Opinion ID: 1716639
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: Rebuttal Testimony of John Reding

Text: This matter is closely related to the previous discussion of the State's refusal to call Robert Dean Jones as a witness. The controversy concerning the testimony of Robert Dean Jones and the so-called rebuttal testimony of John Reding became one of the most bitterly contested issues of the whole trial. We are unable to attach the same importance to it as did either the State or the defense. The matter arose in this way. Robert Dean Jones, a student at the University and a resident in Rienow Hall, testified he was in the first floor corridor of that building talking with Elsie Barnes, the desk clerk at Rienow Hall, shortly after 3:00 P.M. on the day in question. He was waiting for the elevator, as he wanted to return to his room on the fifth floor to get a coat he had forgotten. When the elevator stopped on the first floor, Sarah Ann Ottens was there with an unidentified white male. (Defendant is black.) These two and Jones were the only persons on the car. As the three rode up, Miss Ottens and her companion engaged in some conversation although Jones does not recall the nature of it. They appeared to be friends, or at least acquainted, and they got off on the fourth floor together. Jones then went on up to the fifth floor. Elsie Barnes verifies this version except that she places the time about 4:00 P.M. and she was unable to see the second person on the elevator when it stopped at the first floor. She saw Miss Ottens and she saw the arm of a second person reach out to the button panel on the elevator. This is the sum total of Jones' testimony. Its value, of course, is to place Miss Ottens in the company of a male companion other than defendant at a critical time during the day of her death. The State then called John Reding as a rebuttal witness. Reding was a repairman who was working on the Rienow Hall elevators on the fatal day. He testified he rode the elevators up and down a number of times during the day as he was recabling the cars. He remembered specifically one occasion which he placed at approximately 2:00 P.M., although admitting it could have been a little later, when he rode with an unidentified girl and her unidentified male companion. He knew neither of them and could not give a description of them because he had broken his glasses and had very poor vision without them. He gave some description of the clothing the girl was wearing, which was consistent with the type of clothing Miss Ottens had on. Reding remembered the girl was carrying something and he thought it strange that her companion did not take this burden from her. Reding thought this couple was acquainted. He said they got off the elevator together but does not remember where. That was the substance of his testimony. Although the State insists that Reding's testimony was rebuttal because it explained the testimony of Robert Dean Jones, we find nothing in it of a rebuttal nature. Neither do we find anything of any importance, and we think it was entirely inconsequential to any issue in the case. Apparently the State's theory in offering this testimony was that the person Jones saw on the elevator with Miss Ottens was Reding, but the evidence conclusively refutes that conclusion. Not only are there material differences in time sequence (Reding places his ride near 2:00 P.M. and the testimony of Jones and Elsie Barnes places their observation at anywhere from 3:00 to 4:00 P.M.), there is the additional circumstance that the young lady Reding saw was carrying a package sufficiently large he thought her companion should have helped her with it. Yet neither Jones nor Elsie Barnes remembered seeing Miss Ottens carrying anything when they observed her. Besides the inconsistencies already noted, we point out additionally that Jones said Miss Ottens and her companion left the car together at the fourth floor. This could not have been Reding, who testified the couple he saw left the elevator together while he stayed on. Under the evidence, Reding could not have been the man Jones saw with Miss Ottens. The two witnesses, Jones and Reding, were simply describing different events. Jones saw Miss Ottens and a man who could not have been Reding leave the elevator together. Reding saw an unidentified girl and an unidentified man leave the elevator together approximately an hour earlier. There is nothing unusual about this kind of elevator traffic in a college dormitory building. Reding's testimony does not rebut or explain Jones' in a single detail. It was not proper rebuttal evidence. While we think that the trial court should have rejected Reding's testimony as not being rebuttal, the decision permitting him to testify was without prejudice. We believe the sum total of the testimony of Jones and Reding is this: Jones rode up on the elevator with Miss Ottens and an unidentified white male between 3:00 P.M. and 4:00 P.M. They got off on the fourth floor. Reding rode up on the elevator with an unidentified girl and an unidentified male about 2:00 P.M. He does not know who they are, he cannot describe them. In that case, too, the male was not a black although he was dark skinned and may have been of Mexican extraction. There was no reversible error here.