Court Opinion

ID: 9486306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:43:52.697949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:38.077839
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Today’s decision will no doubt be hailed as a very “contemporary” one. However, the correctness of a ruling by Judges of the Third Article is not measured by whether it is “contemporary” but by whether it protects the basic constitutional values that undergird our political and legal order. When viewed from this perspective, the court’s decision represents a radical departure from the standards established by the Supreme Court of the United States for the protection of the right of an accused to give evidence in his or her own defense. It also condones an injustice that raises the distinct possibility that an innocent person has been convicted of a most heinous crime. I shall discuss each of these considerations briefly.
1.
As the Supreme Court has reminded us on many occasions, the basic function of the criminal trial is to find, even in the most complex and delicate of human situations, THE TRUTH. At this stage in the development of our constitutional law of criminal procedure, there can be ho question that a person accused of a criminal offense has the fundamental right to tell his or her story to the trier of fact. See Rock v. Arkansas, 483 U.S. 44, 49, 107 S.Ct. 2704, 2707, 97 L.Ed.2d 37 (1987) (stating that “it cannot be doubted that a defendant in a criminal case has the right to take the witness stand and to testify in his or her own defense”); Ferguson v. Georgia, 365 U.S. 570, 573-82, 81 S.Ct. 756, 758-63, 5 L.Ed.2d 783 (1961) (detailing the evolution of the right to testify in one’s own behalf). Indeed, the Supreme Court of the *1020United States has long recognized that this right is among those “essential to due process of law in a fair adversary process.” Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 819 n. 15, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 2533 n. 15, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975); see also In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 273, 68 S.Ct. 499, 507, 92 L.Ed. 682 (1948) (stating that a “person’s right to ... an opportunity to be heard in his defense — a right to his day in court — [is] basic in our system of jurisprudence”). In similar fashion, the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment, made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, includes the right of the defendant to take the stand in his or her own behalf. Rock, 483 U.S. at 52, 107 S.Ct. at 2709. Indeed, the Supreme Court has said that “[t]here is no justification for a rule that denies an accused the opportunity to offer his own testimony.” Id. This right specifically includes “an accused’s right to present his own version of the events in his own words.” Id. Finally, the right of the accused to tell his or her own story in his or her own words is rooted in the Fifth Amendment right to decide whether or not to testify. As the Supreme Court has put it, that guarantee includes the right of the accused to remain silent unless he or she chooses to speak “in the unfettered exercise of his own will.” Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 8, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 1493, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964).
To be sure, the right to present evidence on one’s own behalf is not absolute and may be limited in order to protect an important countervailing governmental interest. For instance, in Michigan v. Lucas, 500 U.S. 145, 111 S.Ct. 1743, 114 L.Ed.2d 205 (1991), the Court determined that a state could enforce a state procedural requirement that a defendant provide notice that the defendant planned to introduce evidence of prior sexual conduct by preclusion of the proffered testimony.1 Nevertheless, although the right of an accused person to present evidence in his or her own defense is not absolute, the cases have demonstrated a consistent mistrust of such restrictions. They have required that the state demonstrate that there is an important interest to be served by such an exclusion. The more critical the excluded evidence to the defense of the accused, the more important must be the asserted state interest. See Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 293-303, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 1044-49, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973).
Given the Supreme Court’s clear affirmation in Rock of the right of the accused to tell his or her story to the trier of fact, it is perhaps no accident that the cases of the Supreme Court upon which the State relies have dealt not with the testimony of the defendant. Here, we deal not only with the testimony of the defendant but the testimony of the defendant with respect to the actual criminal act of which he stands accused. The cases deal not "with the right of the accused person to present an account of the underlying event from his or her own lips but with the right of the accused to cross-examine witnesses. Even in that latter context, however, the Supreme Court’s cases recognize the importance of this guarantee in the proper working of the adversary process. The Court requires that the state court weigh the necessity of a preclusion sanction against the values protected by the Sixth Amendment.2 Important to the Court’s inquiry has been the centrality of the proffered testimony. Attempts to show “prototypical form of bias on the part of the witness,” Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 680, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 1436, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986), have always been considered especially important to the preservation of that right. For instance, in Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974), a case that bears, as Judge Cudahy notes, a striking similarity to our own, the Supreme Court held that the defendant had the right to cross-examine a witness for the prosecution by showing that the witness, on probation at the time, was *1021biased because of his desire to avoid further trouble with authorities. Although state law protected the anonymity of juvenile offenders, the Court held that the need to demonstrate such possible bias outweighed any privacy needs of the witness. In underlining the importance of showing such bias, the Court relied in part on its previous holding in Greene v. McElroy, which stated:
Certain principles have remained relatively immutable in our jurisprudence. One of these is that where governmental action seriously injures an individual, and the reasonableness of the action depends on fact findings, the evidence used to prove the Government’s ease must be disclosed to the individual so that he has an opportunity to show that it is untrue. While this is important in the case of documentary evidence, it is even more important where the evidence consists of the testimony of individuals whose memory might be faulty or who, in fact, might be perjurers of persons motivated by malice, vindictiveness, intolerance, prejudice, or jealousy. We have formalized these protections in the requirements of confrontation and cross-examination.
360 U.S. 474, 496, 79 S.Ct. 1400, 1413, 3 L.Ed.2d 1377 (1959) (emphasis added).
The cases of the Supreme Court have also made crystal clear that, in assessing the importance of the testimony, it is of utmost importance to be sensitive to the realities of human life and the actions and reactions of real people. For instance, in Olden v. Kentucky, 488 U.S. 227, 109 S.Ct. 480, 102 L.Ed.2d 513 (1988), the Supreme Court summarily reversed an exclusion by the courts of Kentucky of evidence that the complainant in a sexual misconduct trial was living with the prosecution’s key corroborative witness at the time of trial. The Court noted that the defendant’s desire to demonstrate that the complainant had a motive to lie in order to protect her current relationship was an attempt to demonstrate a “ ‘prototypical form of bias.’ ” Id. at 231, 109 S.Ct. at 483 (quoting Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 680, 106 S.Ct. at 1436). The possibility that the jury might be prejudiced by the victim’s interracial relationship was not, held the Court, sufficient to justify denying the defendant the opportunity to demonstrate that the complainant’s interest in protecting the current relationship had resulted in her bias. Id. 488 U.S. at 232, 109 S.Ct. at 483.
2.
Jury service in this case must have been a very difficult task. The record reveals that the jurors were asked to resolve sharply contested versions of what occurred in the complainant’s trailer on the night of March 17, 1987.
The complainant was able to relate fully to the jury her account. She was asleep on the couch when the defendant arrived. Her sister and brother-in-law were asleep in the guest room off the kitchen. Her son and her nephew were asleep in a bedroom off the hallway which also was located near the bathroom. When the complainant awoke, the defendant was standing in the front door inside the trailer. He sat down beside her and made sexual suggestions and attempted to kiss her. She told him of the presence of others in the trailer and called out for her sister. He ceased his advances for the moment, but then began holding her and attempted once again to kiss her. She called out once again for her sister who still did not respond. The defendant said he would go but first needed to úse the bathroom. He walked down the hall and then returned to the complainant and angrily told her that she had lied about the presence of others in the trailer. He then threw her down on the couch, pressed his hand across her mouth to suppress a scream she was about to utter. He pressed his body against hers, undid her bra, and tore a button from her shirt. As he reached to undo his trousers, the victim flipped him off her and ran into the bedroom off the kitchen while shouting for her sister and brother-in-law.
The defendant’s version of the facts is quite different. Some of it was heard by the jury; some was not. According to him, he arrived at the defendant’s trailer around 10:00 p.m. pursuant to a standing invitation to visit sometime. He testified that, when he arrived, the complainant was awake and, after a brief conversation, invited him into the *1022trailer. He further testified that, at the complainant’s suggestion, he carried her child to her bedroom ánd then rejoined the complainant on the couch. After a few moments of small talk about her pending divorce, the defendant asked the complainant if he could give her a Mss. While Mssing her he fondled her breast and unhooked her bra. Because the complainant could not lie down comfortably on the couch, she suggested that they lie down on the floor. Together, they moved the coffee table and placed it against a chair opposite the couch. The defendant began to remove his clothes and then assisted the complainant in the removal of hers.
Up to this point, the defendant, like the complainant, had been allowed to tell his story to the jury. But now, at the crucial point of whether the sexual intercourse was consensual, the defendant was prohibited from telling the jury his version of what transpired. He had wanted to tell the jury that, while he and the complainant were engaging in consensual sexual intercourse, he said to her that another couple had told him that they had been involved in a sexual partner switching arrangement in which she had also participated and that she liked to engage in sexual intercourse “doggy fashion.” The defendant wished to testify that this remark of his so angered the complainant that she made him stop and told him to leave. As he left, he heard her call for her sister. The jury, however, never heard what the defendant claims he said that elicited such a strong reaction from the complaining witness. Instead, the trial court restricted him to saying that he had said “something” that made her angry.
As is often the case in these situations, some of the evidence from sources other than the participants supports the complaining witness’ version and some supports the defendant’s version. The defendant arrived at the home of friends around 10:15 p.m. He did not reveal that he had been to the complainant’s home, but told them that he had been left at McHughes’ Pic a Pac by his friend Stone. He testified that he told them this story because he did not want them to know that he had been to the complainant’s trailer and had engaged in sexual intercourse with her. He left at about 11:10 p.m. At about 12:30, the complainant’s former husband arrived at the defendant’s trailer and accused the defendant of attempting to have sexual intercourse with “Ms old lady.” The defendant demed the charge. The defendant also admitted that he had told his girlfriend four different versions of the event and explained his untruths on the ground that, had she known that he had had sexual intercourse with the complainant, she might have left him and taken the children. It is also clear that Stone, the friend who drove the defendant to the complainant’s house, irntially lied at the defendant’s behest.
If, on balance, the post-incident activities of the defendant do not enhance his story (although it is difficult to estimate the weight a jury might give such matters), some, although not all, of the post-incident activities of the complainant certainly present matters that make her version of the incident susceptible to adverse interpretation. After waMng her sister and brother-in-law, the complainant appeared visibly upset. Her brother-in-law said he saw a man in a red shirt running in a southeasterly direction. The complainant told her sister what had happened and asked her if there were marks on her face. The sister observed marks on the entire face as if someone had placed a hand over her mouth. At about 11:30 p.m., the complainant received a call from her estranged husband, who was supposed to have visited that night and called to say that he would be late. The complainant told her husband that the defendant had tried to rape her. The husband, after stopping at Stephen’s residence, came to the trailer at about 1:00 or 1:30 a.m. The husband was in an agitated state; his noise awoke the complainant’s sister and brother-in-law and a verbal and physical altercation ensued between the two men. The complainant’s sister called the police. When the police responded to the call, neither the complainant nor anyone else informed the officers of the alleged attempted rape. Indeed, no report was made of the attempted rape to the authorities until, on the following evening, the complainant was confronted by her landlady who complained .about the noise in the trailer during the altercation between the complainant’s husband and brother-in-law. *1023The landlady told the complainant that she would tolerate no problems in the trailer park. The complainant told the landlady that the police had been called because an intruder had been in her trailer and “that’s what the fight was over.” Tr. 573. She did not mention an attempted rape. The landlady suggested that the complainant go to the police and seek a restraining order. The complainant, in the company of her brother-in-law, then went to the police station and reported the incident with the defendant the night before as an attempted rape.
As in Olden, these facts required the jury to make a careful judgment on a delicate human situation in which the perspectives, motivations, and emotions of the various actors were, as they often are in such a case, complex and subtle. Ascertaining THE TRUTH to a degree of certainty that would justify the imposition of criminal liability and a twenty year sentence was an awesome responsibility.
As a practical matter, if the defendant was to be exonerated with respect to this accusation, he had to convince the jury that his encounter with the complainant was, from start to finish, consensual. He therefore had to ask the jury to make a crucial assessment of his credibility as opposed to that of the complainant. This task required the members of the jury to assess his personality as well as hers and to assess the cultural environment in which the two lived and interacted with others. What might have seemed a very implausible story if told by others from a different cultural environment may have been very plausible when told by the defendant. Whether the complainant consented to have sexual intercourse with the defendant and whether the statement that was allegedly made to her would have caused her to withdraw that consent and become so infuriated as to recharacterize the encounter when it suited her convenience is an issue upon which the cold record reveals little. Ascertaining THE TRUTH required a careful assessment of personalities, demeanor, and temperament of the two individuals. To limit the defendant to testifying that he said “something” that angered her is to deprive the jury of the essence of his testimony. It was the rawness of what he allegedly said that would have given substance to his testimony. Only after being apprised of that statement and ascertaining whether such an utterance, made when it was made, would produce the reaction it did in this particular complainant could the jury have determined whether the statement was made and, if made, whether it produced the alleged reaction.
It is doubtful that many trial attorneys experienced in criminal matters, whether as prosecutors or as defense counsel, will be able to read the majority opinion and maintain any reasonable intellectual comfort level that THE TRUTH was indeed ascertained. The reason for this unease is quite apparent. The defendant was forbidden from presenting to the jury evidence that was central to his defense — a description of the event in question. If that description had been accepted by the jury, he would have been free of all criminal responsibility. As Judge Cummings points out, the majority carefully steers clear of assessing just how central this testimony was to the defendant’s defense. The majority also fails to deal adequately with the reality that the proffered testimony would not have been admitted for its truth, but simply to show that there was a serious reason for the victim to have been enraged and to have reacted as the defendant submits that she did react. Indeed, simply to tell a jury that the victim became angered by an undisclosed statement of the defendant, while forbidding the defendant an opportunity to disclose the statement that triggered such a violent reaction under the circumstances, is not only to prevent the defendant from telling his side of the encounter, but to cast him as evasive — a damning characterization under the circumstances presented here. The trial court’s decision not only deprived the defendant of the ability to give, from his own mouth, his own version of the event, but the bland substitution also portrayed him to the jury as someone less than frank. A juror, realizing the importance of the testimony to the defendant’s case, certainly would expect that he be quite a bit more specific than “I said something to make her angry.” The trial court not only denied him the right to tell the jury his own story, it also rewrote the *1024script in a fashion that portrayed him as someone unworthy of belief because of the vagueness of his reply.
Few cases within our habeas jurisdiction raise serious issues as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Here, however, we do not deal with a technical nicety of criminal procedure. We are confronted with the reality that THE TRUTH might have been hidden from the jury. This case thus leaves us with the haunting fear that, had the jury been allowed to hear both sides of the story and evaluate the demeanor of both witnesses as they told what happened, the result may well have been different. The responsibility for this result must rest on other shoulders.3 I would reverse the judgment of the district court. The state must permit the defendant to tell his side of the story before it deprives him of 20 years of his life.

. In similar fashion, the Supreme Court has held that enhancing the defendant's sentence because of perjurious testimony is not an impermissible bar on the right to testify in one's own behalf. United States v. Dunigan, - U.S. -, -, 113 S.Ct. 1111, 1117, 122 L.Ed.2d 445 (1993) (collecting cases that hold that the right to testify does not include the right to commit perjury).

. It is also important to note that the preclusion order in the case before us was not aimed at the testimony of the defendant himself.

. Indeed, the majority makes it clear that it disbelieves the defendant's story. It is, however, the prerogative of the jury in the state proceeding to reach a conclusion on that issue, not a federal court on habeas appeal.