Court Opinion

ID: 9702287
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:05:20.04347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:36.381170
License: Public Domain

MURRAY, Justice,
dissenting.
My conclusions on several of the issues raised by the defendants are inapposite of the majority. In dissent these issues are delineated.
I
DENISE LAMOUREUX’S TESTIMONY
The majority opinion, which finds no error in the admission of Denise Lamour-eux’s testimony, appears to me to directly conflict with what this court said only two months ago in State v. Mattatall, 525 A.2d 49 (R.I. 1987). In the case at bar, the majority has decided that testimony by Ms. Lamoureux, based on surreptitious recordings she had made of defendants at police request, was admissible because defendant *632Burke had made “an implicit threat” to Ms. Lamoureux, then a potential witness in the case. Because Burke was “tampering with a witness,” the majority reasons, he was not entitled to the assistance of counsel. In Mattatall, however, this court, relying on Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 106 S.Ct. 477, 88 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985), stated that the fact “that the police were present in the [codefendant’s] home because of possible threats from [the] defendant” against the codefendant was “noncontrolling,” hence the defendant was still entitled to the assistance of counsel as a protection against surreptitious police recordings. 525 A.2d at 52.
This court’s opinion on this issue in Mat-tatall was dictated by the United States Supreme Court’s opinion in Moulton. In Moulton the police surreptitiously recorded the defendant by wiring codefendant Gary Colson’s telephone and person after the defendant had threatened to kill a witness named Gary Elwell. The Supreme Court held that, notwithstanding the fact that the surreptitious recordings had been found by the trial justice to have been made “in order to gather information concerning the anonymous threats that Mr. Colson had been receiving, to protect Mr. Colson and to gather information concerning defendant Moulton’s plans to kill Gary Elwell,” the statements were inadmissible at trial because the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel had been violated. Moulton, 474 U.S. at 180, 106 S.Ct. at 482, 489, 88 L.Ed.2d at 490, 498. The Supreme Court said that “[t]o allow the admission of evidence obtained from the accused in violation of his Sixth Amendment rights whenever the police assert an alternative, legitimate reason for their surveillance invites abuse by law enforcement personnel in the form of fabricated investigations and risks the evisceration of the Sixth Amendment right * * Id. at 180, 106 S.Ct. at 489, 88 L.Ed.2d at 498. Thus, even though in Moulton, as in the case at bar, the defendant’s lawyer would have been ethically precluded from assisting in the tampering with or killing of a witness, the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel during police interrogations (which is what surreptitious recordings in which the defendant is asked questions by a police informant amount to) remained intact.
Since it appears to me that the majority’s opinion on this issue is inapposite of what this court said recently in Mattatall, and since, according to Moulton, which is binding upon this court, defendant Burke’s Sixth Amendment rights to counsel were violated, I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion. Because it cannot be said that the admission of incriminating statements made by Burke was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, it is my view that he is entitled to a new trial.
II
REFERENCES TO DEFENDANT CROSBY’S INCARCERATION
It is my conclusion that the admission of testimony concerning defendant Crosby’s incarceration at the ACI was erroneous. Knowledge of a criminal defendant’s incarceration may have a serious, prejudicial effect on the jury. State v. Pugliese, 117 R.I. 21, 26, 362 A.2d 124, 126 (1976). In the instant case the record discloses no reason why the witness, John Eddy, could not have testified that on particular dates in January 1985 he was asked by defendants to help them by retrieving certain articles they had “stashed” near Foley’s lounge. There appears to be no need to show that the reason defendants asked Eddy to help them was because they were incarcerated in the ACI at the time and expected Eddy to be released before them. Criminal defendants often involve other people in committing or covering up their criminal deeds, and for diverse reasons. Because the admission of Eddy’s reference to defendants’ incarceration was substantially more prejudicial than probative, it constituted error and deprived Crosby of his right to a fair trial. See State v. DiPrete, 468 A.2d 262, 266 (R.I. 1983). Hence defendant Crosby should be granted a new trial.
Ill
EDDY’S TESTIMONY REGARDING THREATS MADE BY STEPHEN KELLY
As the majority says, “generally evidence of threats made to a witness is admissible only upon a showing that the de*633fendant approved, encouraged or acquiesed in the making of those threats.” Because there was no evidence presented in this case linking either defendant to threats made by Stephen Kelly, testimony of such threats was irrelevant. Further, such testimony is obviously hearsay.
My view does not comport with the majority’s “fighting fire with fire” doctrine as applied in this case. The fact that defense counsel first asked Eddy on cross-examination if he had had a conversation with Stephen Kelly does not automatically make the substance of that irrelevant and prejudicial conversation, which is hearsay, admissible. The majority conclusion suggests that anytime a defense attorney in a criminal trial asks a witness whether he or she ever had a conversation with a third party, the substance of that conversation may then be elicited, over objection, by opposing counsel. In any event, Eddy’s testimony in this case was, as the majority concedes, inadmissible, and because it implicitly linked defendants to the making of threats to a witness, it was highly prejudicial and its admission violated defendants’ rights to a fair trial.
For the reasons delineated, I would sustain the defendants’ appeals, vacate their convictions, and remand the case to the Superior Court for a new trial.