Court Opinion

ID: 9845330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:19:09.09077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:01.297741
License: Public Domain

KLEINSCHMIDT, Judge,
concurring.
I concur with most of the majority’s conclusions and with the ultimate result. I do not agree that there could be any reason to forgo a hearing pursuant to Rule 609 to preclude the admission of the prior convictions. A defendant who requests such a hearing has nothing to lose and everything to gain. While it certainly would not have been an abuse of discretion to admit the priors even if the appellant had made a motion to exclude the evidence, he should have invoked the court’s discretion on the question before he himself put the evidence before the jury.
I also believe that counsel who ventures into a trial where identification is an issue without requesting a Dessureault hearing is on thin ice. State v. Watson, supra, read literally, can be taken to stand for the proposition that where identity is an issue the failure to ask for a Dessureault hearing is per se a denial of the effective assistance of counsel. I do not think that Watson is that rigid. For one thing, in Watson the identification of the defendant was far more tenuous than it was here. For another, in Watson it is clear that evidence that would probably have been elicited at a Dessureault hearing would have seriously undermined the state’s witness who identified the defendant. For still another, as the majority notes, the supreme court said that such a hearing is required “when the facts raise issues” concerning the matter. Of course, without such a hearing defense counsel is often not in a position to know whether the facts raise issues, i.e., he may not know that he has a point to make until he cross-examines the identification witness. It is not unusual at all for such witnesses to decline an informal interview with defense counsel. The record here does not disclose what counsel did or did not know about what the identification witness would say.
Be that as it may, an inspection of the lineup photographs and the transcript of the cross-examination concerning the identification procedures used shows that the identification technique was not unduly suggestive. I am not prepared to say that on the whole record counsel did not display minimal competence because his performance was acceptable in other respects. Even without the admission of the prior convictions the evidence against the defendant was so overwhelming that it is difficult to see how anyone could have saved him from conviction. State v. Watson recognizes that mistakes of counsel can constitute harmless error.
Finally, I concur in the majority’s conclusion as to the witness’ testimony about the defendant’s invoking his right not to answer questions because the record does not show that the defendant ever refused to answer any questions that were material to the issue of his guilt or innocence. For that reason it is unnecessary to rest the affirmance on the rule of State v. Lee, supra, to the effect that the prosecution may show that a defendant wanted to stop answering questions when doing so “explained what happened” during the course of an interview. Of course, I am required to follow Lee but as long as the majority relies upon it I think it proper to say that I believe it to be wrongfully decided. An examination of United States v. Haro-Portillo, 531 F.2d 962 (9th Cir.1976), upon which Lee rests, shows that the rule was adopted without much *127analysis. Unless it is somehow misleading to simply end the narration of a defendant’s statements the prosecution should not be able to show that a defendant invoked his privilege against self-incrimination just because to do so “explained what happened” during the course of an interview. Jurors are just as likely to draw an improper conclusion from such evidence as they would if the state were permitted to show that a defendant refused to talk to the police at all or were permitted to comment upon a defendant’s failure to testify. In State v. Davis, 119 Ariz. 529, 582 P.2d 175 (1978), the state conceded that it was error to admit evidence that the defendant refused to answer any questions put to him by the police but found the error harmless under the circumstances of that case.