Opinion ID: 2383290
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The availability of the codefendant's testimony.

Text: Arguing that a mistrial should not be granted where the possibility of the codefendant's testifying is merely colorable or there is no showing that it is anything more than a gleam of possibility in the defendant's eye, the government maintains that Martin has not satisfied the third Jackson prong. We do not agree. [T]he public ... has a right to every man's [or woman's] evidence, except for those persons protected by a constitutional, common-law, or statutory privilege. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 709, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 3108, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Courts are especially solicitous, as we have noted, in protecting the right of a criminal defendant to present witnesses in his own defense. King, supra, 550 A.2d at 353. Once Brandon was sentencedan event which has now occurredhe no longer had a Fifth Amendment privilege. Tucker, supra, 571 A.2d at 799. Accordingly, Brandon became subject to subpoena by the defense as soon as he had been sentenced. At his plea, Brandon gave sworn testimony which we have held to be exculpatory as to Martin. [26] Under these circumstances, we do not agree with the government that it was also incumbent upon Martin to proffer an affidavit from Brandon proclaiming that he would give evidence at a subsequent trial of Martin alone. Even if Brandon were unwilling to testify voluntarilyand there is no evidence that, once sentence had been imposed, he would have been recalcitrantit is sufficient that compulsory process was available, so that the judge could have ordered that Brandon testify. To put it in the vernacular, a subpoena does not say please. Since Brandon could be required to give evidence, Martin's constitutionally based right to present testimony cannot reasonably be made to depend on whether Brandon is eager or reluctant to tell his tale. Contrary to the government's position, nothing in King, or in Lumpkin (which quotes from King ), was intended to make such a basic right contingent on a codefendant's personal caprice. [27]