Court Opinion

ID: 9577525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:35:45.27974+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:44.489590
License: Public Domain

Justice MEYER
dissenting.
The defendant did not preserve for the record what the witness Lockemy’s proffered verbal testimony as to Keith Barts’ statements to him would have been had he been allowed to testify *185concerning those statements. For this reason, the majority correctly concludes that we cannot sustain an exception to the exclusion of the proffered verbal hearsay testimony of Lockemy. State v. Haywood, 295 N.C. 709, 249 S.E. 2d 429 (1978).
I believe the majority errs, however, in concluding that the defendant’s due process rights were violated by the exclusion of the written statement of what Lockemy had said that Keith Barts had said to him. The majority’s reliance on Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 35 L.Ed. 2d 297 (1973), is misplaced. In Chambers, the defendant, in the guilt phase, proffered the live testimony of three witnesses to whom another man had confessed to the crime with which the defendant was charged. The trial judge excluded the live testimony as hearsay in violation of the state’s evidentiary code which prohibited a party from impeaching his own witness. The United States Supreme Court properly reversed the conviction because the state’s evidentiary rule impinged upon the defendant’s right to a fair trial. Had the live testimony of the three witnesses in Chambers been admitted, those witnesses would have been subject to cross-examination to test the veracity of their statements concerning the confession made to them by the third party.
Likewise, in Green v. Georgia, 242 U.S. 95, 60 L.Ed. 2d 738 (1979) (a per curiam opinion), upon which the majority also relies and, indeed, finds dispositive of this case, the proffered evidence was also live testimony as opposed to a written statement. In Green, as in Chambers, the live witnesses would have been subject to cross-examination to test their veracity.
In the case at bar, defense counsel attempted to have Lockemy testify as to the written statement in question, but the trial judge sustained the State’s objection on the grounds that the written statement (like the proffered oral statements of Lockemy) was hearsay. The trial judge so severely sanitized the statement that defense counsel apparently felt that its introduction would have accomplished nothing. Because Lockemy was on the stand, I would have no difficulty with the result reached in this particular case if the majority opinion required the trial judge to allow the State to cross-examine him concerning the written hearsay statement. The majority does not so restrict its holding. On retrial, this same statement might be offered through Lockemy without *186the trial judge permitting Lockemy to be cross-examined concerning the statement. Likewise, under the majority opinion, Lockemy’s written statement might be admitted through the auspices of the officer obtaining it without Lockemy being cross-examined or without Lockemy even being present though otherwise available to testify.
So long as the witness who gives the written statement containing the hearsay is subject to cross-examination, the interests of justice are properly served. Upon cross-examination, the witness who gives (or gave) the statement containing the hearsay may very well repudiate the proffered statement as untrue or even deny having made it. If the witness gives the hearsay statement or testifies precisely to the contents of a prior written hearsay statement, his demeanor may convince a sentencing judge (or the jury in a capital case) that the statement and the live testimony are untrue.
Because the majority opinion gives no assurance that Lockemy’s written statement containing the hearsay can be introduced by way of Lockemy’s testimony only if Lockemy is subject to cross-examination, or otherwise condition its introduction upon the availability of Lockemy for cross-examination concerning the statement, I cannot join the majority opinion.