Opinion ID: 2257538
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Relevance of Brown's plea and proffer

Text: Under Delaware Rule of Evidence 401, the proffered evidence is relevant if it tends to make the existence of the defendant's guilt more or less probable. [21] In ruling the fact that Brown had pleaded guilty and the facts supporting Brown's proffer logically irrelevant, the trial judge relied on Potts, a case where the police raided the defendant's house pursuant to a search warrant. During the course of the search, the police arrested Potts and four of his companions, who were later indicted for the same drug charges: Possession with Intent to Deliver Heroin; Possession with Intent to Deliver Cocaine; Possession with Intent to Deliver Marijuana; Possession of Hypodermic Needles and Syringes; Maintaining a Dwelling for the Keeping of Controlled Substances; and Conspiracy Second Degree. Before Potts's trial, two of his companions pleaded guilty to simple possession of drugs under a plea agreement with the State. Potts sought to admit his codefendants' pleas at his later trial on the basis that their statements were exculpatory because they corroborated his defense that the drugs seized did not belong to him. In other words, Potts sought to admit his codefendants' guilty pleas to possession of drugs to demonstrate that they  and not he  possessed the drugs. We agreed with the trial judge's conclusion that the relevance of the codefendants' pleas was tenuous at best. We stated: The two codefendants who entered guilty pleas did so only as to the charges against themselves. Defendant did not establish that his companions' pleas constituted confessions to exclusive possession of the drugs. Hence, their pleas were not shown to exculpate defendant. In this case, the trial judge relied on Potts, stating: An accomplice being a person being charged to the same crimes with which a codefendant is charged, like a person in the position of Linda Charbonneau, is not relevant evidence. As our Supreme Court observed in Potts ... an accomplice plea does not exonerate a codefendant. The innocence or guilt of a defendant, or of a person in Ms. Charbonneau's position, must be settled only on the evidence produced during the trial. The trial judge's reading of Potts and his application of Potts to this case was misplaced. The trial judge concluded that Potts announced a categorical rule that an accomplice plea and proffered statements in support of the plea are always irrelevant because they do not exonerate a codefendant. We did not announce any such rule in Potts. In Potts, the defendant was attempting to establish, through the fact that his codefendants pleaded guilty, that he did not possess drugs. We held that the codefendants' pleas were irrelevant because they did not independently establish that the codefendants' exclusively possessed the drugs. That is, in Potts, the codefendants' guilty pleas did not make it more or less probable that the defendant also possessed drugs. Potts is distinguishable from this case. Linda did not seek the admission of Brown's plea and proffer to exonerate herself by seeking to establish that Brown, and not she, committed the murders. Rather, Linda sought to introduce Brown's plea and proffer to test Ms. Rucinski's credibility and to support an argument that the State does not have confidence in the strength of its case. [22] We agree that Brown's plea to two counts of First Degree Murder for a deal on his penalty did not, alone and without more, impeach Mellisa. The mere fact that Brown pleaded guilty did not give Mellisa motive to lie. But, Brown's proffered statements in support of his plea were relevant to test Mellisa's credibility on the degree of Linda's involvement in the crimes with which Mellisa, Brown and Linda were charged. The trial judge recognized that the State had good reason to believe Brown put too much of a finger of blame on Linda Charbonneau to get himself out of trouble and was less than truthful. [23] What the trial judge apparently failed to apprehend, however, is that the jury, after hearing the inconsistencies in the State's witnesses' versions of the events, might conclude that Mellisa had a similar motive to implicate Linda falsely. Brown proffered that Mellisa was the primary actor in Sproates's death. Brown's proffered statements gave Mellisa a motive to lie and to implicate falsely her codefendants. Defense counsel wanted to use Brown's proffer to demonstrate to the jury that Mellisa had a motive to lie both in her proffer and in her live testimony. The trial judge's refusal to credit the relevance of Brown's proffered statements to impeach Mellisa is best understood by focusing on the following question the trial judge posed to the defense: Brown has an axe to grind with Rucinski in falsely accusing her of killing Sproates. How does this automatically translate into some interest, bias, or prejudice of Mellisa Rucinski to falsely accuse Charbonneau? I'm asking the question because that's the question the defense is going to have to answer. [24] That question illustrates that the trial judge did not understand how Brown's proffered statements could impeach Mellisa. The reason, in our view, is that the trial judge had unqualifiedly endorsed the State's contention that it was Brown  and not Mellisa  who was lying. We agree that if Brown lied, his statements would provide a motive for Mellisa to falsely implicate him but not necessarily Linda. But, if Brown's proffered statements created a reasonable doubt in the jurors' minds about Mellisa's credibility generally, that doubt might also have affected the jury's analysis of the believability of Mellisa's version of Linda's involvement in the murders. It was error for the trial judge to accept the State's contention (and essentially find as fact) that Brown (not Mellisa) was lying and then to remove that issue from the jury. The prosecutors argued two reasons why they believed Brown was lying: (1) his statements were substantially inconsistent with Mellisa's; and, (2) no DNA was found on the knife that Brown claimed Mellisa used in killing Sproates. These reasons alone could not justify the trial judge taking from the jury the issue of the credibility of Mellisa's testimony about Linda's involvement in the murder. First, the fact that Brown's statements were inconsistent with Mellisa's could not, without more, justify concluding that Brown was lying. The State itself acknowledged that there are always inconsistencies in people's statements. [25] Further, the State and the trial judge both knew Mellisa was an admitted liar. At trial she admitted lying at every opportunity she had to speak about the case. [26] Certainly one could not reasonably conclude that Brown's statements were false solely because they were inconsistent with statements from someone who openly admitted she herself was a liar. Therefore, the trial judge was left with the argument that there was no DNA on a knife that Brown alleged Mellisa used to stab Sproates. But, to conclude that Brown must have been lying simply because there was no DNA on the knife is misguided. The absence of DNA on the knife can be explained by any number of circumstances  including the possibility that someone cleaned the knife after the murder. [27] Thus, we hold that the trial judge abused his discretion by accepting, as fact, the State's contention that Brown was lying but that Mellisa was truthful and by removing from the jury the issue of who spoke truthfully and whether the inconsistencies resulting raised a reasonable doubt about Linda's guilt. Mellisa provided all of the testimony necessary to convict Linda. Because Mellisa's testimony was the linchpin of the State's case, we cannot be confident that any evidence that could impeach Mellisa's credibility would not create a reasonable doubt about Linda's guilt. Because the jury might possibly believe Brown, Brown's proffered statements would be relevant to test Mellisa's credibility. In his proffer, Brown heavily implicated Mellisa. Brown claimed that Mellisa assisted in John's burial, and actively participated in Sproates's murder. The State itself, armed with Brown's statements that were posited as truthful, leveraged a deal with Mellisa. Surely the State suggested to Mellisa that she was facing First Degree Murder charges and a possible death sentence if a jury believed Brown's proffered statements. Motivated to ensure that she received a favorable plea bargain and to avoid a possible death sentence based on Brown's statements, Mellisa had an interest in falsely implicating either or both of her codefendants and in exculpating herself. Brown's proffered statements were clearly relevant to challenge Mellisa's truthfulness when she gave testimony implicating Linda. The trial judge erred in holding otherwise.