Opinion ID: 1325953
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: History of the Marital Communications Privilege

Text: Section 8-57 is a product of the continually evolving common law marital privileges that historically sought to promote credibility and protect the intimacy of the marital union. The traditional common law rule, which can be traced as far back as 1580, disqualified one spouse from testifying for or against the other spouse in a criminal action on the basis of incompetency. [4] As the Supreme Court of the United States explained in Trammel v. United States, [The rule] sprang from two canons of medieval jurisprudence: first, the rule that an accused was not permitted to testify in his own behalf because of his interest in the proceeding; second, the concept that husband and wife were one, and that since the woman had no recognized separate legal existence, the husband was that one. 445 U.S. 40, 44, 100 S.Ct. 906, 63 L.Ed.2d 186 (1980). This spousal incompetency rule, and its underlying justifications, survived well into the nineteenth century, although statutory modifications and exceptions were numerous. See James P. Nehf, Note, State v. Freeman: Adverse Marital Testimony in North Carolina Criminal ActionsCan Spousal Testimony Be Compelled?, 60 N.C. L.Rev. 874, 877 n. 24 (1982)[hereinafter, Adverse Marital Testimony ]. [5] The exceptions to the rule made clarification of the privilege necessary, and in the mid-nineteenth century, the specific marital communications privilege emerged. Id. at 878. This privilege is distinct from the spousal incompetency rule of the common law, in that it protects confidential communications between spouses made during the marriage. [6] Unlike the spousal incompetency rule, which seeks to promote credible testimony, the marital communications privilege is premised upon the belief that the marital union is sacred and that its intimacy and confidences deserves legal protection. See Hicks v. Hicks, 271 N.C. 204, 205, 155 S.E.2d 799, 800 (1967) (`[W]hatever is known by reason of that intimacy [marriage] should be regarded as knowledge confidentially acquired, and that neither [husband nor wife] should be allowed to divulge it to the danger or disgrace of the other.' (quoting State v. Jolly, 20 N.C. 108, 112 (1838) (alterations in the original))). In 1868 the North Carolina General Assembly preserved both the spousal incompetency rule and the marital communications privilege of the common law in our statutes. See Victor C. Barringer, et al., The Code of Civil Procedure of North Carolina tit. XIV, ch. VI, § 341 (Raleigh, Paige 1868) (discussing marital privilege as related to both civil and criminal proceedings). However, the Freeman decision in 1981 modified the common law spousal incompetency rule, prompting the legislature's enactment of the current section 8-57. See State v. Holmes, 330 N.C. 826, 828-35, 412 S.E.2d 660, 661-64 (1992) (detailing the history of the enactment of and legislative changes to section 8-57). The first two subsections of the current section 8-57 reflect the Freeman holding, establishing that one spouse is competent, but not compellable, to testify against another in a criminal proceeding, except in a few specific situations. N.C.G.S. § 8-57(a),(b) (2007). The codification of the marital communications privilege remains intact and is preserved in subsection 8-57(c). Subsection 8-57(c) states: No husband or wife shall be compellable in any event to disclose any confidential communication made by one to the other during their marriage. This Court has ruled that the privilege is held by both spousesmeaning that either spouse can prevent the other from testifying to a confidential communication. Holmes, 330 N.C. at 834, 412 S.E.2d at 665 (stating that subsection 8-57(c) protects the defendant's privilege to keep the other spouse in any event from disclosing any confidential communication made by one to the other during their marriage).