Opinion ID: 1728613
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Refusal to Admit Recantation of Watson's Testimony

Text: The defendant next asserts that it was error for the trial court to refuse to allow him to impeach Watson's Oklahoma preliminary hearing testimony with evidence that she recanted her testimony. At trial, the defendant sought to introduce proof from Watson's Oklahoma attorney that after the preliminary hearing in Oklahoma, Watson said she had lied and placed the blame on Howell in order to escape the death penalty herself. The State objected and the trial court agreed, ruling the evidence self-serving hearsay and inadmissible, even for impeachment purposes. The defendant's contention that evidence of Watson's recantation was not hearsay because it was offered for impeachment is correct. Hearsay is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Tenn.R.Evid. 801(c). [5] Statements used for impeachment purposes are not admitted to prove the truth of the statement, but to show that the credibility of the witness is suspect. Cohen, Paine, & Sheppeard, Tennessee Law of Evidence § 801.8, p. 388 (2d ed. 1990). Accordingly, prior inconsistent statements offered for impeachment are not hearsay, id., and the trial court should have allowed the defendant to introduce evidence of Watson's recantation. Moreover, we agree that the trial court's refusal to allow the defendant to impeach Watson's former testimony with evidence that she later recanted violated his confrontation rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and Article I, § 9 of the Tennessee Constitution. In addition to protecting a defendant's right to confront the witnesses at the time of trial, the state and federal confrontation clauses also guarantee to the defendant an opportunity for effective cross examination, Delaware v. Fensterer, 474 U.S. 15, 20, 106 S.Ct. 292, 294, 88 L.Ed.2d 15, 19 (1985), so that the defendant can expose to the jury the facts from which jurors ... [can] appropriately draw inferences relating to the reliability of the witness. Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 318, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 1111, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974). However, the existence of a constitutional error does not automatically entitle a defendant to a reversal. Since 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed the principle announced in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), that an otherwise valid conviction should not be set aside if the reviewing court may say on the whole record that the constitutional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 680, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 1436, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986). Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that the Constitution entitles a criminal defendant to a fair trial, not a perfect one. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 681-82, 106 S.Ct. at 1436-37. The trial court in Van Arsdall refused to allow the the defendant to impeach the state's key witness by questioning him about the dismissal of a criminal charge against him after he had agreed to speak with the prosecutor about the case against the defendant. The Court agreed with the defendant that the trial court committed constitutional error, but concluded that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In so holding, the Court emphasized that: The harmless error doctrine recognizes the principle that the central purpose of a criminal trial is to decide the factual question of the defendant's guilt or innocence, and promotes public respect for the criminal process by focusing on the underlying fairness of the trial rather than on the virtually inevitable presence of immaterial error. Reversal for error regardless of its effect on the judgment, encourages litigants to abuse the judicial process and bestirs the public to ridicule it. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 681-82, 106 S.Ct. at 1436-37 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). In determining whether the constitutionally improper denial of a defendant's opportunity to impeach a witness is harmless under the Chapman standard, the correct inquiry is whether, assuming that the damaging potential of the cross-examination were fully realized, the error was nonetheless harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Id., 475 U.S. at 684-85, 106 S.Ct. at 1438. A number of factors are relevant to this inquiry including the importance of the witness' testimony in the prosecution's case, the cumulative nature of the testimony, the presence or absence of evidence corroborating or contradicting the witness on material points, the extent of cross-examination otherwise permitted, and the overall strength of the prosecution's case. Id. There is no doubt that in this case, Watson's former testimony was important to the prosecution's case as the only direct evidence that the defendant killed Kennedy. However, the corroborative proof of her Oklahoma preliminary hearing testimony was overwhelming and the prosecution's overall case was otherwise strong. Moreover, the jury was informed that Watson's testimony at the Oklahoma preliminary hearing was given in exchange for the charges against her being lowered to second-degree murder and a plea recommendation of life imprisonment. Moreover, the evidence, even excluding the Watson proof, is ample to convict beyond a reasonable doubt. See Causby, 706 S.W.2d at 628 (citations omitted). Witnesses testified that they saw the defendant with the murder weapon the night before Alvin Kennedy was murdered. Another witness testified to the defendant's admission made the night before the murder that he was going to go down hard this time and take some people with him, and still another witness testified to his admission after the Kennedy murder. In addition, the convenience store clerk working at the store across the street from the site of the Kennedy murder testified that Howell and Watson were in her store within minutes of the time the murder was committed, and that they were driving the stolen Whitsett truck. Moreover, ballistics tests showed that the gun found in the defendant's possession by Florida police when he was apprehended was the same gun used to kill Alvin Kennedy in Memphis, and Charlene Calhoun in Oklahoma. Although this evidence is largely circumstantial, a conviction may be based entirely on circumstantial evidence where facts are `so clearly interwoven and connected that the finger of guilt is pointed unerringly at the defendant and the defendant alone.' State v. Duncan, 698 S.W.2d 63, 67 (Tenn. 1985) (quoting State v. Crawford, 225 Tenn. 478, 484, 470 S.W.2d 610, 613 (1971)). Even excluding the Watson proof, we conclude that the circumstantial evidence in the record is ample to point the finger of guilt unerringly at the defendant alone. After evaluating the relevant factors, we conclude that any doubt cast on Watson's reliability as a witness and her former testimony by impeachment evidence that she later made an unsworn, general statement that the testimony was false would have been minimal. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court's failure to admit evidence that Watson later recanted her preliminary hearing testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.