Court Opinion

ID: 9625020
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:25:10.712569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:59.526064
License: Public Domain

Fromme, J.,
dissenting. In reversing the defendant’s conviction the reliance of the court on Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 49 L.Ed.2d 91, 96 S.Ct. 2240, and State v. Heath, 222 Kan. 50, 563 P.2d 418, is totally unjustified under the facts of the present case.
The constitutional basis upon which Doyle and Heath rest is an accused’s constitutional right to remain silent and the assurance that the exercise of such right cannot be used against him at trial. The Doyle reasoning was prefaced upon the importance which the high court attached to the warnings mandated in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 10 A.L.R.3d 974. These warnings were dictated in Miranda as a means of safeguarding Fifth Amendment rights and include a warning that the accused has the right to remain silent but if he chooses to talk anything he says may be used against him.
In Doyle the court points to this warning and then sets forth the reason for the Doyle decision as follows:
*90“ . . . Moreover, while it is true that the Miranda warnings contain no express assurance that silence will carry no penalty, such assurance is implicit to any person who receives the warnings. In such circumstances, it would be fundamentally unfair and a deprivation of due process to allow the arrested person’s silence to be used to impeach an explanation subsequently offered at trial. . . .” (p. 618.)
The Doyle court then goes on to quote with approval from a concurring opinion of Mr. Justice White in United States v. Hale, 422 U.S. 171, at 182-183, 45 L.Ed.2d 99, 95 S.Ct. 2133, where it is stated:
“ ‘[W]hen a person under arrest is informed, as Miranda requires, that he may remain silent, that anything he says may be used against him, and that he may have an attorney if he wishes, it seems to me that it does not comport with due process to permit the prosecution during the trial to call attention to his silence at the time of arrest and to insist that because he did not speak about the facts of the case at that time, as he was told he need not do, an unfavorable inference might be drawn as to the truth of his trial testimony. . . . Surely Hale was not informed here that his silence, as well as his words, could be used against him at trial. Indeed, anyone would reasonably conclude from Miranda warnings that this would not be the case.’ ” (426 at 619.)
Under the facts of that case Mr. Doyle was given the warning. He chose to remain silent until the trial, thus exercising his constitutional right. The high court held (1) that the prosecutor could not question him as to his silence after the warning and before he chose to tell his story at trial, and (2) that the prosecutor could not comment on this period of silence in an effort to impeach the accused’s later story at trial.
A similar factual situation was presented in State v. Heath, supra. When Mr. Heath was arrested and advised of his rights he chose to remain silent. At the trial his defense was alibi. After the Miranda warning was given the prosecutor not only questioned him as to his silence before trial but also argued that his silence was sufficient to throw doubt on his defense of alibi.
Now, let us turn to the facts of the present case. There is no testimony in the record that Elgit Clark was advised of his Miranda rights or that he exercised his right to remain silent. We can only assume from the silent record he was given the warning.
At the trial Clark testified in his own behalf that when he was arrested for the crime he was taken to the county attorney and Stan Burns, a police officer, and they had a conversation with him. This is his testimony in summary form as it appears in the record:
*91“ . . I told them I didn’t know nothing about it about it was supposed to have been did, but I had heard who went in there. I had heard — had heard who went in there and I guess that is about all. I had heard a lot about it, you know, and I told them what I heard, told them, like the people around there, you know. I can find out a lot of things, because — well,’. The witness stated that 7 can’t remember exactly what they said. All I know is they tried to accuse me of it and I told them I didn’t do it and I didn’t have anything to do with it.’
“They then took him to jail.”
On cross-examination Clark testified:
“[Tjhat when he talked to the police the night he was arrested he told them he didn’t want to give them any names about what he had heard because he didn’t want to be a ‘snitch’, but that he would help them in any way he could. The witness was asked why Jake Osborn would make up a story involving him in a burglary, if he was not there; the witness replied that the only thing he could think of was to ‘keep somebody else out of trouble’.”
R is apparent from the defendant’s own testimony at trial that he did not exercise his right to remain silent after his arrest; therefore anything he said after the Miranda warning can and should be used against him.
In order to understand the true thrust of that portion of defendant’s verbatim testimony which appears in the majority opinion it should be noted that defendant testified at length at the trial. He told of his whereabouts from 10:00 p.m. on the evening of the crime to 3:00 a.m. the next morning. His activities were varied and quite colorful. They started with visiting the “Hut” and continued with walking around town, visiting with named persons, stopping a fight in which a girl had a blouse ripped in half, going to a girl’s apartment and entering through the transom, leaving in a car owned by another, being chased, meeting a drunk, witnessing another fight between three women and finally returning home at 3:00 a.m. In his trial testimony defendant identified eleven persons by name who were with him at various times during the evening. Five were called as witnesses by the defendant, one by the state and five did not testify at the trial.
Three additional questions and answers should precede the verbatim testimony appearing in the majority opinion. They appear in the record as follows:
“Q. Now, you remember obviously pretty well where you had been the night this incident occurred. You told us everywhere you have gone and what you did the times that you were there, the people that you saw. You remember that pretty well, don’t you?
“A. I don’t remember it that well.
*92“Q. You could be mistaken about some of the things, is that right?
“A. I could be. I mean as far as times and things I could be.
“Q. You couldn’t be mistaken about the people though that you saw?
“A. No, I am sure about the people.”
Considering the testimony of the defendant as a whole it is apparent to me that the cross-examination was proper. The defendant did not remain silent after his arrest and the story he told the officers at that time was not the story which he told at the trial. In State v. Faulkner, 220 Kan. 153, Syl. 12, 551 P.2d 1247, it is held that an accused’s testimony relevant to an issue in the case may be impeached by contradiction on cross-examination. Surely the law has not reached a point where the defendant’s trial testimony cannot be examined in light of his previous statement to the officers.
Now as to the prosecutor’s comment in closing argument: The thrust of his remarks is to explain to the jury why the five missing witnesses were not called to testify at the trial. The inability of the state to produce those witnesses arose from a lack of knowledge as to their names. This was not an impermissible comment on defendant’s right to remain silent. It is a settled rule that the failure of a party to produce available evidence may give rise to an inference that it would be adverse to the party who could have produced it. (State v. Robinson, 219 Kan. 218, Syl. 1, 547 P.2d 335.) The prosecutor was merely commenting as to the reason this inference should go against the defendant, not the state.
It should also be noted as a basis for upholding the defendant’s conviction that no objection was made during the trial that defendant’s right to remain silent was being violated. The only objection made was during the state’s closing argument. Defense counsel merely stated there was nothing in the evidence to justify the prosecutor’s comments on why the missing witnesses were not produced. The “contemporaneous objection rule” should be honored in this case. See K.S.A. 60-404 and case annotations cited thereunder.
One final reason in support of my position should be noted. The basis which is adopted by the majority for reversal of the defendant’s conviction is not encompassed by any of the three points presented by appellant on appeal. The points argued and briefed by appellant are:
“I. The State’s direct evidence was so contradictory and unreliable that it could not support a verdict of guilty.
*93“II. The evidence of the State does not support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant was with the alleged accomplice when the latter confessed he committed the burglary and larceny.
“HI. The Defendant was deprived of a fair trial by the trial court’s prejudicial error made by comments supporting the argument of the prosecutor intended to discredit the Defendant’s testimony of an alibi.”
The Doyle and Heath cases are neither cited in the briefs nor discussed by appellant. The judgment should be affirmed and I respectfully dissent.
Owsley and McFarland, JJ., join in the foregoing dissenting opinion.