Opinion ID: 1986196
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the motion for relief from prejudicial joinder

Text: The defendant moved before the trial justice that he be given a separate trial on each of the three murder counts and also that he be given a separate trial on the kidnapping count in respect to Emily. The defendant claimed that he might desire to testify on one or more of the offenses but might assert the Fifth Amendment privilege not to testify in respect to other counts. He relied in his motion upon Rule 14 of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure, which provides that the court may order separate trials of the counts if it appears that a defendant is prejudiced by joinder of offenses in an indictment. In the case at bar the indictment contained eleven counts that were joined pursuant to Rule 8(a) of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure since all the counts were based on the same act or transaction or on two or more acts or transactions connected together and constituting parts of a common scheme or plan. There seems no question that the murders of the three members of the Brendel family, the kidnapping of Emily Brendel, the breaking and entry into the Brendel premises, the issuance of the forged checks, and the burial of the bodies all took place within a time frame of approximately five days, beginning September 19 and ending with Hightower's arrest on September 23. The eleven counts were properly joined pursuant to Rule 8(a) as we decided in State v. Lassor, 555 A.2d 339 (R.I. 1989). In Lassor we also recognized that counts that might be joined pursuant to Rule 8(a) might nevertheless be a proper subject for a motion for severance in the event that the defendant was able to show such prejudice as might constitute a denial of his right to a fair trial[.] 555 A.2d at 345; see also State v. Whitman, 431 A.2d 1229, 1232-33 (R.I. 1981); State v. Sharbuno, 120 R.I. 714, 717-19, 390 A.2d 915, 917-18 (1978). We went on to hold in Lassor that our standard of review of a trial justice's decision declining to sever counts pursuant to Rule 14 has been that of an abuse of discretion. 555 A.2d at 345 (citing Whitman, 431 A.2d at 1233). In Lassor the defendant had been charged with three counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, and one count of first-degree sexual assault. The offenses had occurred over a relatively short period from June to September during the year 1984. 555 A.2d at 340. We held that the crimes were sufficiently similar so as to show a common scheme or plan as had been found to exist in Whitman and Sharbuno. Id. at 346. We went on to comment that it would have been difficult if not impossible to segregate the testimony relating to certain aspects of one crime, particularly the taking of a statement from the defendant, from aspects relating to other crimes. We suggested that severance would have created confusion and unanswered questions in the minds of the jurors if they heard a truncated version in respect to each offense. Id. In commenting upon the defendant's suggestion that he would have testified in respect to certain counts in the event of severance, we noted that he did not point out to the trial justice or to this court what his testimony would have been in respect to the counts upon which he proposed the possibility of testifying. Id. In Lassor, as in this case, the effect of this undescribed testimony was left wholly to speculation. See id. The problems enunciated in Lassor are even more compellingly applicable to the case at bar. Here the state charged three murders and a kidnapping that were virtually contemporaneous. The charges of breaking and entering, the forgery of two checks, and the burial of the bodies of the victims were all inextricably intertwined with the common scheme and design of murdering an entire family. Not only were these offenses properly joined under Rule 8(a) but the judge was entirely correct in declining to sever the charges pursuant to Rule 14.