Court Opinion

ID: 9753959
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:36:08.051132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:45.628072
License: Public Domain

Wilner, J.,

concurring:

This case is a troubling one. There is no doubt that the 18-year old victim was brutally raped and beaten, and the evidence presented to the jury more than sufficed to show that appellant Cox was the guilty party. I am well aware, as is Judge Orth, that the effect of the Court’s decision today is to require that the victim again come into court and endure the trauma and humiliation of reliving and retelling the unconscionable horrors committed upon her. This is something that all of us are sensitive to and earnestly wish could be avoided.
The issue before us, however, is not whether Cox should have been convicted, but whether he was properly convicted. Neither the heinous nature of the crime nor the probability that Cox committed it may detract us from our primal responsibility for assuring that the fundamental precepts of due process of law were observed in this case. At issue here, in the context of the court’s refusal to permit a line of inquiry on cross-examination, is the Constitutional right (State and Federal) of all accused persons to confront the witnesses against them. See Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308 (1974); *297Gregory v. State, 40 Md.App. 297 (1978). It is a right that transcends the nature of a particular case; it must be protected in every case.
As Judge Orth has pointed out, notwithstanding the abundance of corroborating physical and circumstantial evidence, the basic issue at trial came down to one of credibility, whether to believe the victim’s accusation that Cox was her assailant or his assertion that he was not. If the jury were to find the victim to be a credible and truthful witness, it would quite naturally tend to believe what she said, and thus to doubt, or to disbelieve, the contrary assertions of Cox. That is obviously what happened. But if, on the other hand, the jury had some reason to doubt the credibility of the victim — to question whether her accusation of Cox was a truthful one — the counterbalance to the credibility of Cox’s defense would have been weakened, and the jury may then have regarded that defense more favorably. In that event, it may well have entertained a reasonable doubt as to Cox’s guilt, and thus acquitted him. Aside from the bestial nature of the assaults committed here, this, perhaps, is the one point of agreement among the panel; if the trial court erred in refusing to allow the cross-examination sought by defense counsel, the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Judge Orth views the issue as being one of error or non-error. Judge Lowe, in dissent, sees the allowance of cross-examination as to credibility not as a "yes-no” matter, the trial judge being either right or wrong, but rather as a matter that permits of some discretion, and urges that his exercise of that discretion ought not to be overturned unless it amounts to an abuse.
It seems to me that the law is this. The cases cited by Judge Orth — DeLilly and the others — make clear that, in general, cross-examination designed to test or attack a witness’s credibility is always relevant and must be allowed. It is not a matter of discretion. A judge simply cannot shut off an inquiry through cross-examination which, if successful, would tend "to impair the credit of a witness”; DeLilly, 11 Md.App. at 681; and if he does so, whether in a purported *298exercise of discretion or simply by misunderstanding the law, a resulting conviction will, unless the error is harmless, be reversed.
There are, however, two areas in which the trial judge may have some discretion. The first is in deciding whether the information sought to be elicited really is relevant to credibility, whether, in other words, it would tend to impair the credit of the witness; and the second is in. deciding whether the particular question posed is a proper one. We are concerned here with the first of these.
Although I agree that the trial judge has some discretion in determining whether a particular line of inquiry is relevant to credibility, it is, under the cases, a rather limited discretion. Thus, if, as here, a judge refuses to permit a certain line of cross-examination on the ground that, in his judgment, it is not relevant to credibility and he is wrong, whether we regard the mistake as direct error or as an abuse of discretion is of importance only to legal theorists and commentators. The effect, and the required remedy, is the same.
I am convinced, from the authorities cited by Judge Orth, that the line of inquiry sought by defense counsel was relevant to credibility. We are not dealing here, as Judge Lowe suggests, with past "bad acts” not amounting to convictions, and we are certainly not dealing with issues of the victim’s chastity, reputation, or moral character.
Assuming, for purposes of this appeal, that counsel would have been able to confirm his proffer through cross-examination of the victim, the simple question is this: would it be relevant for the trier of fact, in deciding whether to believe the victim’s accusation of Cox, to know that she had once before caused another man to be criminally charged with assault, that she had repeated that accusation under oath at the man’s trial, and that on cross-examination she had recanted, thus at least tacitly admitting that (1) she had falsely accused the man, and (2) she had lied under oath?
There is no reasonable way that question can be answered in the negative. That is why the conviction must be reversed.