Opinion ID: 1751731
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Niemann's Testimony

Text: The first aspect of the convict's claim that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct rests on the claim that the prosecutor knowingly used at trial Niemann's perjured testimony. The critical flaw in the argument is the premise that Niemann's trial testimony has been shown to be false. Such is simply not the case. The recitation of the record in part III(1)(a) of this opinion does establish that Niemann is a self-confessed liar, but there is no demonstration that he was truthful when he recanted his trial testimony to the convict's investigators rather than when he testified at trial and when he talked with the State's investigators. Moreover, in considering claims of perjured testimony later recanted in connection with a motion for new trial, we have written: Newly discovered evidence must be of such a nature that if it had been offered and admitted at the former trial it probably would have produced a substantially different result. ... [E]vidence tendered in support of a motion for new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence must be so potent that, by strengthening evidence already offered, a new trial would probably result in a different verdict. State v. Pittman, 210 Neb. 117, 120-21, 313 N.W.2d 252, 256 (1981). See, also, Fugate v. State, 169 Neb. 434, 99 N.W.2d 874 (1959). Even if Niemann had at trial denied any involvement by the convict, the testimony of Wasmer and Zogg and the other trial evidence make a different result improbable. The statements Wasmer attributed to the convict are damning: `Let's just go blow [Valdez] away'; `[T]here couldn't be any witnesses'; `[Y]ou should have seen it.... You should have seen that bitch plead for her life'; `That wasn't good but it wasn't bad either for taking two people's lives'; and in reference to how he felt about the killings, `I like it, I want to do it again.' Boppre I, 234 Neb. at 926-28, 453 N.W.2d at 414-15.