Opinion ID: 2274149
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Any Error in Applying Marital Communications Privilege was Harmless.

Text: Winstead contends the trial court erred by permitting his ex-wife, Terri Rainwater, to testify in contravention of the spousal privilege set forth in KRE 504. We conclude that any error was harmless. Rainwater was Winstead's wife at the time of the murder, but the two had separated and divorced by the time of trial. Police initially interviewed Rainwater when investigating the murder, and she reported that Winstead had returned home at approximately 7:30 the night of the murder. Later on, she contacted the police through counsel and told police that she had not been truthful in her initial interview with them. In a second interview, Rainwater told police that Winstead had not arrived home until about 9:05 on the night of the murder. She later explained in her trial testimony that she had made the initial, false statement because her husband told her to do so. The 7:30 to 9 p.m. time difference was critical information because Branson was last seen leaving a church service at about 7 p.m. Her housekeeper reported receiving a call from her about 9 p.m. The medical examiner determined that Branson had probably died sometime that evening after returning from the church service. [6] Winstead filed a motion in limine seeking to bar Rainwater at trial from testifying at all about events occurring during their marriage and seeking to exclude confidential statements made by him to Rainwater during their marriage. And this motion sought to exclude in particular the communications between Winstead and Rainwater concerning what she should tell police about his whereabouts the night of the murder. But the trial court ruled that communications between spouses about establishing an alibi were not privileged because an alibi, by its very nature, was intended for disclosure. Winstead contends that the trial court erred in this ruling because [t]he confidential communication between the husband and spouse was not just the alleged alibi but the request that it be communicated as an alibi and there can be no doubt that [Winstead] would not have intended for her to communicate this request to a third party. Rainwater testified at trial over Winstead's objection. She told the jury that Winstead arrived home about 9:05 on the night of the murder. She also testified that a few days after the murder, Winstead told her that because of his gambling problems, she should tell police he arrived home at 7:30 the night of the murder. Rainwater further testified that Winstead told her that on the evening of the murder he had been in a church parking lot having a discussion with a friend, Rick Blanchard. Rainwater testified that no one else was present when Winstead asked her to tell police he arrived home at the earlier time. She also testified that Winstead told her that he had had a discussion with his father and that he and his father had decided what to do before Winstead told her to say he arrived home at the earlier time. She further testified that Winstead later told his friend Blanchard to borrow a drill to support the story. The Commonwealth points out that Blanchard testified to borrowing a drill from Winstead the night of the murder. KRE 504 contains two separate evidentiary privileges. The first, contained in section (a), is the testimonial privilege by which a spouse may refuse to testify, or may prevent the other spouse from testifying against him or her, as to events occurring after the date of their marriage.... [7] Since Rainwater was no longer Winstead's wife at the time of trial, the testimonial privilege of KRE 504(a) was inapplicable; and the trial court did not err in allowing Rainwater to testify against Winstead about events occurring during their marriage. [8] Although in a published case we did not explicitly holdbut strongly hintedthat the spousal testimony privilege survives only as long as the marriage, [9] we have explicitly held in an unpublished case that the spousal testimony privilege does not extend to a former spouse. [10] We now, again, definitively hold that the spousal testimony privilege ends when the marriage is dissolved. But the lingering question is whether the challenged portion of Rainwater's testimony was a confidential communication that should have been barred under the marital communication privilege of KRE 504(b). That marital communications privilege (as to confidential communications made during the marriage) survives divorce. [11] Winstead contends that the trial court erroneously failed to exclude his communication to Rainwater that because of his gambling problem, it would be better to tell police that he arrived home at 7:30 p.m. the night of the murder. The Commonwealth responds that because Rainwater testified to Winstead's telling her that he discussed this concocted alibi with others, his communications with her were meant for disclosure, rendering the privilege nonexistent or waived. The Commonwealth further argues that even if the trial court did err in failing to exclude as privileged the challenged alibi request, the error was harmless because the jury would nevertheless have heard Rainwater recant her original time estimate in favor of the later time. [12] Winstead also contends that Rainwater should not have been allowed to testify about the time he actually did arrive home the night of the murder because her observation of his arrival time would itself be considered a confidential communication under the broad definition of communication used in cases like Slaven v. Commonwealth. [13] KRE 504(b) states, [a]n individual has a privilege to refuse to testify and to prevent another from testifying to any confidential communication made by the individual to his or her spouse during their marriage. Under KRE 504(b), a communication is considered confidential when it is made privately by an individual to his or her spouse and is not intended for disclosure to any other person. In Slaven, we quoted with approval a case from 1890 for the conclusion that the term communication is so broad that it may not be confined to a mere statement by the husband to the wife or vice versa; but should be construed to embrace all knowledge upon the part of the one or the other obtained by reason of the marriage relation, and which, but for the confidence growing out of it, would not have been known to the party. [14] As the Commonwealth notes, the broad definition of communication in Slaven seems to be contrary to the principle that spousal privileges are to be narrowly construed. [15] And the Commonwealth adds that the expansive definition of communication leads to potentially absurd results, such as deeming one spouse's surreptitious observations of the other spouse a communication. Finally, Professor Robert Lawson notes in his evidence treatise that other courts take a much narrower view of what is properly deemed a communication. [16] The question of whether we should limit what may properly be deemed a communication under KRE 504 is interesting and potentially important. Here, however, the only type of alleged non-verbal communication at issue is Rainwater's observation of the time that Winstead arrived home. We note that Winstead does not allege that others would not have been able to observe the time he arrived home; for instance, Rainwater's children, who were also home at the time, any persons walking or driving by their home at the time, or any neighbors within sight of his home could have also observed what time Winstead arrived home. Because the time of Winstead's arrival at home could have also been observed by others outside the marriage, we cannot say that Rainwater's observation of her husband's arrival time was a confidential communication between the two spouses even if it might be construed as a communication under the broad definition used in our precedent. [17] So, because the only challenged non-verbal communication in this case was not confidential, we need not revisit in this case whether our broad definition of communication in this context needs to be narrowed. Rather, we need only determine whether a request to one's spouse to communicate an alibi to police is privileged. This appears to be a matter of first impression in Kentucky. Other courts and commentators have split over this issue. For example, in a decision relied upon by the Commonwealth, the Supreme Court of Arkansas has ruled that the spousal privilege is inapplicable when one spouse asks another to communicate a false alibi to the authorities because the requesting spouse expects the other spouse to communicate the fabrication to the authorities. The Arkansas court reasons that the communication between spouses is not privileged here because the requestor intended the alibi to be disclosed to a third party. [18] On the other hand, this approach is criticized by the esteemed FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE treatise, which opines that [w]hen a husband tells his wife to give the police a false alibi, what he intends to be conveyed to the police is the false story, not his direction to his wife to tell that story. [19] In other words, when one spouse asks the other spouse to give specific false information to the authorities, the requesting spouse expects the other only to give the requested false information to authorities, not to disclose the request to give that false information. [20] This conclusion is logical, and we believe this approach is more consistent with the plain language of KRE 504. Despite our disapproval of the act of requesting one's spouse to give false information to police, we nonetheless must follow the plain language of KRE 504(b) to prohibit admission of such requests where such a request is communicated privately to the spouse and the request itself is not intended for disclosure to others. [21] But the privilege is inapplicable if the evidence shows that the request to convey a false alibi was not made privately between the spousesat least one other person was present when the request was madeor if the evidence shows that the requesting spouse intended to disclose to others the particular request that spouse made to the other. In the case at hand, Winstead's request was made privately to Rainwater because no one else was present to witness this communication made by Winstead to Rainwater. Whether Winstead's request that Rainwater give certain false information to police was intended for disclosure to others is a more difficult question to answer. The parties have cited nothing in the record to suggest that anyone else directly testified to Winstead's having told them that he requested his wife to give the specified, and apparently false, information to police. But Rainwater testified that Winstead told her that he had had a discussion with his father and that he and his father had made a decision about what to do before directing her to tell police he got home at the earlier time of 7:30 p.m. Although this testimony from Rainwater implies that Winstead and his father may have discussed what Rainwater and others should tell police about Winstead's whereabouts the night of the murder, this testimony does not specifically show that Winstead had disclosed or intended to disclose his specific request to Rainwater to others or that he had told or intended to disclose this information to others. Although a private communication from one spouse to another requesting that false alibi information be given to police would be privileged under KRE 504(b) so long as the request itself was not intended for disclosure to others, any error by the trial court in admitting Rainwater's testimony of the request here was harmless. [22] We agree with the Commonwealth that even if Winstead's request to Rainwater had been excluded, the jury would still presumably have been presented with evidence that Rainwater first told police that Winstead arrived home at 7:30 the night of the murder but later recanted that statement, labeling it as untruthful. She changed her story to be that Winstead did not actually arrive home until about 9:05 p.m. Although the jury would not have heard direct testimony on the reason for her initial false information to police if the request and related communications solely between the spouses were excluded, the jury might still have inferred that Rainwater had been asked to lie or may have simply found her statements or testimony as to his arrival home to lack reliability. Rainwater's testimony that Winstead told Blanchard to borrow a drill to support the story was properly admitted because this alleged communication to Blanchard in Rainwater's presence was clearly not privileged under KRE 504 because it was not a communication to a spouse and was not made privately. Despite the circumstantial nature of the evidence against Winstead and the highly probative value of the evidence of Winstead's whereabouts during the evening of the murder, given other evidence of guilt, the circumstances of his flight to Costa Rica, and his apparent motive for killing Branson, we can say with fair assurance that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error; and, thus, the error was harmless. [23]