Court Opinion

ID: 9528638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:42:45.085183+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:08.376241
License: Public Domain

Judge, RILEY,
dissenting with separate opinion.
I respectfully dissent. In affirming the trial court’s denial of Adams’ motion for mistrial, the majority emphasizes that “there was no evidence suggesting that Adams knew of the alleged threats that were made to White or that Adams was im any way connected to them.” Slip op. at 12. But that is exactly the point. The law here, as quoted by the majority, could not be more clear: “Since threats tend to show guilty knowledge or an admission of guilt on the part of the defendant, a- proper foundation must be laid showing the threats were made either by the defendant or with his or her knowledge or authorization.” Cox, 422 N.E.2d at 361-62. “Barring such a showing, the highly prejudicial nature of such testimony requires its exclusion.” Id. at 362. No such showing was made in this case.
The majority also stresses that “White did not mention any' specific threats that were made against him in front of the jury[.]” Slip op. at 12. But our supreme court, citing Cox, has found that such a distinction is of no moment. In Smith v. State, 765 N.E.2d 578, 587 (Ind.2002), reh’g denied, the court noted that it had before it “only testimony that the witnesses feared they might be harmed if they testified, not that they had been threatened.” Nonetheless, the defendant argued that the testimony “left the jury with the ⅛ pression that he was a killer who was likely to retaliate against a witness.” Id. The court agreed, concluding, “Without a showing tying these fears to Smith, [the admission of this testimony] is error — for the same reason other unspecified threats are improper.” Id. ■
Finally, the majority notes that the prosecutor was unaware that White would make the comments that he did and that the trial court was just as surprised as the prosecutor when White volunteered his comments. Nonetheless, the holdings in Keyset and Cox were not premised on the degree of impropriety of the conduct of the prosecutors or the , trial court judges but rather on the probable persuasive effect on the jury’s decision, which is how we meas*778ure the gravity of the peril. See Agilera, 862 N.E.2d at 307-08. In this regard, the overarching principle, as stated in Keyset, is the same: “Since a criminal defendant is the primary individual who could benefit from the bribing or absence of a witness who might testify against him, the inference is strong that he has procured these acts when evidence of them is introduced at his trial.” 312 N.E.2d at 924. And barring evidence linking the defendant in some way to the making of the threats, the highly prejudicial nature of such testimony requires its exclusion. Cox, 422 N.E.2d at 362; see also Dudley v. Duckworth, 854 F.2d 967 (7th Cir.1988) (citing Keyset and Cox in granting petition for writ of habeas corpus based on threat evidence that was unconnected to defendant), teh’g denied, cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1011, 109 S.Ct. 1655, 104 L.Ed.2d 169 (1989).
It seems, then, that there were only two ways in which the necessity of a mistrial might have been avoided: presenting the jury with evidence showing that Adams was somehow responsible for placing White in fear, or establishing that Adams was in no way connected to White’s fears (which probably would have been difficult, considering that White said that he was jumped over “this incident”). But White never returned to testify, and the State produced no evidence tending to either associate or disassociate Adams with White’s fears. As such, the trial court should have granted Adams’ motion for mistrial. Instead, the trial court attempted to remove the resulting prejudice by admonishing the jury to disregard White’s comments, but under the circumstances, the admonishment, as in Keyset, was “inadequate to expiate the effect of the testimony.” See Keyset, 312 N.E.2d at 924. In particular, the fact that White was gone when the jury returned to the courtroom and did not return to testify left the jury free to speculate that Adams is a dangerous man, so dangerous, in fact, that the trial court was either unable to or unwilling to force White to testify against him, or, as our supreme court phrased it in Smith, that Adams is a killer who is likely to retaliate against a witness. 765 N.E.2d at 587. Given the highly prejudicial nature of this sequence of events, I would conclude that the trial court abused its discretion by denying Adams’ motion for mistrial.
The question then becomes whether the trial court’s error was harmless. The State’s one-sentence argument in this regard, as one could imagine, is not terribly persuasive. In determining whether the erroneous admission of evidence was harmless, the burden on the defendant is not to conclusively demonstrate that the error caused the verdict to be what it was and that it would have been otherwise had the error not occurred; rather, the defendant must show the error placed him in a position of grave peril to which he should not have been subjected. White v. State, 257 Ind. 64, 272 N.E.2d 312, 319-20 (1971). In other words, the question is not whether there is sufficient evidence to support the conviction absent the erroneously admitted evidence, but whether the improper evidence was likely to have a prejudicial impact on the jury, thereby contributing to the verdict rendered. Cox, 422 N.E.2d at 363. Adams has met this burden.
With regard to the killing of Nance, the jury found Adams not guilty of murder6 and therefore had two options: finding *779Adams guilty of voluntary manslaughter or acquitting him based on self-defense. Given that choice, the jury had to determine whether Adams was acting under sudden heat (voluntary manslaughter) or acting under a reasonable belief that deadly force was necessary to prevent serious bodily injury (self-defense using deadly force). See I.C. §§ 35-42-1-3 (voluntary manslaughter) and 35^11-3-2(a) (self-defense using deadly force). Obviously, this line can be a fine one. That is, a jury could reasonably attribute the same action to either sudden heat or the fear of serious bodily injury.
In such cases, the jury often must decide whom to believe, and evidence suggesting that the defendant is a bad or dangerous person (who was not merely acting in self-defense) could easily tip the scales. Here, for example, Adams claimed in his interview with police that “a bunch of people ... started attacking [him]” and “hitting [him] in the head,” that he fell, that “somebody began to kick [him],” that he “feared for [his] life,” and that he “was really scared[.]” (Tr. p. 499). It is undisputed that Adams was hit in the head, and the laceration on his leg could support a reasonable inference that he absorbed additional blows. If the jury had believed Adams’ story, it might have found that he acted in self-defense. However, White’s fear of testifying and the fact that he was not compelled to testify may very well have swayed the jurors by painting Adams as a bad or dangerous person. Because this case was a close one-close enough to convince the trial court to instruct the jury on self-defense-the trial court’s erroneous denial of Adams’ motion for mistrial was not harmless with regard to the voluntary manslaughter conviction.
The same goes for Adams’ conviction for carrying a handgun without a license. In an interview with police, which was admitted into evidence, Adams claimed that he found the gun on the ground and picked it up merely to defend himself. Other witnesses testified that Adams was carrying the gun and pulled it out after Nance hit him. Again, Adams’ character for violence was relevant to this factual dispute, and White’s comments and subsequent absence from the trial likely raised the inference that Adams was a bad person (the kind of person that would carry a gun without a license). The trial court’s erroneous denial of Adams’ motion for mistrial was not harmless as to the conviction for carrying handgun without a license.
In sum, I would reverse Adams’ convictions and the habitual offender finding, and I would allow the State to retry Adams. I do not reach this conclusion lightly. I acknowledge the time and money it takes to conduct a retrial. In any event, our primary concern should be whether Adams was substantially prejudiced by White’s comments and his subsequent failure to testify. As discussed above, I believe that he was. Because I would reverse Adams’ convictions on this ground, I would not reach his argument regarding the jury instructions.

. We know the jury acquitted Adams of murder because it found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter. See Watts v. State, 885 N.E.2d 1228, 1232 (Ind.2008) ("[I]t has long been held in Indiana that a conviction for voluntary manslaughter is an acquittal of the greater offense of murder.”).