Opinion ID: 1911040
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of the Trial Transcript

Text: Defendant's attorney was provided with a transcript of the probable cause hearing, which contained the testimony of the State's key witnesses, for use at the first trial. After that trial ended in a hung jury, defendant moved for a transcript of the first trial for use at his second trial. The presiding justice denied the motion, noting in the margin: No particularized need was shown by defendant. Defendant asserts that the ruling was error and that such error requires that this court grant him a new trial. Britt v. North Carolina, 404 U.S. 226, 92 S.Ct. 431, 30 L.Ed.2d 400 (1971), declares that it is error to deny an indigent defendant a free transcript of his first trial that ended in a mistrial unless he has available an adequate alternative to the transcript. [2] We recently applied the rule of Britt in State v. Curtis, Me., 399 A.2d 1330 (1979), a decision issued subsequent to both Goodall trials. Britt and Curtis recognized that a showing of particularized need  such as that which the trial justice apparently demanded of defendant  is unnecessary. Britt, supra 404 U.S. at 228, 92 S.Ct. 431. Thus, it was error for the justice to deny the requested transcript. Further, under the constitutional strictures of Britt, we hold that there was no alternative device available to defense counsel that could serve completely the same functions as a transcript. Although we find error, we find that it was beyond a reasonable doubt harmless error within the rule of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). We conclude that the unavailability to defense counsel of the transcript of the first trial did not have any effect upon the jury's determination of guilt in the instant case. In contrast to our conclusion in Curtis, we are here able to say with confidence after a careful study of the full record  including the transcript of the first trial prepared for purpose of the appeal on this issue  that beyond a reasonable doubt the [conviction] in the Superior Court [trial] would have been unchanged. Curtis, supra at 1333. The evidence of defendant's guilt is so overwhelming and the uses to which defendant could have put the prior transcript are so inconsequential that beyond a reasonable doubt the jury that convicted Goodall would have convicted him in any event. Ordinarily it can be expected that a transcript of a prior mistrial may be valuable to the defense in any of three ways: as a discovery device in preparation for the second trial, as a tool at the second trial for the impeachment of witnesses, [3] and as substantive evidence in that trial. [4] In the case at bar, defendant has made no assertion that his lawyer (who represented him at all times) was hampered in any way in obtaining further discovery, nor is there any apparent basis upon which such an argument could be made. [5] There is likewise no argument that the prior recorded testimony was needed as substantive evidence on behalf of defendant at his second trial. Defendant's one and only claim of prejudice arises from the unavailability of the transcript to use to impeach witnesses by prior inconsistent statements. Our inquiry is further influenced by the fact that, at the second trial, defense counsel did have available a complete transcript of the probable cause hearing, which included 88 pages of cross-examination of the State's key witnesses conducted by defense counsel himself, and the record of the second trial is replete with instances of its use for impeachment. Thus the narrow question which we address is whether there was any impeachment material available only from the transcript of the first trial that, if used at the second trial, could conceivably have led to a different result. At the outset, we note that the circumstances of both trials were substantially the same. A highly experienced trial lawyer was appointed to represent Goodall on March 24, 1978, the day after his arrest, and has continued to represent him at the probable cause hearing, at the first and second trials, and on this appeal. At both trials that lead counsel was assisted by his law partner, who also appeared as trial counsel. The second trial started on January 22, 1979, only 52 days after the first trial. The very same justice presided at both trials, with the same court reporter recording the proceedings. The identical principal witnesses appeared at both trials. Finally, defendant took the stand on his own behalf at both trials. At the second trial, the presiding justice offered to have the court reporter search her notes of the first trial and to read back any statements a witness denied having made at the first trial. Although defense counsel's memory of testimony at the first trial held less than two months before and the opportunity to have portions of the prior testimony read back to the witnesses did not constitute a fully adequate alternative to the transcript, cf. Britt, supra 404 U.S. at 228-29, 92 S.Ct. 431, they did go a substantial distance in negating any prejudicial consequences that might otherwise have resulted from the lack of a trial transcript in this particular case. [6] The record of the second trial specifically reveals that, even without the first trial transcript, defense counsel did in fact cross-examine extensively in an attempt to impeach the credibility of the State's witnesses. With regard to the eight witnesses who testified at the first trial but not at the probable cause hearing, we have compared their testimony at the first trial with that at the second trial, and we find that it is remarkably consistent. Furthermore, the great bulk of their testimony went to matters that were not in dispute. No impeachment of any consequence would have been possible using the trial transcript. Defendant points to only one area of inconsistent testimony among those eight witnesses. That was Joan Goodall's testimony as to the conversation at the kitchen table between Goodall and Smith after they had returned from Roland Grant's apartment. Because at the second trial she testified in rather greater detail than at the first as to specific statements made by the two men concerning the beating of Roland Grant, defendant asserts the trial transcript was indispensable to impeaching her testimony on that point. The fact is, however, that on cross-examination defense counsel successfully impeached her on the basis of her prior lack of memory on two separate occasions, including the first trial. First, counsel engaged in lengthy impeaching cross-examination based on his interview with her in late March right after the incident. Second, based on counsel's recollection of her testimony at the first trial, the following exchange took place: Q . . . Do you remember testifying under oath the last time we were  the last time you were testifying under oath about this that you couldn't remember who had said what in terms of what was said when they came back to the apartment? A That's what I said last time. Q Pardon? A I said yes, that's what I said last time. Q And you were [under] oath at the time when you said it? A Yes. With regard to the testimony of the State's two principal witnesses, Chaisson and Silver, the transcript of the probable cause hearing, which defense counsel had available and in fact used extensively, was far more useful than the trial transcript would have been; defense counsel would have gained nothing from the trial transcript. First, we consider the testimony of Al Chaisson. Defendant contends that in three crucial respects his lawyer was hampered by the lack of the trial transcript. First, Chaisson testified at the second trial that during the first phase of the fight Goodall stood beside him and told him to stay put and at one point pushed him back into his chair. In that testimony he went somewhat further than he had been willing to go in the two prior proceedings and could have been impeached. His testimony at the hearing, however, was far more at variance with what he said at the second trial; the hearing transcript was easily sufficient for impeachment on that line of testimony. Second, Chaisson testified at all three proceedings that Goodall and Smith took turns kicking Grant. The testimony at the first trial, however, was at least as damaging as that at the second trial. If anything could have helped defendant, it was the transcript of the probable cause hearing, at which Chaisson, in clarifying his testimony, said that Goodall kicked Grant only two or three times. In fact, defense counsel successfully brought out that prior testimony in cross-examining Chaisson at the second trial. Third, Chaisson testified at the probable cause hearing that while he was sitting in a chair in the living room, Smith came over and broke a mop handle over his head and later threw a chair at him. At the first trial, he could not recall which one of them had done it. At the second trial, however, he stated that Goodall had done it. Thus, of the two instances of prior inconsistent testimony, that contained in the hearing transcript revealed a flat contradiction; that was clearly more useful for impeachment purposes than testimony as to a lack of memory. In fact, the record is quite clear that on cross-examination counsel confronted Chaisson with the specific questions and answers contained in the hearing transcript and, on that basis, was successful in convincing the witness to retract his direct testimony and to adopt his former testimony that Smith  not Goodall  had struck him with the mop handle and had thrown the chair at him. Any use of the trial transcript at that point would have been superfluous. With respect to the testimony of Sharon Silver, we are similarly convinced that the unavailability of the trial transcript resulted in no prejudice whatever to defendant. Defendant points to one area of the testimony which he deems crucial, her statement that when she reentered Grant's apartment and saw Grant lying bloodied on the floor, she observed Goodall deliver a very hard kick to Grant's head. Defense counsel desired to show, and presumably argued to the jury, that Silver could not possibly have made the observation she testified to because at the time her mind was blown. Silver admitted at both trials that her mind was blank and that she had suffered a complete nervous breakdown just prior to making the observation at issue. Nevertheless, defense counsel persisted in attempting to elicit testimony that her mind was blown. On cross-examination, he asked Silver whether or not she had previously so testified, to which she responded, No. Defendant asserts that he was prejudiced by not having the trial transcript readily available at that point. In fact, there was no prior inconsistent statement made at the first trial; her testimony was the same at both trials. The characterization mind was blown was used only in the questions propounded to the witness by defense counsel, and Silver never adopted it as her own testimony. In any event, the difference between a blown mind and a blank mind, if any, was inconsequential. [7] In conclusion, Goodall's attorney, exploiting what few inconsistencies were available to him in an attempt to impeach the State's witnesses, succeeded in getting as much mileage as it was possible to get; even if he had the trial transcript available, there was simply nothing more that he could have placed before the jury. Finally, the evidence of defendant's guilt was so overwhelming as to make any impeachment of the prosecution witnesses of no consequence whatever in the final result of the jury's deliberations. Defendant's confession to officer Millett that he and Smith had beaten up Grant and that they had done it using their fists and feet as weapons was, in and of itself, completely adequate to support the finding of guilt. Furthermore, Goodall himself took the stand (as he had at the first trial) and on the nub of the State's case acknowledged his presence at the scene of the crime and acknowledged that he nudged Grant with his feet. Although collateral to the specific facts of the homicide itself, defendant corroborated from the witness stand virtually every bit of damaging testimony that had come in throughout the course of the trial. Specifically, he admitted that Sharon Silver's version of the bizarre sexual things that occurred in his apartment was substantially accurate. In detail after detail, he admitted his participation in the succession of violent events leading up to the brutal, final act of that morning's tragic drama  including the incident with the dog, the confrontation with Mr. Laidlaw, the events in Mr. Young's apartment, the incident involving the paperboy. Having regard to all of the circumstances of this case, it is difficult to imagine a clearer case of harmless error. There could not be a more appropriate application of the rule of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), that even constitutional error, such as the denial of the trial transcript to this defendant, is not a ground for reversal if the reviewing court is able to declare a belief. . . beyond a reasonable doubt, id. at 24, 87 S.Ct. at 828, that nothing defense counsel could have done with the transcript would have had any effect upon the jury's determination of guilt. To reverse Goodall's conviction, because his counsel did not have a transcript of his first trial, would  in our judgment  turn a Britt violation into a per se reversible error. That we are not willing to do. We cannot emphasize enough, however, the necessity that our trial courts accord indigent defendants their constitutional right to a free transcript of prior proceedings to aid them in making an effective defense or appeal. State v. Curtis, supra . Exercise of that right may not be made contingent upon the defendant's showing a particularized need. Britt v. North Carolina, supra 404 U.S. at 228, 92 S.Ct. 431.