Court Opinion

ID: 9636910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:49:22.116017+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:51.326243
License: Public Domain

RAKER Judge, concurring, in which WILNER, J., joins:
I concur in the judgment of the Court that reverses the judgment of the Circuit Court. I agree with the majority that the trial judge acted in a wholly inappropriate manner, and I do not believe, on this record, that the error can be regarded as harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. I write separately to *362focus upon what I conceive to be the prejudicial error in the case.1
I do not believe, as the Court seems to hold, that the harmful error as to Archer consisted in Bailey’s being coerced by the trial judge to testify, when he desired not to do so. Bailey was a recalcitrant witness.2 The State, as well as the defendant, is entitled to have the admissible testimony of competent witnesses, absent just cause. Bailey was a competent and compellable witness who was properly ordered to testify and whose refusal to do so legitimately subjected him to all the penalties allowable for contempt of court. It is not error for a judge to threaten a recalcitrant witness such as Bailey with contempt, or to cause contempt proceedings to be initiated against the witness.
Before a person may be held in contempt, civil or criminal, the person must have fair notice of the court’s commands before being punished for failing to comply. Thus, the court has an obligation to make the order of the court clear to the individual. What a judge may not do, however, is to suggest to a witness that, if the witness testifies in a certain way, that witness may avoid contempt proceedings. That is error in any situation; a judge should never suggest or propose to a witness how that witness safely may, or ought to, testify.
When a witness is instructed by the judge as to how that witness might testify, the witness’s credibility is called into question. Here, possibly because of the trial judge’s instruc*363tions, Bailey testified favorably to Archer in accord with the judge’s suggestion. The State was thereby allowed to offer Bailey’s prior recorded testimony, which was inconsistent with his present trial testimony and was adverse to Archer. One obvious problem with doing that is that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for a jury ever to know whether the testimony given was indeed what the witness actually knew and believed, or whether it was more the product of judicial inducement or coercion. In some settings, that kind of conduct can come perilously close to suborning perjury.
The State argues, and Judge Harrell believes, that the error was harmless in that the testimony Bailey actually gave from the witness stand was more favorable to Archer than the testimony he was expected by the State to give, and had he testified consistently with his earlier testimony, the jury would have heard the same story. I disagree, for several reasons, the most cogent of which is that, as a result of the change in his story, prompted by the judge, Bailey’s previous testimony was admitted as substantive evidence and his more favorable testimony from the witness stand was thereby discredited. What the trial judge thus may have done was to suggest testimony favorable to Archer that the jury, once apprised of Bailey’s earlier testimony, likely would find incredible and disregard, to Archer’s obvious detriment. In these circumstances, there was demonstrable prejudice to Archer.
In the case before us, there was not simply a passing suggestion for Bailey to consider, which would have been bad enough. The trial judge offered that suggestion as a way out of an immediate trial for criminal contempt, to be followed by the most severe sentence that the law allows. The specter of the trial judge sitting on the bench, in front of Bailey, arranging with Judge Themelis over the telephone to immediately try, and even before any trial commenced, to convict and sentence Bailey, followed by a suggestion that Bailey could escape that prospect by testifying inconsistently with his previous testimony is something which, due process considerations aside, this Court cannot tolerate.
*364The conduct of the trial judge was prejudicial error and ■ Archer is entitled to a new trial.
Judge WILNER has authorized me to state that he joins in this concurring opinion.

. The majority seems to suggest that Archer would be entitled to a new trial merely because Bailey may have, and probably did, testify because of threats by the trial judge. The cases cited by the majority, see footnote 8, are inapposite and do not support that conclusion. In the cases cited, it was the defendant who was deprived, of the witness's testimony as a result of the trial judge’s admonition and thereby prejudiced. In my view, it is the totality of the circumstances presented in the instant case, but primarily the court’s instruction as to how the witness should testify, that prejudiced Archer.

. A recalcitrant witness has been defined as "a witness before any ... court or grand jury who refuses, without just cause shown, to comply with an order to testify or produce documents or other information.” United States v. Rosa-Ortiz, 348 F.3d 33, 41, n. 12 (1st Cir.2003).