Opinion ID: 1679780
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of Defendant's Right to Call Witnesses

Text: On August 3, 1977, at approximately 12:45 a. m., a man armed with a pistol approached Elmo Plain, the attendant of the stadium Exxon station in Baton Rouge, and demanded the money in his hand. When Plain refused and started to walk toward a customer at the gasoline pumps, the robber shot Plain, seized the money and fled. Plain died within minutes of a single gunshot wound. James Williams was arrested the next day and positively identified at a lineup as the assailant by three eyewitnesses. The prosecution's eyewitnesses identified Williams as the murderer at trial. However, neither the murder weapon nor the money was recovered or introduced at trial. Williams testified to the jury that he was not the killer. He maintained that on the night of the offense he left his mother's house at about 11:30 p. m. and went to Shelby's Bar and Lounge where he remained until nearly 2:00 a. m. Pursuant to La.C.Cr.P. art. 727 the prosecution served Williams before trial with a written demand for notice of his intent to assert an alibi defense, stating that the crime occurred after 12:00 a. m., August 3, 1977 at Stadium Exxon, 1300 Scenic Highway. Williams responded that at the time of the crime he was in Shelby's Bar and Lounge, 1752 North Acadian Thruway, Baton Rouge, giving the names or place of employment of four alibi witnesses: the bar owner, two barmaids and Williams' common-law wife. Following a prosecution objection at trial, the trial court excluded the testimony of three defense witnesses on the ground that they were alibi witnesses whose identity had not been disclosed in response to the state's demand. The defense attorney argued that the witnesses, all relatives of the defendant, were not within the ambit of the alibi disclosure rules. Because the crime occurred over thirty minutes after they had last seen defendant at 11:30 p. m. at his mother's house three blocks from the Stadium Exxon, he contended that their testimony could not establish an alibi. The prosecuting attorney did not withdraw his objection but seemed to agree that testimony pertaining to Williams' presence at his mother's house before 11:30 p. m. did not tend to establish alibi. Nevertheless, the trial judge adhered to his ruling stating that he would exclude testimony from any undisclosed witness which points in the direction of alibi. The defense attorney objected timely and assigned the trial judge's ruling as error. Article 727 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is identical to Rule 12.1 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. [1] Section A of the article requires a defendant to disclose, upon receipt of a written prosecution request, whether he intends to offer an alibi defense, the place where he claims to have been at the time the alleged offense was committed, and the names and addresses of the witnesses upon whom he intends to rely in attempting to establish his alibi. Section B requires reciprocal disclosure of witnesses uncovered by the prosecution who will refute the alibi and Section C makes the duty to disclose a continuing obligation for both parties. Section E authorizes the trial court to excuse a party from compliance with the disclosure requirements upon a showing of good cause, and Section D empowers him to penalize unexcused noncompliance by excluding the testimony of undisclosed witnesses, except the defendant himself, offered by either party as to the defendant's absence from or presence at, the scene of the alleged offense. The issue presented here is whether a witness whose testimony does not tend to establish the defendant's absence from the scene of the alleged offense, but whose testimony is otherwise consistent with the defendant's alibi defense, must be disclosed by the defendant in response to the prosecution's written demand for notice of alibi. Fundamentally, this case will determine if the rule authorizing a preclusion of testimony for failure to disclose defense alibi witnesses is to be strictly or broadly construed. In my opinion, the rule authorizing the trial judge to invoke the sanction of Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure article 727(D) must be construed strictly in order not to impinge on a defendant's constitutional rights to compel the attendance of witnesses and to present a defense. The Sixth Amendment's guarantee that the accused shall enjoy the right to ... have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor includes [t]he right to offer the testimony of witnesses ... the right to present a defense, the right to present the defendant's version of the facts .... Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967). Article 1, § 16 of the 1974 Louisiana Constitution expressly provides that [a]n accused is entitled... to compel the attendance of witnesses, to present a defense .... Whether and to what extent a state can enforce discovery rules against a defendant who fails to comply, by excluding relevant, probative evidence has been expressly recognized and left open by the Supreme Court as a question raising Sixth Amendment issues. Wardius v. Oregon, 412 U.S. 470, 472, n. 4, 93 S.Ct. 2208, 2211, n. 4, 37 L.Ed.2d 82 (1973); Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 83, n. 14, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 1896, n. 14, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970). While the Supreme Court has not decided the propriety of excluding a defendant's evidence because of noncompliance with criminal discovery rules, it has held, in three well known cases that a state may not enforce other types of statutory rules which infringe upon a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights. A rule prohibiting principals, accomplices, or accessories to the crime from being defense witnesses has been held unconstitutional when balanced against the defendant's right to present his defense. Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967). A voucher rule and a rule against admitting hearsay testimony may not be applied so as to deprive a defendant of his right to present a defense guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973). A state's juvenile records privilege statute must yield to a defendant's right to present a defense when it is necessary to inquire into the records to discover a prosecution witness's possible bias. Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974). See also, United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974). Accordingly, there is ample ground for argument that a preclusion of a criminal defense witness's testimony to enforce discovery rules is contrary to both the Sixth Amendment and Article 1, § 16 of the 1974 Louisiana Constitution. See also, Pugh and McClelland, Work of the Louisiana Appellate Courts, 1973-74 Term, Evidence, 35 La.L.Rev. 544 (1975); Clinton, The Right to Present a Defense: An Emergent Constitutional Guarantee in Criminal Trials, 9 Ind.L. Rev. 711 (1976); Western, The Compulsory Process Clause, 73 Mich.L.Rev. 71 (1974). Furthermore, even if we, as the Supreme Court in Wardius v. Oregon, supra , and Williams v. Florida, supra , set to one side, without deciding, this constitutional issue, the tension and possible conflict between the preclusion device and a defendant's right to present a defense are plainly evident and require that the sanction be construed narrowly and used sparingly. When La.C.Cr.P. art. 727(D) is construed strictly and applied to the situation presented by this case, it is clear that the trial judge erred in excluding the testimony of the defense witnesses as undisclosed alibi evidence. The statute required the defendant, upon giving notice of an alibi defense, to state the names and addresses of the witnesses upon whom he intends to rely to establish such alibi. La.C.Cr.P. art. 727(A). If the defendant had failed to comply, the trial judge was authorized to exclude the testimony of any undisclosed witness offered by [defendant] as to the defendant's absence from ... the scene of the crime. La.C.Cr.P. art. 727(D). The precluded testimony of the three defense witnesses clearly would not have tended to establish an alibi or to prove the defendant's absence from the scene of the crime. On the contrary, the testimony of these witnesses, insofar as the location of the defendant at the time of the offense, was no more probative of the defendant's alibi than it was of the prosecution's case. The preclusion of testimony by the defendant's witnesses was unwarranted and denied him his rights to offer testimony and to present a defense. This error alone requires reversal of his conviction. However, our attention has been called to another reversible error which allegedly occurred during the penalty stage of the trial.