Court Opinion

ID: 9683386
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:27:54.433272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:47.565774
License: Public Domain

GALBREATH, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
Originally, pleas of not guilty were entered to the indictment charging Carl Ludwig Carlson, Gloria Ann Dorsey, Henry Norman Dorsey, and Trudy Elizabeth Fisher with robbery accomplished by use of a deadly weapon. Trudy Fisher agreed to assist the prosecution as a witness against the other defendants and a severance was granted after the State announced that her case was to be retired. Prior to that announcement the trial judge had denied her application in which the State had joined for a severance. This was consistent with a like denial of a motion by the appellants herein, Henry and Gloria Dorsey, for severances. The other co-defendant, Carl Ludwig Carlson, entered a plea of guilty but did not testify. He was, over strenuous objection on behalf of these appellants, tried jointly with them but only as to punishment.
The above procedure violated the constitutional rights of the Dorseys to confront the witnesses against them. Carlson’s judicial acknowledgement that he committed the offense, detailed by the allegations in the indictment and the evidence presented, including details of his attempted flight to avoid capture and prosecution, constituted devastatingly adverse evidence that the jury must have considered against the appellants.
*646The trial judge should, in my opinion, have granted the Dorseys a severance from Carlson. It would have cost the State nothing and would, in all probability, have been favorable to Carlson who was sentenced, on his plea of guilty, to 15 years in the penitentiary while Henry and Gloria Dorsey were sentenced to 13 and 10 years respectively.
The rule in Tennessee is that a trial judge has wide discretion in granting or withholding a severance. He will only be reversed where it clearly appears from the record that a failure to sever the trials will result in undue prejudice to the party seeking the severance. Conversely, a trial judge commits error when he fails to grant separate trials in those instances wherein it is made to appear that it will unduly prejudice one defendant to be tried with another. Such a situation arises in the so-called Bruton cases.
In Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), it was spelled out, in effect, that where one defendant is confronted by evidence obtained from a non-testifying co-defendant, the right of confrontation available under the Sixth Amendment is denied even though the jury is instructed not to consider the evidence against the objecting defendant. This is similar to the rule established in Stallard v. State, 187 Tenn. 418, 215 S.W.2d 807 (1948). Confronted with the issue in Stallard, Mr. Justice Prewitt, in distinguishing between cases in which the co-defendant was available for confrontation (as was Fisher in this case) and a non-testifying co-defendant (as was Carlson), noted:
In the two cases cited above it appears that in the first-mentioned case there was no real defense offered, and in the second-mentioned case the defendant seeking a severance had every opportunity to cross-examine Alvis, as the latter did not take the stand. The attitude of Alvis being wholly antagonistic, Stallard could not make Alvis his witness as he would have been bound by his statements.
We are not confronted here with the same type of factual situation dealt with in either Stallard or Bruton, but rather the same principal that makes clear a jury could not possibly be but adversely impressed in its consideration of appellants’ position by the admitted conduct of an un-confrontable co-defendant.
The indictment charged that all four defendants “did, on the_day of February, 1976, . . . with force of arms . feloniously . . . put in fear and danger of his life . . . and violently steal from the person ... of . . Sid Katz . . . 308 articles of jewelry ... of the value of $198,-697.35.” When the defendant Carlson admitted under oath that the indictment accurately described the offense he had indeed committed, he became a most effective witness against the others named therein. He should have been available for confrontation just as though he had made a statement admitted as evidence containing the facts alleged in the indictment.
There can be no doubt that Carlson’s judicial “confession”, or plea of guilty, bore directly on the issue of the guilt of the appellants herein. The trial judge based his decision not to charge the lesser included offenses of larceny and the attempt to commit a felony, as requested, partly on the failure to submit a special request, and partly because he felt the evidence did not merit an instruction on the lesser included offenses. He noted in denying the requested instruction, “[T]he Court presented to the jury the charge that it felt applicable based upon the evidence in this case. The defendant, Carl Carlson, has readily admitted that there was an armed robbery. He admitted his participation in it, and entered a plea of guilty.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The appellants, Henry and Gloria Dorsey, did not enter pleas of guilty to armed robbery. Their positions were completely antagonistic to that of their confessing co-defendants, only one of which was available for cross-examination. As our Supreme Court noted (well in advance of Bruton in Stallard, supra:
[W]e cannot see how Stallard could receive a constitutional trial without the opportunity of cross-examining Alvis where the State undertook to read this *647highly damaging statement to the jury. It may be stated that in all probability the jury would have convicted Stallard of the highest degree of murder in the absence of this written statement of Alvis. This is highly problematical. We cannot afford to speculate on the constitutional rights of Stallard, no matter what our opinion should be after weighing all the facts and circumstances.
I would reverse and remand for a new trial and hold that any lesser included offense should be contained in the jury instructions, even in the absence of a special request as required by State v. Staggs, 554 S.W.2d 620 (Tenn.1977).