Court Opinion

ID: 9678056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:09:45.478028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:01.615087
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
Since it is never error for a trial court to refuse to permit either party to call a witness for the purpose of letting the jury hear an invocation of Fifth Amendment privilege against selfincrimination, I join the latter portion of the opinion of the Court to that effect, Maj. Opinion pp. 382-383. Insofar as the plea bargain and threatened retaliation are concerned, appellant was free to spread the facts about those matters on the record separate and apart from the Fifth Amendment ritual, and thereby explain why Ballard did not testify for appellant. On that basis I concur in that part of the opinion, and, in the judgment of the court.
I would be inclined toward the view of Judge Teague — that the agreement itself constituted a denial of due process to appellant by depriving him of the testimony of a material witness — if I could only read that to be the complaint treated by the court of appeals and raised for our review. But a fair reading of appellant’s petition for discretionary review and brief clearly reveals the contention to be that the jury was deprived of information regarding the agreement, and perforce the co-defendant’s unavailability. The record simply fails to support this.