Court Opinion

ID: 9552630
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:14:13.053344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:28:27.570229
License: Public Domain

Justice SCHROEDER,
Dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the conclusion of the Court in part III. The Court correctly outlines the applicable law and the appropriate standard of review. It also analyzes factors that weigh in favor of the determination that there was substantial and competent evidence to support the trial court’s finding that there was no unfair prejudice in allowing the witness who was disclosed late to testify. Unfortunately, accurate statements of the law and acknowledgment of the discretion of the trial court run headlong into the granite wall of reality. Byington was deprived of the opportunity to defend himself properly. The most telling link in this conclusion comes from the prosecutor’s plea to the trial court to allow the witness to testify: “If this evidence doesn’t come in, I mean this is the State’s most compelling evidence.” (emphasis added).
The State laid it on the line. The testimony of this witness was its “most compelling evidence” in the case. That’s heady stuff and cries out to allow the testimony. It also cries out to allow the defense adequate time to prepare to meet that testimony. It is unreasonable to expect a lawyer to meet the “most compelling evidence” in the case over a *595weekend in a trial in progress. There are several factors that demand more to assure a fair trial.
This witness brought to court events that purportedly occurred some eleven years before and which had not been complained of as sexual in nature before this trial. Several lines of inquiry immediately suggest themselves. What actually happened eleven years ago? Speculators are invited to recap where they lived, daily activities, particulars of surroundings, and words spoken in a period eleven years earlier. Further, compress this inquiry into a pressure-filled trial and filter it through an attorney who has planned a defense, prepared, and made an opening statement outlining a theory based upon the best information available.
The trial court made a fundamental error in logic in analyzing Byington’s ability to respond to the evidence. The trial court weighed the fact that Byington knew the witness in the past against the defense. Actually, knowing a witness, and knowing that the witness has not made complaints of sexual abuse weighs in favor of allowing the defense more time to explore why the witness now claims such abuse. When in the eleven years did the conclusion form that conduct by Byington was not innocent play? How did it come about that the attitude towards the conduct changed? Was this a personal re-evaluation or one influenced by others? The prosecutor acknowledged difficulty in having contact with the witness who apparently “has had somewhat of a transient life or something.”
The trial court commented that the defense attorney appeared to conduct an effective cross-examination. One might ask how much more effective the examination might have been had the defense attorney been given time to prepare adequately?
The prosecutor went to the wall to get this evidence admitted, pleading with the trial court that this was the State’s “the most compelling evidence.” There is nothing wrong with that. That’s effective advocacy. The flaw is that if the evidence is that important to the State, it is certainly that important to the defense. The eighteen-year sentence Byington received attests to the importance of the case to him. If he is guilty, the sentence is warranted, but reality is that he did not have the opportunity to defend himself against the State’s “most compelling evidence.” It is not an exercise of reason to deny the defense an adequate opportunity to meet such evidence.
The guilty should be brought to account. Serious crime warrants serious punishment. But the threshold to punishment is guilt determined in a fair trial. That is the cornerstone of American justice. A chip was removed from that cornerstone in this case.