Court Opinion

ID: 9760912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:22:49.073884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:18.383628
License: Public Domain

NEBEKER, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s determination that appellant Jefferson’s conviction should be reversed. Admittedly, it might initially appear that the trial court issued contradictory rulings with respect to other crimes evidence in this case, having at first granted appellant Downing’s motion for severance of counts yet later allowing evidence of those severed counts to be admitted against the testifying Jefferson. However, any confusion regarding these rulings disappears when they are viewed in context.
The impact of the trial court’s severance of counts was to disallow any reference by the government to the December 3rd incident when presenting their case in chief for the November 25th incident. But, this preclusion did not extend to the appellants an impenetrable shield against any use of the December 3rd evidence. Upon taking the stand, Jefferson denied any knowledge of Williams’ purpose in alighting from the car or of having any intent to assist in robbing Soloman and Robinson. This testimony placed in issue Jefferson’s credibility with regard to his purported lack of knowledge or intent to rob. The evidence of the December 3rd incident, inadmissible for affirmative use by the government because of the severance ruling, became admissible for impeachment purposes. For, “there is hardly justification for letting the defendant affirmatively resort to perjurious testimony in reliance on the Government’s disability to challenge his credibility.” Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 224, 91 S.Ct. 643, 645, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971), quoting Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62, 65, 74 S.Ct. 354, 356, 98 L.Ed. 503 (1954).
Thus, the trial court correctly recognized that the appellant could not utilize the protection afforded him by the severance of the counts as a shield against the “traditional truth-testing devices of the adversary process.” Id. 401 U.S. at 225, 91 S.Ct. at 645. Once Jefferson exercised his privilege to take the stand in his own behalf, he was under an obligation to speak truthfully and accurately. The trial court’s earlier severance order should not be “perverted into a license to commit perjury” by way of a defense free from the risk of confrontation with evidence of complicity in a similar offense within a matter of days.