Court Opinion

ID: 9588960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:39:58.274527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:15:54.461886
License: Public Domain

Justice Huskins
dissenting.
Analysis of the decisions cited in the majority opinion leads me to conclude that defendant Alford’s conviction should be upheld.
In awarding defendant Alford a new trial, the majority rely primarily on Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 35 L.Ed. 2d 297, 93 S.Ct. 1038 (1973). In that case, defendant was convicted of murdering a policeman who was killed in the aftermath of a barroom brawl involving a sizeable crowd. After Chambers’ arrest, one McDonald confessed to the crime. At Chambers’ trial, the State was able to produce little hard evi*390dence of defendant’s guilt, and Chambers’ defense depended in large part on being able to show that McDonald had shot the policeman. When the State failed to call McDonald, defendant called him for the defense and introduced McDonald’s confession. On cross-examination by the State, McDonald repudiated his previous confession as having been part of a scheme by one Stokes to obtain Chambers’ release, whereupon they would all share in the proceeds of a lawsuit Chambers would bring against the city. The State “voucher” rule prevented Chambers from impeaching McDonald, since Chambers had called McDonald as his own witness. The trial court also excluded the proffered testimony of three different witnesses who would have testified that McDonald had admitted to them that it was he, not Chambers, who shot the policeman. Exclusion was based on the ground that these out-of-court confessions violated the hearsay rule. The United States Supreme Court held that the combined effect of these two State evidentiary rules prevented Chambers from introducing testimony which strongly implicated McDonald, rather than Chambers, as the murderer, and that this “denied [Chambers] a trial in accord with traditional and fundamental standards of due process.”
I do not question the soundness of the legal principles enunciated in Chambers. I do, however, disgree with the majority’s application of Chambers to the case at bar. The holding of the United States Supreme Court in Chambers was closely tied to the particular facts of that case — facts which were, in my opinion, sufficiently different from those in the instant case to remove it from the ambit of Chambers. In Chambers, as the Supreme Court emphasized, the State’s case against defendant was very weak. Defendant called a witness who had earlier confessed to the crime with which defendant was charged, and when this witness repudiated his prior confession, defendant tried, but was not permitted, to impeach the witness with his earlier statement. This having failed, defendant nevertheless persisted, again unsuccessfully, in his efforts to bring before the jury the fact that the repudiating witness had previously confessed not only to the police, but to three other persons as well.
In the instant case, as the majority concedes, there was “substantial evidence against Alford, including his identification by four eyewitnesses.” Moreover, defendant at no time sought to call Carter as a witness, nor did he offer as evidence Carter’s *391written confession which tended to implicate one Larry Waddell as the second perpetrator of the robbery-murder. Unlike Chambers, there is no way of knowing what would have transpired had Alford called Carter or sought to introduce his prior confession. Thus, in its present posture, this case, unlike Chambers, is not one in which “the [trial] court . . . excluded evidence that strongly pointed the finger of guilt at [another] while the evidence against [defendant] was minimal.” Maness v. Wainwright, 512 F. 2d 88 (5th Cir. 1975) (emphasis added). Nor is it a case, again unlike Chambers, “where the court prohibited the defense from making a plausible argument that someone else committed the crime, or where a serious and continued effort by the defense to get its theory of the case before the jury was frustrated.” Truman v. Wainwright, 514 F. 2d 150 (5th Cir. 1975) (emphasis added). Actually, in both of these 5th Circuit cases the court held Chambers inapplicable on the facts there involved.
In view of the strength of the State’s case against defendant Alford, and absent any attempt by him to call the confessing witness to testify or introduce into evidence the confession itself, I cannot read Chambers so broadly as to be dispositive of this case.
For the reasons stated, I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion awarding defendant Alford a new trial. I vote to affirm.