Opinion ID: 852752
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Pre-1998 Statutory Provisions

Text: In 1997 only two statutory provisions addressed husband and wife as witnesses. The first, the marital privilege appeared along with other statutory privileges in a single section of the chapter entitled Witnesses in the Civil Code of 1881 article of the Indiana Code. This statute was couched in terms of competence, not privilege. See Indiana Code § 34-1-14-5 (Burns Code Ed. Repl.1997). It provided: Except as otherwise provided by statute, the following persons shall not be competent witnesses: ... (5) Husband and wife, as to communications made to each other. Id. (italics supplied). Subsections (1) through (4) identified attorney/client, physician/patient, and other privileges, all prefaced by the shall not be competent witnesses lead-in. Although the statute referred to husbands and wives as being incompetent witnesses as to communications made to each other it was long held that this section created a privilege, not a disqualification of the witness. It protected only confidential communications between spouses, and did not prevent a spouse from testifying as to any other matter. [1] Before the 1998 recodification, the Witnesses chapter of the article entitled Civil Code of 1881 also included a Competency Statute. Indiana Code section 34-1-14-9 (Burns 1986) provided [w]hen the husband or wife is a party, and not a competent witness in his or her own behalf, the other shall also be excluded. This language had been applied only in will disputes, cases involving the dead man's statute, and actions by a husband for the seduction of his wife. It was typically used to prohibit the spouse of a party from testifying as to any matter that occurred during the lifetime of the incompetent spouse. [2] The Court of Appeals had specifically rejected the claim that the Competency Statute prevented a wife from testifying against a husband in his criminal trial. In Merry v. State, 166 Ind.App. 199, 335 N.E.2d 249 (1975), trans denied, the defendant claimed he was not a competent witness for the State by reason of his self-incrimination privilege. The court held that although Merry had the right to assert the privilege, he was not an incompetent witness and therefore his wife was not barred by the Competency Statute. Id. at 260. Similarly, in Gordon v. State, 609 N.E.2d 1085 (Ind.1993), the defendant in a criminal case argued that the trial court erred in permitting his wife to testify as to non-confidential communications. We held that the Competency Statute refers to the competency of the spouse when the other is excluded from testifying and did not apply because the defendant was not claiming that he was incompetent. Id. at 1087. In short, the law prior to the 1998 Recodification did not support Dow's contention that his wife could not testify. The offer to prove established that no privilege barred the testimony. And, [i]n contrast to the slow evolution of the law with regard to privilege in the federal system, Indiana long ago abolished the rule of absolute spousal incompetence in favor of a narrow privilege encompassing only confidential communications and information gained by reason of the marital relationship. State v. Roach, 669 N.E.2d 1009, 1011 (Ind.Ct.App.1996) (citing Shepherd v. State, 257 Ind. 229, 277 N.E.2d 165 (1971); Smith v. State, 198 Ind. 156, 152 N.E. 803 (1926); Vukodonovich v. State, 197 Ind. 169, 150 N.E. 56 (1926)).