Opinion ID: 1383985
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: exclusion of williams's testimony

Text: This Court has recognized that neither the prosecution nor the defense may call a witness knowing that the witness will assert his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, [1] and we have applied this black-letter law in cases where a witness invokes the privilege in order to avoid answering any substantive questions. [2] However, in Commonwealth v. Gettys , [3] the Court of Appeals recognized that the black-letter principle may be inapplicable when a preliminary inquiry reveals that the witness would invoke the privilege in response to some questions, but could otherwise give relevant testimony. [4] The Gettys Court recognized that a trial court could allow the witness to testify, but limit the scope of cross-examination to avoid unrelated topics upon which the witness would invoke the privilege. [5] The federal courts have addressed analogous issues in three (3) contexts: (1) where a defense witness invokes the privilege as to one or more cross-examination questions from the prosecution (implicating the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to compulsory process); [6] (2) where a prosecution witness invokes the privilege as to one or more of the defense's cross-examination questions (implicating the defendant's Sixth Amendment confrontation rights); [7] and (3) where the defendant testifies in his or her own defense, but invokes the privilege as to one or more of the prosecution's questions on cross-examination (implicating the defendant's Fifth Amendment right to testify in his own defense). [8] Although there are different constitutional concerns at stake in each situation, the federal courts have recognized that prohibiting a witness from testifying or striking the entirety of a witness's testimony is a drastic remedy not lightly invoked, [9] but that may be necessary when refusal to answer the questions of the cross-examiner frustrates the purpose of the process. [10] As such, the federal courts have recognized the importance of cross-examination to the truth-seeking adversarial process: Whether a witness is telling the truth or lying is as important as what the witness says, and there is no better way than cross examination under oath to help a jury decide whether it is being lied to: The belief that no safeguard for testing the value of human statements is comparable to that furnished by cross-examination, and the conviction that no statement (unless by special exception) should be used as testimony until it has been probed and sublimated by that test, has found increasing strength in lengthening experience. Not even the abuses, the mishandlings, and the puerilities which are so often found associated with cross examination have availed to nullify its value. It may be that in more than one sense it takes the place in our system which torture occupied in the mediaeval system of the civilians. Nevertheless, it is beyond any doubt the greatest legal engine ever developed for the discovery of truth. However difficult it may be for the layman, the scientist, or the foreign jurist to appreciate this its wonderful power, there has probably never been a moment's doubt upon this point in the mind of a lawyer of experience. V Wigmore on Evidence § 1367 (Chadbourne rev. ed. 1974). A person's story is not much use to a jury if the jurors are denied the information they need to evaluate how likely it is that the story is true. [11] A defendant's Sixth Amendment right to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor [12] does not transcend the adversarial system and defense witnesses must be subject to the prosecution's cross-examination: Where a defense witness refuses to answer questions that go to the heart of the direct testimony on a central issue, however, the truth-seeking function of the court is impaired. The Sixth Amendment does not confer the right to present testimony free from the legitimate demands of the adversarial system; one cannot invoke the Sixth Amendment as a justification for presenting what might have been a half-truth. Where a defense witness's invocation of Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination amounts to a refusal to be cross-examined, the testimony cannot be considered reliable. [13] However, the federal courts have recognized the necessity of accommodating valid assertions of privilege by defense witnesses, and have found the drastic remedy of precluding testimony appropriate only where a witness's invocation of the privilege frustrates cross-examination on issues material to the witness's testimony: When cross-examination is precluded only with respect to collateral issues, the Sixth Amendment does not require the court to strike the witness's testimony. When cross-examination on material issues raised on direct examination is curtailed because of a witness's valid claim of privilege, however, the trial court, in its discretion, may refuse to permit that witness's testimony. Just as the trial court must be vigilant in ensuring that a defendant has a full and fair cross-examination, it must similarly safeguard the government's cross-examination to prevent co-conspirators from `whitewashing' each other through the use of testimony unchallengeable for one reason or another. We have recognized that it may sometimes be feasible for a district court to reconcile the defendant's right to present witnesses with a witness's privilege against self-incrimination by limiting the scope of the latter's testimony. In striking the appropriate balance between a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights and the government's interest in cross-examination, a trial judge may or even must limit the government's cross-examination on collateral matters if this can be done without unduly limiting the government and if doing so will preserve the defendant's ability to call a material witness who would otherwise claim the privilege. Where ... a defense witness's claim of privilege shields material testimony from cross-examination, however, this balance weighs against the defendant. [14] In the case before the Court, the trial court properly conducted a preliminary inquiry into the witness's testimony outside the presence of the jury, [15] and that questioning revealed that Williams would invoke the privilege as to two (2) questions: (1) Do you know if Angela took any, or attempted to take any items there at the K-Mart?; and (2) Ma'am, what was your involvement? The question before this Court, therefore, is whether the trial court abused its discretion [16] when it precluded Williams from testifying because she would invoke her privilege as to these two (2) questions. During arguments at the bench on its motion to preclude Williams's testimony, the Commonwealth asserted that it would be unfairly prejudiced by not being able to ask them why they were there and what they were doing there, what was their vantage point, things of that nature. Of course, the purpose of the dry run of Williams's testimony was to preview the questions and responses and to allow the trial court to determine whether it could accommodate Williams's valid assertions of privilege without impairing the Commonwealth's ability to test the truthfulness of the testimony through cross-examination. A dry run also allows meaningful appellate review by creating a record of the questions that the witness will answer as well as those questions as to which the witness intends to invoke her privilege against self incrimination. Accordingly, the parties should endeavor for a complete examination. In any event, we find it improper to simply assume that Williams would invoke the privilege as to questions she was never asked. While a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to compulsory process must yield to legitimate demands of the adversarial process, a witness should not be precluded from testifying based on speculation about whether he or she would invoke a privilege. Initially, we note that the reason given by the trial court at the time of its ruling[S]imply by taking the stand, this witness would have to waive her Fifth Amendment privileges and we can't piecemeal what she is going to waive and what she is not going to waivesuggests that the trial court treated Williams's invocation of the privilege against self-incrimination as an all-or-nothing decision that barred the witness from testifying at all. Further, the record provides no evidence that the trial court even considered whether it could permit Williams to testify and limit the scope of the Commonwealth's cross-examination without prejudicing the Commonwealth's ability to test the truth of Williams's testimony. Because there is no indication that the trial court exercised its discretion in this matter, we believe it erred when it precluded Williams from testifying. In addition, it appears that the trial court could have accommodated Williams's privilege without impairing the Commonwealth's ability to test the veracity of Williams's testimony through cross-examination. While we recognize that one of the primary means to uncover untruths through cross-examination is to question a witness concerning the details of his or her testimony, [17] the particular details upon which Williams intended to invoke her privilegei.e., whether she and Appellant had shoplifted or attempted to shoplift merchandise at K-Mart that afternoonwere neither necessary to a probing cross-examination nor particularly probative as to Williams's truthfulness. In fact, if the Commonwealth intended to expose Williams's testimony as false, the very last thing it would want to do is enhance Williams's credibility by asking Williams to admit that she, too, had been shoplifting and underscoring the fact that Williams's testimony was against her own interests. Williams's testimony was important for the defense because it suggested that Appellant was not at her home selling crack cocaine on the date alleged by the Commonwealth. Williams's own conduct during that time was only tangentially related to the essence of her testimony, and her invocation of the privilege with respect to questions of whether she committed a crime or assisted Appellant's commission of a crime neither prevented the Commonwealth from inquiring as to matters going to the heart of her direct testimony nor constituted a refusal to be cross-examined. Specifically, the Commonwealth could have scrutinized Williams's truthfulness by asking Williams for further information concerning the K-Mart trip [18] or by investigating the relationship between Williams and Appellant in order to discover whether that relationship provided a motive for Williams to testify untruthfully. Because the Commonwealth would have had ample opportunity to test the credibility of Williams's testimony without addressing the questions as to which Williams properly could have invoked her privilege against self-incrimination, the trial court erred when it precluded Williams from testifying. We find no merit in the Commonwealth's contention that the trial court's exclusion of Williams's testimony was harmless. Although some questions might remain as to the timing of Appellant's detention at K-Mart, Williams's testimony tended to cast doubts upon the Commonwealth's evidence that Appellant sold cocaine to a confidential informant at her home on the afternoon of October 31, 1996. As such, this evidence would have brought into question the credibility and/or accuracy of identification testimony from both the confidential informant and Detective Pete Ford and bolstered the credibility of Appellant's alibi witness for the other transaction on November 5, 1996. Had the fact-finder been permitted to consider Williams's testimony, it may very well have reached a different verdict. Under the facts of this case, we cannot conclude that the trial court's erroneous decision to preclude Williams from testifying in Appellant's defense constituted harmless error. [19]