Court Opinion

ID: 9496169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:19:11.22374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:23.818601
License: Public Domain

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority’s decision to grant an evidentiary hearing on remand, but I write6 separately because I respectfully think this Court needs to go further. Not only is the Brady claim based on the Jan Smith intake note and other withheld exculpatory evidence sufficiently strong to warrant a new trial, but I also think that the defendant has raised two meritorious Confrontation Clause claims and therefore dissent from the majority’s affirmance of those claims.
As the majority states, “[ljittle direct or circumstantial evidence supported either side’s version of events” in this case. There was no corroboration of the boy’s testimony as to the criminal acts themselves. The jury had no information that would help it test the boy’s credibility because, as the majority correctly points out, the evidence Ellsworth offered “seeking to cast doubt on Matthew’s credibility ... was not allowed.” The possibility that an innocent man was convicted is very real, and a new trial, not just an evidentiary hearing on a limited due process issue, is warranted.

I. Analysis

A. Standard of Review

As explained by the majority, a de novo standard of review applies to both the Brady claim and the Confrontation Clause claim regarding cross-examination about *10Matthew’s prior abuse. The “claim that the trial court violated [Ellsworth’s] rights under the Confrontation Clause by refusing to allow him to admit testimony from the counselor at Pine Haven,” however, is subject to deferential review under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

B. Brady Claim

The district court found that there were essentially two new and undisclosed pieces of evidence — the Jan Smith note expressing concern that Matthew might make false accusations of sexual abuse and the reports bearing on the extent to which Matthew had been reliving and dreaming about his earlier abuse — but concluded that “[t]aken as a whole, in the context of the other information known to the defense, that information was not of significant value.” I disagree. The information that the Spaulding director recognized, and was concerned, that Matthew had a tendency to accuse people of sexual abuse does seriously undermine one’s confidence in the outcome of the trial. The district court maintains that this information is insignificant because Ellsworth knew that Matthew’s parents had such a concern, but it is an entirely different matter that a Spaulding director, a professional who works with emotionally disturbed boys on a daily basis, highlighted this as a potential problem. Especially in light of the extent to which the trial judge curtailed cross-examination of Matthew himself, this information becomes even more important. Had the jury been presented with this information, along with the information that Matthew was reliving his abuse, it seems to me far from clear that it would have reached the same conclusion as to Matthew’s credibility.
Likewise, the fact that Matthew had recently been reliving and having nightmares about his earlier abuse is also significant here. The jury reached its conclusion that Matthew’s allegations were credible with no information about a part of his life that bore significantly on his mental and emotional state.
Looking at the evidence cumulatively, as Kyles requires, 514 U.S. at 437, 115 S.Ct. 1555, the suppressed evidence is sufficient to undermine confidence in the jury’s verdict. While I am joining the majority’s decision in order to provide Ellsworth with at least an evidentiary hearing, my preference would be to reverse the district court on the Brady claim and grant the writ of habeas corpus so that he receives a new trial.

C. Confrontation Clause Claims

The majority “do[es] not think that Ells-worth has shown a violation of the Confrontation Clause at all.” I disagree. I think that Ellsworth has two legitimate claims under the Confrontation Clause: one for the erroneous exclusion of the evidence of his prior abuse and one for the exclusion of testimony regarding his prior false accusations.

1. Prior Abuse

The district court found that Ellsworth’s Confrontation Clause rights were in fact violated by the trial court’s refusal to allow cross-examination of Matthew on the issue of his prior sexual abuse, which his defense counsel argued was relevant both (1) as an explanation for why he could describe sexual acts in such detail and (2) to show the possibility that he was fabricating his claim against Ellsworth. Matthew’s guardian ad litem maintained that the abuse should not be brought up at trial due to its being too far in the past and the possible detrimental effect of such cross-examination on Matthew.
*11The trial court ultimately ruled that the prior abuse was “irrelevant” because it was too different in nature from the conduct with which Ellsworth was charged, and because Ellsworth did not prove that it was the prior abuse, rather than some other source of information, that might have provided Matthew with his sexual knowledge. The trial judge allowed defense counsel to cross-examine Matthew only as to the general facts of his participation in group therapy, and the fact that the group discussed the difference between “good touch” and “bad touch.” No other evidence of Matthew’s prior sexual abuse was introduced at trial; the jury knew only that Matthew was at Spaulding and had participated in group therapy, not that he had been sexually abused earlier in his life. With all due respect to the majority, I fail to see how a group discussion of “good and bad touching” can be viewed as providing Matthew with the same sort of detailed sexual knowledge he would have gleaned from having undergone abuse previously.
In this case, the district court correctly rejected the trial court’s rationale for denying Ellsworth the right to cross-examine Matthew concerning his earlier sex abuse. The district court observed that the state courts had all ignored the common element of fellatio in both Matthew’s earlier experiences and the charged conduct in this case, and concluded that the evidence at issue “might have provided facts from which jurors could have appropriately drawn inferences related to the reliability of Matthew as a witness.” I agree with the district court that Ellsworth’s rights under the Confrontation Clause were violated when the trial judge failed to allow him to cross-examine Matthew on his earlier sexual abuse.
I disagree with the district court’s finding that this error was harmless, however, and find that the trial court’s bar on cross-examination of Matthew does indeed give rise to “grave doubt about whether a trial error of federal law had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” O’Neal v. McAninch, 513 U.S. 432, 436, 115 S.Ct. 992, 130 L.Ed.2d 947 (1995). The trial court made a critical mistake when it denied Ellsworth the opportunity to present the jury with facts from which to draw a more accurate picture of Matthew’s emotional and psychological condition.7 Accordingly, I *12would reject the district court’s conclusion that the trial court’s error in curtailing Ellsworth’s cross-examination of Matthew was “harmless.”. The district court should have been reversed on this claim.

2. Prior False Accusations

At trial, Ellsworth had proffered that Craig Klare’s testimony would show that Matthew had made false accusations against students at Pine Haven, the school he attended after Spaulding. Klare, one of Matthew’s counselors, related that Matthew falsely accused other boys at the school of peeking at him in the shower, of peeking under his toilet, and of stealing toys that he himself had hidden. The trial court ruled that Ellsworth could cross-examine Matthew about these incidents, but excluded Klare’s testimony. On cross-examination, Matthew denied that the incidents ever occurred.
The district court found that it was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent for the New Hampshire state courts to exclude the testimony of Craig Klare, which would have rebutted Matthew’s denials, under New Hampshire Rules of Evidence8 404(b) (barring introduction of evidence of propensity evidence) and 608(b) (regarding credibility evidence)
The district court correctly noted that the Supreme Court has established that, at least under some circumstances, due process may require that a criminal defendant be permitted to introduce extrinsic impeachment evidence, even despite contrary evidentiary rules, in order to protect a weighty or critical defense interest. See, e.g., Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690-91, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986) (holding that defendant’s constitutional rights would be violated “if the State were permitted to exclude competent, reliable evidence bearing on the credibility of a confession when such evidence is central to the defendant’s claim of innocence”). The Supreme Court delineates the doctrine as follows: a state may “establish rules excluding evidence from criminal trials” provided “they are not ‘arbitrary’ or ‘disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve.’ ” United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 308, 118 S.Ct. 1261, 140 L.Ed.2d 413 (1998) (internal citations omitted). Accord Montana v. Egelhoff, 518 U.S. 37, 43, 116 S.Ct. 2013, 135 L.Ed.2d 361 (1996) (state evidentiary rule “not subject to proscription under Due Process Clause unless ‘it offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental’ ”). Whether a principle of justice is “fundamental,” according to the Supreme Court, is to be assessed historically, with reference to the common law. Egelhoff, 518 U.S. at 43-44, 116 S.Ct. 2013.
The question here, then, is whether the trial court’s decision to exclude the Klare testimony under Rules 404(b) and 608(b) was either contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, the rule established in Scheffer and Egelhoff: namely, that states may formulate their own evidentiary rules so long as those rules do not infringe on a *13weighty interest of the accused or offend a fundamental common-law principle of justice. The district court concluded that the trial court’s exclusion of the Klare testimony did not rise to this standard. First, Ellsworth did not establish that there was a sufficiently weighty defense interest in the testimony to outweigh the evidentiary rules precluding its introduction. Second, in any case, the testimony appeared to be proffered only as a “general” attack on Matthew’s credibility rather than one targeted at exposing potential bias or motivation to he. This distinction is significant because the Supreme Court has held that the latter is a right entitled to the full protection of the Confrontation Clause whereas the former is not. See, e.g., Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 678-80, 106 S.Ct. 1431; Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 316-17, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974).
I find that the district court’s application of Scheffer and Egelhoff to bar Klare’s testimony, viewed in the context of the trial, was objectively unreasonable. To conclude, as the district court did, that Klare’s proffered testimony did not bear on Matthew’s potential bias or motive for lying is simply incorrect. At trial, defense counsel was permitted only to ask Matthew himself whether he had accused other children at Pine Haven of peeking at him or stealing his toys — all of which Matthew flatly denied. Thus, the jury was left only with Matthew’s unrebutted denials, and no evidence at all that the incidents in fact occurred — in some ways, an outcome far more prejudicial to Ellsworth than if counsel had not been allowed the cross-examination at all.
Accordingly, it is hard to conceive how Ellsworth’s interest in impeaching Matthew’s testimony could have been more weighty. The jury was left to draw the conclusion that there was no rebuttal to Matthew’s denials. As to the issue of impeachment to show adverse motive or bias versus general impeachment of a witness’s credibility, Klare’s proffered testimony would have done much more than simply demonstrate Matthew’s alleged “propensity to make false allegations about voyeurism and theft;” it would have demonstrated to the jury the kinds of circumstances that unsettled Matthew enough to evoke untrue accusations — that constituted his motivation and his own set of biases. I would therefore reverse the district court on this claim as well.

II. Conclusion

I do not minimize or disregard the genuine suffering that Matthew has gone through in his short life. Nor do I conclude that he was not Ellsworth’s victim. However, the mere fact that a defendant stands accused by a sympathetic victim of a repulsive crime does not justify depriving him of his constitutional right to a fair trial. I agree with the majority that at the very least Ellsworth is entitled to an evi-dentiary hearing on remand. My preference, however, would be to reverse the district court on all three claims and remand with instructions to issue the writ of habeas corpus.

. I reiterate here the bulk of the original panel opinion, written by Judge Betty Fletcher, which has been vacated.

. In Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986), the Supreme Court enumerated several factors that go into assessing whether error is harmless, including "the importance of the witness' testimony in the prosecution's case, whether the testimony was cumulative, the presence or absence of evidence corroborating or contradicting the testimony of the witness on material points, the extent of cross-examination otherwise permitted, and, of course, the overall strength of the prosecution's case.” 475 U.S. at 684, 106 S.Ct. 1431.
Looking at this case in light of the Van Arsdall factors, the harmfulness of the error becomes even clearer:
(1)The importance of the accusing witness's testimony in the prosecution's case is impossible to overstate. The district court itself recognized this: Matthew was Ells-worth's only accuser and the only witness to the alleged incidents. Matthew's testimony was the whole of the prosecution's case.
(2) The testimony was not cumulative. The district court itself observed that there was no other testimony about Matthew's sexual history. Moreover, in light of the district court's emphasis on the graphic details Matthew recounted, the source of those details was extremely significant and not reached by other testimony.
(3) There was evidence corroborating Matthew’s testimony, but not on material points. The district court thought the corroboration to be material, but it was only marginally so. The other evidence was only "corroborating” to the extent that there were occasions when Ellsworth took the boys on trips, took them swimming, and stayed overnight at Colcord *12Cottage. There was no corroborating evidence of the abuse itself.
(4) The extent of permitted cross-examination was very limited. Matthew was permitted to testify in an extremely general way that he talked about “good touch” and “bad touch” in group therapy. This did not provide the jury with any information about his background and prior abuse.
(5) The overall strength of the prosecution’s case was not overwhelming. It involved a sympathetic victim and a lurid accusation, but, at bottom, it turns on the word of an unstable witness — a child at that.

. The text of these rules is identical to that of the corresponding Federal Rules of Evidence.