Opinion ID: 1964673
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Contentions Raised in the Pro Se Brief Filed by Sidney Clark

Text: In addition to the brief filed by the Public Defender, defendant filed a forty-page brief in which he raised a number of issues that may be consolidated into a single contention. He asserts that the prosecution's entire case rested solely on the testimony of DiPina, whom he accused of committing perjury throughout the pretrial stage and during the trial itself. He further contends that the prosecutor knew that DiPina was committing perjury and did nothing to correct this injustice to defendant. He rejects DiPina's explanation of the reasons that DiPina recanted his initial statements to his own attorney and to the state police. The short answer to defendant's contentions is that the jury, and the trial justice, believed DiPina and accepted his explanation that his recantation was based upon fear of defendant and other inmates at the ACI who desired to protect defendant from the charge of possession of a stolen automobile. The belief of the jury and the trial justice concerning the truth of DiPina's trial testimony would tend to negate the asserted fact that the prosecution believed DiPina's testimony at trial to be false. It should also be noted that the prosecution's case against defendant did not consist solely of DiPina's testimony. Indeed, defendant himself in his brief alludes to the circumstantial evidence that supported the state's case against defendant as a logical suspect to have stolen the Dodge automobile from the Silver City automobile lot. There was very persuasive evidence that the automobile was stolen from a secured fenced lot in which new automobiles were stored. The defendant, as a salesman, would have had access to this lot and could have removed an automobile without being noticed by securitypersonnel. It is true that there was no direct evidence of defendant's having performed this act, but there was circumstantial evidence of the accessibility of this automobile to defendant, while there was utterly no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that supported a theory that DiPina could have stolen this automobile from Silver City's secured lot. Our examination of the defendant's brief and the factual and legal arguments which it contains causes us to conclude that his arguments, both factual and legal, are without merit.