Court Opinion

ID: 9584367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:47:23.89329+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:38.506197
License: Public Domain

Justice ExUM
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision that defendant received a fair trial. In my view he did not.
Despite the state’s admission that it cross-examined defendant *513about prior criminal convictions using by mistake someone else’s police record, the majority concludes this event was “innocuous” and one in which the defendant acquiesced. I believe both conclusions, on this record, to be incorrect.
The cross-examination at issue went as follows:
“Q. And what, if anything, else besides that have you been convicted of or pled guilty to?
A. Nothing other than traffic violations.
Q. Okay. Isn’t it, isn’t it a fact that at the present time you are under a suspended sentence?
MR. COOK: Objection.
COURT: The objection is sustained. You are to give no consideration to an unanswered question. An answer to the question is evidence.
Q. Mr. Pilkington, have you ever been convicted of driving under the influence?
A. No. I don’t drink.
Q. And have you ever been convicted of —
MR. COOK: Objection.
COURT: Overruled.
EXCEPTION.
DEFENDANT’S EXCEPTION NO. 8
Q. Have you ever been convicted of reckless driving?
A. No.
Q. Could I call your attention, please —
MR. COOK: Objection.
COURT: The objection is sustained if it is intended to challenge the answer that he has given to you.
I do not drink at all. I am single. I have never been married. I am not a homosexual. I am not a bisexual. I have never participated in homosexual conduct. I did not *514talk with Roy Provost at all at the lake on October 8,1978. I did not even see him there.”
The prosecutor was reading from a document purporting to be the defendant’s criminal record. In fact it was someone else’s record whose name was “Willie Pilkington.”
It stretches judicial imagination beyond credulity to conclude that the cross-examination was “innocuous.” The jury’s verdict depended on whether it believed eleven-year-old Roy Provost or the defendant. It could not believe one without disbelieving the other. The defense rested entirely on the credibility of defendant who, the record shows, was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1975 and who had been at all times steadily and gainfully employed. Except for a conviction for “detaining a police officer in the line of duty” for which he was fined $30.00, his record was free from any serious blemish. Whatever tactic, therefore, that successfully impeached defendant’s credibility can hardly, under the circumstances of this case, be called “innocuous.”
In United States v. Semensohn, 421 F. 2d 1206 (2d Cir. 1970), the Court noted that. “[t]he accused’s credibility was the crucial issue in the case.” It, therefore, awarded a new trial because the prosecutor was permitted to ask defendant on cross-examination whether he had been convicted of grand larceny when, in fact, defendant had previously pled guilty only to misdemeanor larceny. The Court said, id. at 1209:
“Thus, it was crucial to Semensohn that he appear to be telling the truth, and the prosecutor’s unwarranted assault upon his credibility clearly tended to undermine his only defense, that he was the innocent victim of the criminal enterprise of the Government’s witnesses.
“Under the circumstances we hold that the conviction below must be reversed.”
It is, furthermore, difficult to conceive of a defendant, testifying i n his own defense, being placed in a more unfair situation than this. His position was such that he was penalized more in the eyes of the jury for truthfully denying the convictions than if he had lied and admitted them. For with the prosecutor in possession of a document that purports to be a defendant’s criminal record, a defendant who denies convictions apparently recorded on the document is, in the *515jury’s eyes, a liar. His credibility is not impeached, it is destroyed. If, as here, his defense rests upon his credibility as a witness, his case is lost. On the other hand had defendant lied and admitted the convictions, his credibility before the jury would have been more intact. The jury might have reasoned, and defendant could have argued, that convictions of driving under the influence and reckless driving simply have no bearing on credibility in a case involving indecent liberties with a child.
Thus the procedure as used here by the state, albeit mistakenly, put a premium on lying. It made a truthful defendant vis-a-vis the prior convictions appear to be a liar in the eyes of the jury. The procedure was grossly unfair, prejudicial and, as the majority seems to concede, would ordinarily result in a new trial.
The majority declines, however, to award a new trial primarily upon its conclusion that defendant somehow acquiesced in being cross-examined on the basis of someone else’s police record. Simply to state the proposition undermines its validity. In a case such as this where all depends on whom the jury believes, it is inconceivable that a defendant would knowingly and understandingly acquiesce in being cross-examined on the basis of someone else’s police record.
A careful review of the record on appeal satisfies me that defendant did not acquiesce in this procedure. In fact, he objected twice to the complained of line of questioning only to have his first objection sustained and his second, made in apt time, overruled. Defendant never, prior to or during trial, saw the document which the state thought at trial was his police record. In the light most favorable to the state the record on appeal shows, at most, the following: On 5 March 1979 defendant, through counsel, filed a written discovery request in which he asked for, among other things, ‘knowledge or memoranda of knowledge in the possession of the State concerning any previous charges against this defendant that are of the same nature or very similar nature as this charge.” According to the prosecutor’s affidavit at the hearing on defendant’s motion for appropriate relief, she, after receiving defendant’s counsel’s 5 March letter, discussed orally with defendant’s counsel defendant’s criminal record. She said she informed Mr. Cook that ‘my records indicated that Willie Pilkington had been convicted or pled guilty to several traffic offenses including a ‘reckless driving’ charge which had originally been ‘DUI-Second Offense.’ I further informed Mr. Cook that based on my records it was my belief that *516the defendant was presently under a suspended sentence for his plea of guilty to ‘reckless driving.’” According to her affidavit, however, it was not until after trial and “after the defendant had taken the stand and denied these charges” that “Mr. Cook and I discussed whether the defendant’s record that I had provided was accurate.” The state, of course, concedes that the document it used at trial was not, in fact, the police record of the defendant.
Defendant, therefore, had only been orally advised by the state that according to its records he had prior traffic convictions which included a DUI-Second Offense charge which had been reduced to reckless driving. Defendant admitted that he had “other ... traffic convictions” on his record. Neither defendant, however, nor his counsel was ever shown before or at trial the actual document upon which the state relied in its cross-examination showing driving-under-influence and reckless driving convictions. Defendant, therefore, could not have acquiesced in the use of this document at trial.
It is, furthermore, the use of the document at trial which constitutes the gravamen of the unfair and prejudicial procedure used by the prosecution. Had the prosecution not cross-examined on the basis of a document purporting to be defendant’s criminal record but, without using a document, simply asked defendant about the convictions, less damage would have been done. At least defendant’s truthful denials would not have appeared as egregiously false in the eyes of the jury as, in fact, they did.
It was, therefore, the use of a document which purported to be but was not defendant’s criminal record in connection with the cross-examination that constituted the denial in this case of a fair trial. Defendant, not having seen the document, could not have known whether it correctly or incorrectly purported to be his criminal record. He could not, therefore, have acquiesced in its use.
My position is supported by the authorites cited and distinguished in the majority opinion. In my view these cases are indistinguishable in principle from the present one. In Thomas v. State, 59 So. 2d 517 (Fla. 1952), defendant was awarded a new trial because the prosecutor cross-examined him about the convictions of someone else with the same name as defendant. In People v. Fishgold, 189 Misc. 602, 71 N.Y.S. 2d 830 (1947), a new trial was awarded because the criminal record of someone else was used to impeach a testifying defendant although the prosecutor was unaware of the error and used the record in good faith. In Fishgold the Court persua*517sively noted, 189 Misc, at 605, 71 N.Y.S. 2d at 833:
“While it is unquestionably true that the defendant denied the commission of the crimes imputed to him by these questions, nevertheless it would be absurd to suppose for one moment that the jury believed those denials. Every jury knows that the prosecuting officer occupies an office and possesses powers which enable him to obtain the criminal record of any individual, whether he be a witness or a party. By incorporating the Lukowski record into his questions, the District Attorney provided an occasion for the jury’s disbelief of the defendant’s denials — a disbelief which may well have affected the result.”
Concluding then, that the cross-examination complained of was grossly unfair and prejudicial to defendant and that he did not acquiesce in it, I believe defendant was denied due process of law and for that reason is entitled to a new trial.
I cast my vote accordingly.
Justice CARLTON joins in this dissent.