Opinion ID: 865149
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: denial of requests for handwriting exemplars

Text: AND FOR AUTHENTICATION OF DOCUMENTS BY THE MISSISSIPPI CRIME LAB. ¶11. The standard of review of the trial court’s denial of expert assistance is whether an abuse of discretion occurred such that the defendant was denied due process whereby the trial was fundamentally unfair. Richardson v. State, 767 So. 2d 195, 197 (Miss. 2000) (citing Coleman v. State, 697 So.2d 777, 780 (Miss. 1997)). “The State does not have a constitutional obligation to provide indigent defendants with the costs of expert assistance 5 upon every demand.” Townsend v. State, 847 So. 2d 825, 829 (Miss. 2003) (citing Johnson v. State, 476 So. 2d 1195, 1202 (Miss. 1985)). “Mississippi case law states expert assistance should be granted upon showing of substantial need.” King v. State, 784 So. 2d 884, 888, (Miss. 2001) (citing Holland v. State, 705 So. 2d 307, 333 (Miss. 1997)). ¶12. Flora requested the trial court to order Roger Johnson (Flora’s cousin and codefendant) and Derrick Jones to submit to handwriting exemplars, in order to authenticate two statements allegedly written by Johnson and Jones. These statements suggested Johnson was the person who actually shot Ray Spann, and thus could be exculpatory evidence for Flora. The State opposed the motion, arguing that the statements were neither signed nor dated, that forcing a co-defendant to submit to a handwriting exemplar would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and that they were blatant hearsay. The trial court denied the motion, but Flora renewed it at a subsequent hearing. The trial court again denied Flora’s motion and allowed the statements to be marked for identification purposes only. ¶13. Rule 901 of the Mississippi Rules of Evidence governs the authentication of documents in Mississippi trial courts. Flora sought to have the exemplars and the statements in question authenticated by an expert witness under Rule 901(b)(3), which provides that a document may be authenticated by “comparison by the trier of fact or by expert witness with specimens which have been authenticated.” M.R.E. 901(b)(3). While this is an acceptable form of authentication, it is certainly not the only form. 6 ¶14. A handwritten document may be authenticated by someone who is familiar with the handwriting of the purported writer of the document. M.R.E. 901(b)(2). This rule of evidence is well-established in Mississippi case law. “A witness who in the course of official business or in any other way has acquired by experience a knowledge of a person’s handwriting, may state his opinion as to whether a particular writing was made by such person.” Wiggins v. State, 80 So. 2d 17, 19 (Miss. 1955). In Wiggins, a criminal defendant was convicted of capital murder due, in part, to a handwritten letter in which he confessed to the murder. Id. On appeal, this Court upheld the admission of that letter which was authenticated by a woman who was familiar with the defendant’s handwriting. Id. ¶15. In Schmerber v. California 384 U.S. 757, 86 S. Ct. 1826, 16 L. Ed. 2d 908 (1966), the U.S. Supreme Court discussed the reach of the Fifth Amendment right against selfincrimination. Schmerber dealt with the withdrawal of blood from a DUI suspect, and the Supreme Court held that such withdrawal did not violate the suspect’s Fifth Amendment privilege. Id. at 772. It further held that the Fifth Amendment privilege reaches to compulsion of an “accused’s communications” and not to “compulsion which makes a suspect or accused the source of real or physical evidence.” Id. at 763-64. This holding was specifically extended to handwriting exemplars in Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S. Ct. 1951, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1178 (1967). We recognized the Gilbert holding in Burns v. State, 729 So. 2d 203, 216 (Miss. 1998), where we stated that “a mere handwriting exemplar, in 7 contrast to the content of what is written, like the voice or body itself, is an identifying characteristic outside [the] protection [of the Fifth Amendment].” ¶16. The handwriting exemplars requested by Flora would have been used to authenticate the statements allegedly written by Johnson and Jones, not as testimonial evidence at trial. Therefore, in light of the holdings of the U.S. Supreme Court and this Court, there would have been no violation of the United States and Mississippi Constitutions in requiring Roger Johnson and Derrick Jones to submit handwriting exemplars in order to authenticate their alleged statements. However, if the trial court had ordered the handwriting exemplars as requested by Flora (assuming that Johnson and Jones would have cooperated), a handwriting expert would have been required to compare the exemplars to the alleged written statements in order to authenticate them. Flora requested that an expert be appointed by the trial court at the expense of the State because his client “[was] indigent and [could] not afford to obtain the requested assistance.” ¶17. There is nothing in the record that indicates Flora ever attempted to have these statements authenticated by locating someone familiar with the handwriting of Johnson or Jones. There is no indication there was a good faith effort to locate anyone who might have been able to authenticate these statements. Instead, Flora immediately asked the State of Mississippi to provide the funds for him to hire an expert who may or may not have found that these statements of mysterious origin 1 were actually what Flora purported them to be. 1 The statements were unsigned, not dated and had no indicia of reliability whatsoever. When questioned about when he obtained these statements, which were not 8 Because there was never an attempt by Flora to authenticate these statements in any other way, we cannot properly hold there was a “substantial need” for expert assistance under the standard from King and Holland. ¶18. Though a court-ordered handwriting exemplar would not have violated the Fifth Amendment privilege of either Jones or Johnson, it is unlikely they would have cooperated with the trial court’s order. Even if they had cooperated, a handwriting expert still would have been required to authenticate the statements. There was no error in denying Flora’s motion to compel handwriting exemplars from Johnson and Jones, and to appoint the Mississippi crime lab to authenticate the documents. Further, it was not an abuse of discretion for the trial judge to refuse to provide funds for experts to aid in Flora’s defense.