Opinion ID: 2612858
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: excluding evidence of a witness' propensity for violence

Text: The defendant sought to introduce evidence that witness Robert Cochran had intimidated a witness who was to testify against Cochran in an unrelated case. Peckham's counsel indicated that the intimidating statements allegedly made by Cochran included threats that the witness won't make it to trial, he'll blow up their house, asking the[m] who would take care of their children after they were gone, and stating that he'd volunteer to care for the children, but it would be easier just to kill them, too, and there are  I think at one point Mr. Cochran went to the witness's house, that he had a handgun with him, that he threatened to shoot the witness's wife as well.... Counsel argued that Cochran was number one, the last person who will admit having seen the deceased living; number two, he said that he saw him shortly before whatever this drug rip-off was, because he remembers he had to leave Midnight Modeling and Security to his rendezvous with the drug dealers in the immediate future, that he was worried that he was going to be late and he hurried out of the business, he took with him a .22 pistol, Mr. Hernandez was killed  or was not killed, he was shot with a .22 pistol after he was dead. The  Mr. Cochran admits giving him a gun. The State objected to the evidence because the intimidation charge arose nearly four months after the victim's murder and because the connection was too tenuous. The court declined to admit the evidence, stating that it was inadmissible to attack the witness' credibility and that as evidence that the witness, rather than the defendant, killed Roy Hernandez, it was reaching and tenuous and had no probative value. When the state relies on direct evidence, circumstantial evidence that someone other than the defendant committed the crime charged is irrelevant in the absence of other evidence to connect such third party with the crime. State v. Calvert, 211 Kan. 174, Syl. ¶ 3, 505 P.2d 1110 (1973); accord State v. Brown, 230 Kan. 499, 499-500, 638 P.2d 912 (1982). Although the State's case against Peckham was based on circumstantial evidence, there was no error in excluding the proffered evidence of Robert Cochran's witness intimidation charge. The defendant cites State v. Hamons, 248 Kan. 51, 805 P.2d 6 (1991). In Hamons, this court found that the case against the defendant, which included the defendant's bloody fingerprint at the murder scene and evidence that the victim's blood was on the defendant's shoes, was based on direct evidence linking the defendant to the murder scene after the victim was dead, but an inference was necessary to conclude that the defendant committed the murder. 248 Kan. at 60. The defendant sought to introduce evidence which placed two other people at the murder scene before the murder occurred and which showed that these two people had a motive and the opportunity to commit the murder. Under the facts of this case, when the State's case relies heavily on circumstantial evidence to prove defendant committed a murder, it is error to exclude circumstantial evidence that someone other than the defendant may have committed the crime, when the evidence proffered by defendant includes timely placement of another at the murder scene the evening before the homicide that involved an `angry encounter' linked with an inference of a threat occurring the day the victim's body was discovered. 248 Kan. 51, Syl. ¶ 2. However, this court held that exclusion of such circumstantial evidence was harmless error in light of the overwhelming case against the defendant. 248 Kan. 51, Syl. ¶ 3. Here, the jury already had before it the evidence that this witness was perhaps the last person to see the victim alive, that this witness had given the victim a .22 caliber gun, and that the victim had been shot with a .22 caliber gun. The proffered evidence of the witness' subsequent intimidation charge does nothing to link the witness to the victim's murder. Unlike in Hamons, there was no evidence showing that the witness had previously made threats against the victim or had a motive to kill the victim. The trial court did not err in excluding the evidence.