Opinion ID: 421753
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Joint Participants

Text: 5 The exception which most clearly defeats Clark's assertion of the privilege not to testify against his spouse is the joint participants exception. This court expressly recognized the joint participants exception in United States v. Van Drunen, 501 F.2d 1393, 1397 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1091, 95 S.Ct. 684, 42 L.Ed.2d 684 (1974). The court stated: Today's holding ... limits the privilege to those cases where it makes most sense, namely, where a spouse who is neither a victim nor a participant observes evidence of the other spouse's crime. Id. (emphasis added). 6 The Van Drunen court gave two reasons for creating the joint participants exception. The first was that the goal intended to be served by the privilege, i.e., preventing either spouse from committing the unforgivable act of testifying against the other in a criminal case, did not justify assuring a criminal that he or she could enlist the aid of a spouse in a criminal enterprise without fear that by recruiting an accomplice the criminal was creating another potential witness. Id. at 1396. The second reason was that the rehabilitative effect of a marriage, which in part justifies the privilege, is diminished when both spouses are participants in the crime. Id. at 1397. 7 Clark argues that Van Drunen does not apply to him because the real purpose of the joint participants exception is to prevent sham marriages and there was no evidence his marriage is a sham. However, there is nothing in the Van Drunen opinion suggesting that the possibility of a sham marriage had anything to do with the creation of the joint participants exception. See id. at 1396-97. The only reasons for the exception were the two mentioned above. That the absence of a sham marriage rationale in the opinion is not an oversight is shown by the fact that the Van Drunen court did discuss a concern with sham marriages in another part of its opinion, the part discussing the acts-prior-to-marriage exception. Simply stated, the joint participants exception is not qualified by any concern about whether the marriage is a sham. 8 Furthermore, a joint participants exception is consistent with the general policy of narrowly construing the privilege. The privilege has received much criticism from commentators because it generally retards truth seeking. 8 Wigmore, Evidence § 2228, at 221 (McNaughton rev. 1961) (In an age which has so far rationalized, depolarized and dechivalrized the marital relation and the spirit of femininity as to be willing to enact complete legal and political equality and independence of man and woman, this marital privilege is the merest anachronism in legal theory and an indefensible obstruction to truth in practice.); McCormick, Evidence, § 66, at 145-46 (2d ed. 1972) (The privilege is an archaic survival of a mystical religious dogma and of a way of thinking about the marital relation that is today outmoded.) The last time the Supreme Court considered the privilege it restricted its availability to the witness-spouse only, making it unavailable to the defendant-spouse. Trammel, 445 U.S. at 53, 100 S.Ct. at 914. 1 9 Furthermore, at least two other circuits have recognized the joint participants exception to a similar marital privilege, the privilege against one spouse testifying as to the confidential communications of the other. United States v. Mendoza, 574 F.2d 1373, 1379-81 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 988, 99 S.Ct. 584, 58 L.Ed.2d 661 (1978); United States v. Cotroni, 527 F.2d 708, 712-13 (2nd Cir.1975), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 906, 96 S.Ct. 2226, 48 L.Ed.2d 830 (1976). We reject the holding of the Third Circuit that there should not be a joint participants exception to the privilege not to testify against a spouse. Appeal of Malfitano, 633 F.2d 276, 278-79 (3d Cir.1980). The Third Circuit did not consider the principal rationale of Van Drunen, that the public interest in discouraging a criminal from enlisting the aid of his or her spouse as an accomplice outweighs the interest in protecting the marriage.