Court Opinion

ID: 9619706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:31:47.313043+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:43.567358
License: Public Domain

Justice EXUM
dissenting.
To admit in evidence against defendant the results of a polygraph examination which he “failed” while at the same time excluding from evidence the fact that defendant “passed” a psychological stress evaluation was so fundamentally unfair in the context of this case as to deny defendant due process of law under the rationale of Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973). In Chambers defendant was tried and convicted of the murder of one “Sonny” Liberty. The shooting of Liberty, a policeman, allegedly occurred in a barroom which Liberty had entered to execute an arrest warrant for one C. C. Jackson. Liberty was shot three times in the back. He then fired his riot gun into an alley from which the shots appeared to have come. One of these shots struck Chambers as he ran down the alley. Chambers was utlimately charged with and convicted of Liberty’s murder. At trial Chambers’ defense was not only that he did not shoot Liberty but that one Gable McDonald had actually done the shooting. Prior to Chambers’ trial McDonald had confessed to the shooting. McDonald had subsequently repudiated this confession, however, saying he confessed at the importuning of one Reverend Stokes who had promised him that he would not go to jail and would share in the proceeds of a lawsuit Chambers would bring against the town where the shooting occurred.
At Chambers’ trial he called McDonald as a witness and through him was able to get admitted into evidence McDonald’s written, sworn, out-of-court confession. The state on cross-*502examination elicited from McDonald the fact that he had repudiated his confession and his reasons for doing so. After the state’s cross-examination Chambers renewed an earlier motion to examine McDonald as an adverse witness. This motion was denied on the basis of Mississippi’s “voucher rule” which precluded a party from cross-examining his own witness unless the witness testified adversely to the party calling him. Since McDonald had not, under Mississippi’s rule, testified adversely to Chambers, Chambers was denied the opportunity to cross-examine him. Chambers also sought to offer the testimony of three witnesses to whom McDonald had admitted shooting Liberty. This testimony was not allowed at trial. On the basis of Mississippi’s voucher and hearsay rules, respectively, the Mississippi Supreme Court found no error in either of these rulings.
In the United States Supreme Court defendant contended “that the application of these evidentiary rules rendered his trial fundamentally unfair and deprived him of due process of law.” The United States Supreme Court, with only Justice Renquist dissenting on a procedural ground, agreed with this contention. While it was critical of the Mississippi rules of evidence it nevertheless recognized that they were the rules which had been traditionally applied by the Mississippi Supreme Court. Nevertheless the United States Supreme Court concluded that the application of these evidentiary rules under the circumstances denied Chambers “a trial in accord with traditional and fundamental standards of due process.” 410 U.S. at 302. It said further, id. at 302-03:
“In reaching this judgment, we establish no new principles of constitutional law. Nor does our holding signal any diminution in the respect traditionally accorded to the States in the establishment and implementation of their own criminal trial rules and procedures. Rather, we hold quite simply that under the facts and circumstances of this case the rulings of the trial court deprived Chambers of a fair trial.”
In the case before us defendant offered the testimony of Mr. Andy Nichols, an instructor in the Criminal Justice Department of Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, to the effect that on 16 August 1978 Nichols had examined defendant using a psychological stress evaluator (sometimes called an audio *503stress evaluator). This test indicated that defendant was telling the truth when he denied being involved in a sexual encounter with Mrs. Monette. It was stipulated that Nichols was a qualified expert in such examinations. The testimony of Nichols together with other evidence offered by defendant on the question indicated that the psychological stress evaluator was a device for measuring stress in the human voice and that as a “lie detection” device it was as reliable, if not more reliable, than the polygraph. All evidence relating to this examination was ruled inadmissible by the trial judge.
After defendant rested, the state was permitted to offer in rebuttal the testimony of W. 0. Holmberg, a police officer with the City of Charlotte. He testified that on 14 September 1978 he examined defendant using a polygraph and that in his opinion, based on the polygraph examination, defendant “indicated deception” when he denied a sexual encounter with Mrs. Monette.
It was brought out on a voir dire hearing that after defendant “passed” the psychological stress evaluator test administered by Nichols, he and the state stipulated that he would submit to a polygraph examination to be administered by Holmberg and, further, that the results of the polygraph examination would be admissible in evidence whether offered by the state or the defendant.
This Court has consistently held that polygraph examination results are inadmissible. State v. Jackson, 287 N.C. 470, 215 S.E. 2d 123 (1975); State v. Brunson, 287 N.C. 436, 215 S.E. 2d 94 (1975); State v. Foye, 254 N.C. 704, 120 S.E. 2d 169 (1961). In Foye defendant was given a new trial because of the introduction of testimony that a “lie detector” test administered to him indicated that he was telling the truth when he confessed to the murder with which he was charged. The reasons given in Foye for excluding the results of polygraph tests were: (1) there is no “general scientific recognition of the efficacy of such tests”; (2) such evidence distracts the jury from the real questions before it; (3) “it would permit the defendant to have extra-judicial tests made without the necessity of submitting to similar tests by the prosecution”; and (4) “the lie detecting machine could not be cross-examined.” 254 N.C. at 708, 120 S.E. 2d at 172. The decision and reasoning of Foye were reaffirmed in Brunson in which this *504Court noted that “the weight of authority still supports that decision.” 287 N.C. at 445, 215 S.E. 2d at 100.
The Court of Appeals in State v. Steele, 27 N.C. App. 496, 219 S.E. 2d 540 (1975), held that under certain circumstances, which included a stipulation of admissibility, polygraph examination results could be admitted. This Court, until the majority’s decision today, has never so held. I agree with the majority that the conditions precedent to admissibility of polygraph results as set out in Steele were followed here. I also agree with the majority’s acceptance of the Steele decision itself.
The trial court, relying essentially on the stipulation of admissibility voluntarily entered into by the defendant and his voluntary participation pursuant thereto in the polygraph examination, ruled that testimony regarding it was admissible. Because, however, of the absence of a similar stipulation regarding the psychological stress evaluator test the trial court ruled that its results were inadmissible.1
Defendant’s counsel should have insisted that the admissibility stipulation, if made at all, include both tests. I concede that because the admissibility stipulation did not include the psychological stress evalutor examination the trial court, from the strict standpoint of our law of evidence, ruled correctly as to both tests. The effect, however, of these rulings was so fundamentally unfair in the context of other evidence in this case as to deny defendant due process of law. To insure that fairness in the proceeding which our constitutions demand the trial judge should have either (1) exercised his discretion to rule inadmissible evidence relating to the polygraph or (2) recognized that strict application of the rules of evidence would, under these circumstances, deny due process to defendant and admitted results of both tests.
I stress as did the United States Supreme Court in Chambers the factual context in which the evidentiary questions arose. Defendant here has consistently denied his guilt both prior to trial and as a witness at trial. He put up a strong, affirmative *505defense which included a corroborated alibi; evidence of his good character and lack of any prior criminal activity; a reasonable explanation of his possession of the firearm; testimony by Lynn Feldman Milano, then his girlfriend and now his wife, that she was physically present with him at the time the incident with Mrs. Monette allegedly occurred; and evidence of a painful injury to his groin the evening before the incident in question. All of this, if believed, renders defendant an extremely unlikely rapist.
On the other hand the state’s evidence, while seemingly strong, raises, in my judgment, nagging doubts upon close examination. At the heart of the dispute in this case was whether defendant had, in fact, driven his automobile sometime after 11:00 a.m. on 17 May 1978 to the apartment complex of Mrs. Monette. Defendant claimed the car was last driven between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. and told police it was in the same position when they found it as it was when he parked it in the early morning hours. Police located his car between 11:30 a.m. and 12:00 Noon. At that time had the car been recently driven its engine would have been warm. Yet the state offered no evidence that the engine was warm or that it had or had not been checked for warmth by the investigating police.
Further, Mrs. Monette identified her assailant to police as being stockily built, five feet eight inches tall with dark hair and brown eyes. She told Dr. Robertson that he was five feet ten inches tall and weighed 165 pounds. In fact defendant was five feet five inches tall, weighed 140 pounds and had hazel eyes. Moreover, Dr. Robertson found no evidence of trauma to Mrs. Monette’s genitalia and no real evidence of recent sexual intercourse.
The strength of the state’s case as opposed to defendant’s was, of course, for the jury and not this Court to weigh and consider. I mention it to show only that the case is not “open and shut” on the question of whether a rape occurred; if anything, it is even closer on whether defendant was indeed the rapist. It comes down to a question of which side the jury believes. In this context, evidence of defendant’s failure of a polygraph examination was devastating to his defense and, in effect, insured his conviction. Whether admission of this evidence coupled with exclusion of evidence that he had passed a psychological stress evaluation denied him that fundamental fairness which constitutional *506due process demands is a question which this Court should address notwithstanding the trial court’s technically correct application of our rules of evidence. Having addressed it, I am satisfied defendant, like Chambers, was denied due process and is entitled to a new trial.

. The trial court’s conclusions that “there is no sufficient basis in this state to make such psychological stress test competent evidence” and “the reliability of such . . . test has not been sufficiently established to make it competent evidence” are, as the majority notes, not determinative. The same conclusions would appertain, in this state, to the polygraph. All the evidence in this record is that the psychological stress evaluation is as reliable, if not more so, than the polygraph.