Opinion ID: 743074
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant's Right to Confrontation

Text: 74 The Sixth Amendment provides, in relevant part, that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.... U.S. Const. Amend. VI. This right applies to state as well as federal prosecutions via the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 403, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 1068, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). One of the most basic of the rights guaranteed by the Confrontation Clause is the accused's right to be present in the courtroom at every stage of his trial. Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 338, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1058, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970) (citing Lewis v. United States, 146 U.S. 370, 372, 13 S.Ct. 136, 137, 36 L.Ed. 1011 (1892)). 75 We find that a prosecutor's summation remarks noting the defendant's unique opportunity to be present at trial infringe upon that constitutionally guaranteed right. The remarks invite the jury to consider the defendant's exercise of his right to confrontation as evidence of guilt, and therefore penalize him for exercising that right. The comments, which imply that a truthful defendant would have stayed out of the courtroom before testifying or would have testified before other evidence was presented, 8 force defendants either to forgo the right to be present at trial, forgo their Fifth Amendment right to testify on their own behalf, or risk the jury's suspicion. The Sixth Amendment does not permit those comments. 76 The remarks are analogous to the tactic of suggesting to juries that guilt can be implied from a defendant's decision to exercise his Fifth Amendment right not to testify, a tactic which has been held unconstitutional. In Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965), the Supreme Court explained: 77 [C]omment on the refusal to testify is a remnant of the 'inquisitorial system of criminal justice,' which the Fifth Amendment outlaws. It is a penalty imposed by courts for exercising a constitutional privilege. It cuts down on the privilege by making its assertion costly. It is said, however, that the inference of guilt for failure to testify as to facts peculiarly within the accused's knowledge is in any event natural and irresistible, and that comment on the failure does not magnify that inference into a penalty for asserting a constitutional privilege. What the jury may infer, given no help from the court, is one thing. What it may infer when the court solemnizes the silence of the accused into evidence against him is quite another. 78 Id. at 614, 85 S.Ct. at 1232-33 (citations and footnote omitted). The Griffin Court recognized that such commentary effectively penalizes the defendant for exercising his Fifth Amendment rights, and held it unconstitutional to require defendants to choose between their rights. 9 We believe that Griffin principles are appropriately applied to the case at bar. 79 We therefore hold that the Sixth Amendment right to confrontation prohibits a prosecutor from commenting in summation that a defendant's testimony may be viewed in light of his presence in the courtroom during trial, because such comments violate the defendant's right to be present at trial. The Supreme Court has indicated that Sixth Amendment rights may at times be overcome by an important state interest. Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836, 850, 110 S.Ct. 3157, 3166, 111 L.Ed.2d 666 (1990) ([A] defendant's right to confront accusatory witnesses may be satisfied absent a physical, face-to-face confrontation at trial only where denial of such confrontation is necessary to further an important public policy and only where the reliability of the testimony is otherwise assured.). See also, Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 319-20, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 1111-12, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974). We thus look to whether important reasons sufficient to justify the infringement upon the defendant's right to be present at trial existed here. 80 The State presents the argument made by the Michigan Supreme Court that such commentary is not improper because it is a fair attack upon a witness's credibility. The Buckey court reasoned that [o]pportunity and motive to fabricate testimony are permissible areas of inquiry of any witness, Buckey, 378 N.W.2d at 439, 10 and stated that the argument is perfectly proper comment on credibility. Id. 11 See also, Grilli, 369 N.W.2d at 37 ([t]he prosecutor was free to argue and attack appellant's credibility.) We next assess whether the prosecutor's need to attack a testifying defendant's credibility is an important reason justifying an infringement of his right to be present at trial. 81 We take as the starting point of our analysis the distinction expressed by the Washington State Court of Appeals between a prosecutor's argument that a defendant has tailored his testimony to meet the state's evidence, and her argument that a defendant, by virtue of being present in the courtroom during trial, has gained an opportunity, unavailable to any other witness in the trial, to tailor his testimony to meet the evidence. Compare Johnson, 908 P.2d at 902 (state may not argue that, by virtue of attending trial, defendant has gained unique opportunity to tailor his or her testimony) with State v. Smith, 82 Wash.App. 327, 917 P.2d 1108, 1111-12 (1996) (state may argue that defendant has tailored his or her testimony to state's proof). The remarks made in Smith may be permissible commentary upon the defendant's credibility as a witness, while those made in Johnson, centering upon his unique opportunity to fabricate testimony as the only witness able to personally hear all the evidence previously presented to the jury, are not permissible because they amount to nothing more than an attack upon the exercise of rights the Constitution grants criminal defendants. 12 Agard's prosecutor made remarks similar to those in Johnson, so we limit our discussion to such comments and do not reach the Smith-like remarks. 82 This distinction, as well as that made above between cross-examination questions and summation comments, is relevant to whether the need to dispute the defendant's credibility is so important as to overcome his right to confrontation. In the light of these distinctions, we think that the asserted need to comment upon Agard's credibility carries little weight on these facts. It is perfectly proper for a prosecutor to cross-examine a defendant about those portions of his testimony which have indicia of fabrication. When, however, a prosecutor raises the specter of fabrication 1) for the first time on summation; 2) without facts in evidence to support the inference; or 3) in a manner which directly attacks the defendant's right to be present during his entire trial, our alarm bells begin to ring. When all three circumstances are present, the bells become shrill sirens. Such commentary is not proper comment upon credibility. Lawyers may not raise innuendo relating to bias or credibility from the shadows of unlitigated facts for the first time in their closing arguments. Such tactics prevent rebuttal and cross-examination, which are the engines of the truth-finding process in an adversarial criminal trial. Without facts in evidence to support an inference of fabrication, such remarks are prejudicial and not at all probative. They certainly do not provide an important reason for us to cut back on a defendant's exercise of his Sixth Amendment rights. 83 Our holding does not jeopardize the state's opportunity to attack credibility. If a prosecutor's concern about the defendant's credibility is legitimate, she has readily available alternate means of questioning him. For example, she is free to cross-examine him about discrepancies between his pre-trial account of events and his testimonial account. Having introduced this evidence, she may then remark upon those discrepancies during her summation. 13 She is also free, of course, to point out that he has motive to lie in order to escape incarceration (as Agard's prosecutor in fact did), and to remark upon that motive in summation (as she also did). Only those comments which specifically target and cast suspicion upon the defendant's unique Sixth Amendment right to be present at his trial and hear all testimony are forbidden by the Constitution; those remarks are not simple commentary upon credibility, nor are they necessary to a prosecutor's argument that the defendant lacks credibility, if that argument has a basis in fact and not only in innuendo. 14 84 We therefore hold that the prosecutor's summation remarks violated Agard's Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. 15 85