir.1991); see also Wright, 125 F.3d at 1042 (stating that a verdict supported weakly by the record is more likely to have been affected by errors than one with overwhelming record support (quotation marks and citations omitted)). The State urges that, even if this evidence had been admitted, it would have been cumulative to Scott's admission on cross-examination that he had accused his father of sexual assault. However, there is an obvious difference between an accusation and a false accusation. Mr. Sussman never was allowed to establish that Scott's prior accusation was, in fact, false; nor was he allowed to explore Scott's motives for falsely accusing his father and to draw parallels between Scott's allegations against his father and Scott's allegations against Mr. Sussman. Additionally, the State maintains that, even if Mr. Sussman was prohibited from introducing false-accusation evidence, he was still able to present to the jury all of the following evidence: Scott's admission that he accused his father of sexual assault, Scott's threat to report his uncle for abuse, Scott's false accusation that Sussman sexually assaulted other boys he was mentoring, Suzette Cyr's testimony that Scott admitted in 2004 he was not sexually assaulted by Sussman, and Scott's (and his mother's) overall reputation for untruthfulness. This all supported the argument that Scott falsely accused his father of sexual assault when he was a small child and was now falsely accusing Sussman of the same. Respondent's Br. 45. The State, we believe, overestimates the value of some of this evidence. For instance, when Mr. Sussman's counsel attempted to explore the fact that Scott had repeated the allegations against his father to Bryce Mitchell, the court sustained the State attorney's objection and later instructed the jury: You are to disregard and strike from the record any reference that was made with respect to a false claim of sexual assault repeated to a Bryce Mitchell. Tr. 374. [25] We agree that this evidence is probative of Scott's truthfulness and, indeed, that Mr. Sussman's counsel was successful in generally discrediting Scott as a witness. However, this evidence does not take the place of the false-accusation evidence that Mr. Sussman sought to introduce. None of the above evidence demonstrates that Scott lies specifically about sexual abuse when he feels abandoned by father figures. See Redmond, 240 F.3d at 593 (distinguishing evidence of motive from general attacks on credibility). Also of significant importance to our conclusion is the centrality of Scott's testimony to the State's case. See Olden, 488 U.S. at 233, 109 S.Ct. 480 (considering strength of State's case in evaluating whether Confrontation Clause violation was harmless). Scott's testimony was the only evidence that Mr. Sussman committed the heinous acts of which he was accused. Even without the false-accusation testimony, the jury acquitted Mr. Sussman on the charges related to exhibiting dangerous materials; it appears, therefore, that the jury harbored doubts as to some aspects of Scott's testimony. See id. (noting that the jury's verdict could not be squared with the State's theory of the alleged crime). We believe that this crucial evidence, which would have given the jury a motive for Scott's allegations against Mr. Sussman, very well may have tipped the balance in favor of Mr. Sussman.