Opinion ID: 1386258
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: The Refusal by the Trial Court to Allow Engberg the Right to Call His Wife as a Witness

Text: A principal issue presented involves Engberg's challenge of the trial court decision to deny him the right to call his wife as a witness. I would reverse on this obvious and clearly significant error. In oral argument before this court, the State's appellate counsel related that  [o]n the issue of spousal privilege, it is our position that there was probable error here in the exclusion of the spouse's testimony.  (Emphasis added.) The State then explains the exclusion to have been harmless error. I conclude the denial of the testimony to be not only erroneous, but prejudicially harmful. It does not even come close to the constitutional criteria for harmless error. It not only may have but probably did have an effect on the decision of the jury. See Jones, 777 P.2d 54. Accord Limbaugh v. State, 549 So.2d 582 (Ala.Cr.App. 1989) and Cooper v. State, 769 S.W.2d 301 (Tex. App. 1989). The prosecutor's opening statement discussed Engberg's Las Vegas arrest and claimed Donna Engberg fingered her husband for the Casper murder. The opening statement by Engberg's attorney denied that claim and indicated the defense would produce evidence at trial to show the prosecution was wrong. That intended proof was circumvented when the State successfully invited Engberg's wife to assert her privilege not to testify. She complied. [15] The issue environment for jury understanding had been prejudicially created without evidence and Engberg was then denied opportunity to contest or defend. On October 25, 1982, Engberg's counsel moved to sup[p]ress testimony by his spouse as such testimony is completely inadmiss[i]ble by reason of Wyo. Stat.Ann.   . At a subsequent hearing on November 17, 1982, the subject was again addressed: [Defense Counsel]: Okay, Your Honor, we want  I think this motion for disclosure of informer is the easiest one. The State of Wyoming in its pretrial memorandum stated they have an informer and I don't know who the informer is. It would be paragraph 8(k), use of informer. There was an informer involved and I would assume from the giggle at counsel table over here that it was, probably, Donna Engberg, but I want to make sure. [Prosecution Counsel]: His assumption is correct, Your Honor. THE COURT: That's correct, Mr. Skaggs; that takes care of that. [Defense Counsel]: We have a ruling on that, that it is disclosed as Donna Engberg? THE COURT: Yes, counsel.       [Defense Counsel]: Now, Your Honor, you have not made a motion  let's see  let's take up an easier one first. We have filed a motion to suppress the testimony of one Donna Engberg who just happens to be the wife of Roy Lee Engberg. I am at that time  at this time going to withdraw that motion. We have been given a notice of hearsay statements by Donna Engberg, so it's apparent that if the State of Wyoming cannot force her to testify, they will just simply rely on this hearsay statement that they have already obtained from her which may or may not be admissible; I don't know. I haven't looked into it far enough, but I am going to withdraw the motion to suppress her testimony and at this time will give notice that I will consent to her being allowed to be called in the State's case in chief. At this time I would respectfully give notice that I am going to object to the use of hearsay statements upon my withdrawal of the motion to suppress her testimony. THE COURT: Okay. [Defense Counsel]: So that part of my pretrial memorandum where I said we would rely on that, I'm going to drop that. It's an interesting issue, what would come up if we were forced into the issue of spousal testimony, whether or not her hearsay statements would be admissible; it would be interesting. On November 4, 1982, the State had a subpoena served on Donna Engberg in Gothenburg, Nebraska. [16] The trial panorama then developed in mid-trial: [Prosecution Counsel]: As the Court is aware, the next witness we intend to call is Donna Engberg, the wife of the Defendant, and we are now here in chambers and the Defendant is present with his attorneys and we want to make it absolutely clear on the record that they are willing to waive any privilege or immunity for the wife to testify and agree to allow her to testify. THE COURT: Mr. Skaggs? [Defense Counsel]: Okay, Your Honor, at this particular point, we have advised our Defendant  with respect to this particular problem, we have advised him that it is his absolute right to claim spousal immunity and prevent her from testifying. We have further advised our client that if he elects to claim spousal immunity, there is a chance of the hearsay statements from Las Vegas to Officer Jim Cooper becoming available for use by the prosecution under the witness unavailable exception to the hearsay rule. Those statements are extremely damaging in themselves. We have reason to believe that she may change her testimony to some degree from those statements of benefit to Roy. Secondly, we have advised Roy of Wyoming Supreme Court decisions that indicate if the Defendant were to claim spousal immunity the prosecution could comment in closing on the Defendant's failure to call his wife as a witness. Those factors mitigated against claiming any spousal immunity. Roy, at this time, do you wish to assert the privilege of spousal immunity? THE DEFENDANT: No, go as you suggested, Wyatt. Let her get on the stand. THE COURT: You're saying, Mr. Engberg, that you are waiving spousal immunity? THE DEFENDANT: That is really the only alternative, isn't it? THE COURT: Well, I am not  THE DEFENDANT: Yeah, I will waive. THE COURT: Okay, we will convene in about five minutes, folks. [Defense Counsel]: Your Honor, at this time we would request that after her testimony on direct, we all have a recess so we can go over her testimony. THE COURT: I have no problems with that.       [Prosecution Counsel]:    The State calls Donna Engberg. DONNA ENGBERG having been called as a witness by the State, was first duly sworn and testified as follows, to wit: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY [Prosecution Counsel]: Q. For the record, could you please tell the Court and jury your name? A. Donna Engberg. Q. Where do you reside? A. Gothenb[u]rg, Nebraska. Q. Mrs. Engberg, you are the wife of the Defendant, Roy Engberg, are you not? A. Yes. Q. Is it your wish to testify in this case? A. No. Q. Are you willing to testify in this case? A. Not if I don't have to. Q. Mrs. Engberg, you know, that is your choice to make and we are asking you now what choice you want to make in this case, whether you want to testify or not? A. No, I don't. [Prosecution Counsel]: May we approach the bench, Your Honor? THE COURT: You may.       THE COURT: Mr. Guetz, she doesn't want to testify. [Prosecution Counsel]: We can't force her to. THE COURT: No, you can't force her to. [Defense Counsel]: I want the opportunity to cross-examine her and assert the immunity on every question. THE COURT: You want what? [Defense Counsel]: I want the opportunity to cross-examine her and assert the immunity on every question. THE COURT: I don't think if she refused to testify that  I would ask you, Mr. Guetz, to explain to her clearly that she has spousal immunity and she doesn't have to testify. [Defense Counsel]: I oppose that. She does not have the privilege. Roy has the privilege. THE COURT: She can assert the privilege. [Defense Counsel]: Your Honor, under case law, it's Roy's privilege to assert, not hers. THE COURT: Under the more recent rule, she can assert the immunity herself. Absolutely, she can assert that immunity on her own. The trial court was misadvised when it applied the federal Trammel rule on testimonial privilege which says the witness-spouse alone has a privilege to refuse to testify adversely; the witness may be neither compelled to testify nor foreclosed from testifying. Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40, 53, 100 S.Ct. 906, 914, 63 L.Ed.2d 186 (1980). Testimonial privilege prevents a spouse from testifying against the other. A confidential communication privilege prevents testimony which would reveal what was said in marital confidence. [17] The trial court should have applied Wyoming law found in W.S. 1-12-104: No husband or wife shall be a witness against the other except in criminal proceedings for a crime committed by one against the other, or in a civil action or proceeding by one against the other. They may in all civil and criminal cases be witnesses for each other the same as though the marital relation did not exist. This Wyoming statute has remained substantively unchanged since enacted in 1899. W.S. § 3681 (1899); Note, Spouse's Testimony in Criminal Cases, 19 Wyo.L.J. 35, 40 (1964). Direct consideration or at least implication of the issue of spousal testimony in Wyoming cases is found in Biggs v. State, 13 Wyo. 94, 77 P. 901 (1904); Strand v. State, 36 Wyo. 78, 252 P. 1030 (1927); Fox v. Fox, 75 Wyo. 390, 296 P.2d 252 (1956); State v. Spears, 76 Wyo. 82, 300 P.2d 551 (1956); Chamberlain v. State, 348 P.2d 280 (Wyo. 1960); Simms v. State, 492 P.2d 516 (Wyo.), cert. denied 409 U.S. 886, 93 S.Ct. 104, 34 L.Ed.2d 142 (1972); Pike v. State, 495 P.2d 1188 (Wyo. 1972); Seyle v. State, 584 P.2d 1081 (Wyo. 1978); and Amin v. State, 695 P.2d 1021 (Wyo. 1985). It is obvious that these cases afford no support for the present decision unless the second sentence of the law is disregarded. [18] To analyze the explicit Wyoming statute in relation to this case requires consideration of due process, constitutional fairness, or even whether any clear and unequivocal rule of law was violated by the trial court's rejection of the testimony which was compounded by appellate counsel's failure to present the issue on original appeal. Specifically, in close review of each one of these prior Wyoming cases, there is nothing in Wyoming law and precedent to state that a wife has a privilege not to testify when affirmatively requested to testify by her husband in a criminal prosecution. Among these numerous prior cases, W.S. 1-12-104 was considered in Amin, 695 P.2d 1021 in the context of a joint trial invoking spousal testimony in her own defense. This court settled the statutory violation problem in coerced result by first noting that privilege was not presented in objection to trial joinder and then concluding that the wife's testimony was not, in that court's present conception, exculpatory, although actually placing her husband at the scene with an availability of a gun for an armed robbery charge. Amin simply cannot support the present decision on the application of the Wyoming privilege statute as affording a right to the witness-spouse to refuse to testify when approved and requested to do so by the defendant. See 8 Wigmore, Evidence § 2242 (McNaughton rev. 1961). Consequently, this present post-trial construction of W.S. 1-12-104, which is now adopted, develops a differentiated application that has never been accepted in any prior Wyoming case. Argument that the legislature intended to make the privilege available to both the witness-spouse and the party-spouse is unsupported by case law or apparent statutory text. Since Engberg wanted to call his wife as a witness, there was no privilege for Donna Engberg to exercise and avoid testifying. Engberg was denied the constitutional right to call a potentially beneficial witness and was also denied due process under both the Wyoming and federal constitutions. After the education of the jury had been completed by prosecutorial opening statements, response and contradiction by Engberg became a problem of high stakes and compelling significance for any attack on the eyewitness identification case structure to hope to achieve an acquittal. Realistically by opening statement and trial presentation, Donna Engberg became a prosecutorial witness with a persuasion that Engberg could not diminish or defeat by any validly submitted actual evidence. While the admission of the wife's testimony in a criminal case where her husband is defendant is error per se unless coming under the exceptions of § 1-142 [W.S. 1-12-104], and circumstances determine whether or not it is prejudicial, nevertheless in view of the potential reversible error, no valid reason can be conceived why a trial court would admit the evidence of a spouse contrary to the directions of that statute. Pike, 495 P.2d at 1189 n. 2. There is nothing in Wyoming law to support the claim that a wife has a privilege not to testify when requested to do so by her husband in a criminal prosecution. In the circumstance of this case, since Engberg elected to permit the testimony as intended to be favorable by whomever presented, there was no privilege previously provided by Wyoming law for Donna Engberg to exercise in denial of his right to have admissible and singularly important defense evidence. Consequently, Engberg, as husband, was denied a constitutional right to a witness and also denied due process under both the Wyoming and federal constitutions. It is said with compelling logic in 8 Wigmore, supra, § 2241 at 254: But taking the other suggested reason for the privilege, namely, immunity from the repugnant situation of being condemned by one's spouse or of becoming the instrument of a spouse's condemnation   , the privilege seems to be equally that of party and of witness. The trial court's adoption of the Trammel rule renders the Wyoming statute meaningless if the wife can elect not to testify for her husband when corrosive prosecutorial pressure is applied. With the explicit state statute in place, adoption of the inapplicable federal Trammel rule becomes reversible error. Wyoming is not the only jurisdiction to reject the Trammel rule. The Texas court distinguished and disregarded Trammel in relying on their state statute in Young v. State, 603 S.W.2d 851 (Tex.Cr.App. 1980). Similarly said in Montana: Whatever merit this view may possess [ Trammel ], it applies only in the federal courts and is contrary to the statutory law of Montana. Our duty is to construe the law as we find it.    Absent constitutional or statutory infirmities, this Court is not empowered to change the statutory law of this state. State v. Roberts, 633 P.2d 1214, 1218 (Mont. 1981). See also State v. Shafer, 609 S.W.2d 153 (Mo. 1980); State v. Euell, 583 S.W.2d 173 (Mo. 1979); and State v. Evans, 170 W. Va. 3, 287 S.E.2d 922 (1982). It was recognized [i]n Michigan, for well over a century, the spousal privilege has been controlled by statute. People v. Wadkins, 101 Mich. App. 272, 300 N.W.2d 542, 546 (1980). See People v. VerMeulen, 432 Mich. 32, 438 N.W.2d 36 (1989). See also People v. Hamacher, 432 Mich. 157, 438 N.W.2d 43 (1989); People v. Thompson, 111 Mich. App. 324, 314 N.W.2d 606 (1981); and Note, People v. Hamacher: The Parameters of Privileged Marital Communications, 1990 Det.C.L.Rev. 177 (1990). Consider also the prosecutorial use under W.R.E. 804(b)(6) and 803(24) in State v. Bailey, 365 S.E.2d 46 (W. Va. 1987). Kentucky recognizes two separate statutory limitations on husband-wife testimony. One is disclosure of confidential communication and the second is privilege to refuse to testify. Although different in text from Wyoming, the statutory system is controlled. Estes v. Com., 744 S.W.2d 421 (Ky. 1987). Cf. Williams v. State, 430 N.E.2d 759, 768 (Ind.), appeal dismissed 459 U.S. 808, 103 S.Ct. 33, 74 L.Ed.2d 47, reh'g denied 459 U.S. 1059, 103 S.Ct. 479, 74 L.Ed.2d 626 (1982), where only privileged communication is recognized. After first recognizing that the error in form and substance is unquestioned, it becomes a bizarre recreation of the trial events to absolve the improper decision of the trial court by charging defendant's trial counsel with procedural default. Any such argument is misplaced in suggesting that for Engberg to protect the record against the error committed when the State called his wife to the stand in front of the jury, Jones, 777 P.2d 54, that he thereafter had to recall her again in his case to re-emphasize the prejudicial effect on the jury by her second election not to testify. No factual basis for charging trial counsel with this constitutional forfeiture by procedural default is found in trial events unless we ignore Engberg's continued effort to obtain the testimony of Donna Engberg. Obviously, to reach that answer to excuse the trial error, it is necessary to attach the procedural default failure and mistake to trial counsel. That would be novel both factually and in briefing for this case. Even if we adopt the convoluted construction of these facts argued by the State, then either appellate counsel had a duty to raise the failure as an ineffectiveness contention on initial appeal or that status is now properly before us as ineffectiveness of counsel, which has never been suggested by any prior brief writer, Engberg, the State or this court on initial appeal. Actually, there was no notice of objection failure of any significance by trial counsel and to suggest otherwise now in decision is highly inappropriate.