Court Opinion

ID: 9731859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:00:14.248187+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:21.638508
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
I dissent. In Indiana, it is well-settled law that convictions may be based upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice, Green v. State (1960), 241 Ind. 96, 168 N. E. 2d 345, and the rule until today in Indiana has been that “the testimony of accomplices should be closely scrutinized and cautiously received, and this matter should be called to the attention of the trier of facts in considering the weight to be given such evidence.” 241 Ind. at 348; Kleihege v. State (1934), 206 Ind. 206, 188 N. E. 786.
The development of this rule resounds with out great concern for the rights of the accused individual. The Green case, with its obvious statement of the rule in this area deeply entrenched in both reason and history, stands for the proposition that we will not allow an accused citizen to be convicted on the testimony of an accomplice unless the j ury is instructed on the proper framework within which to judge the case. In our concern to insure a fair trial for each accused and in our strong distrust toward the accomplice’s version of the events, we, along with the vast majority of the other jurisdictions in *275this country, have fashioned a rule which gives such a case to the jury in its proper light, so that their verdict may be justly considered and delivered; anything less denies a fair trial to the accused.
To drop this important safeguard to a fair trial on the basis that personal expressions by the Court concerning the credibility of particular witnesses is unfair, is to confuse the history and rationale of the rule in question. The cases relied on for the majority’s rule are all concerned with the unfairness inherent in allowing a judge to comment adversely on the accused’s own testimony. Taylor v. State (1972), 257 Ind. 664, 278 N. E. 2d 273, relying on Swanson v. State (1944), 222 Ind. 217, 52 N. E. 2d 616, and Alder v. State (1958), 239 Ind. 68, 154 N. E. 2d 716; Bohan v. State (1923), 194 Ind. 227, 141 N. E. 323, relying on Hiatt v. State (1920), 189 Ind. 524. The similarity between these opinions and the opinions in the line of Green v. State, supra, is simply that they both reflect the same kind of enlightened interests in the right of an accused to a fair trial. It is difficult to see such an interest in the majority opinion’s disposition of this matter. The majority has, in several short paragraphs, eliminated this important safeguard to the accused who is faced with the uncorroborated testimony of an “accomplice in crime” and raised the status of this testimony to that of any other disinterested witness.
Accomplice testimony has been a key weapon in prosecutions for many centuries. The original battles fought in this area concerned not the credibility of the accomplice testimony, but his competency to testify at all. According to Wigmore, once a witness was declared competent there could be little attempt to weigh the comparative quality of testimony of different witnesses. This was so because:
“An oath, in the notions of the time, had a certain dead weight of its own; one oath was as good as another oath. Should the witness once get in, the harm (they thought) was done; for there would be little weighing of the com*276parative quality of the different persons’ oaths. The struggle therefore was made at the threshold.” 7 Wigmore, EVIDENCE, § 2056 (3d ed. 1940)
However, in recent times the trend has been to declare more and more classes of witnesses as competent and to allow the jury to determine the credibility of such witnesses. As the United States Supreme Court said in Funk v. U. S. (1933), 290 U. S. 371, 54 S. Ct. 212, quoting from Benson v. U. S. (1892), 146 U. S. 325, 13 S. Ct. 60, 36 L. Ed. 991:
“ ‘Indeed, the theory of the common law was to admit to the witness stand only those presumably hones, appreciating the sanctity of an oath, unaffected as the party by the result, and free from any of the temptations of interest. The courts were afraid to trust the intelligence of jurors. But the last 50 years have wrought a great change in these respects, and today the tendency is to enlarge the domain of competency, and to submit to the jury for their consideration as to the credibility of the witness those matters which heretofore were ruled sufficient to justify his exclusion. This change has been wrought partially by legislation and partially by judicial construction.’ ” 290 U. S. at 376.
Although accomplices were declared to be competent witnesses very early, the quality of this type of testimony was always seriously questioned. Merely calling an accomplice competent to testify has never meant, in modern times, that his testimony should be given credence equal to other witnesses. As the United States Supreme Court said in Crawford v. U. S. (1908), 212 U. S. 183, 29 S. Ct. 260, when speaking of an accomplice’s testimony:
“It is not to be taken as that of an ordinary witness of good character in a case, whose testimony is generally and prima facie supposed to be correct. On the contrary, the evidence of such a witness ought to be received with suspicion, and with the very greatest care and caution, and ought not to be passed upon by the jury under the rules governing other and apparently credible witnesses. In many jurisdictions such a man is an incompetent witness unless he has been pardoned.” 212 U. S. at 204,
*277And more recently in On Lee v. U. S. (1952), 343 U. S. 747, 72 S. Ct. 967, 96 L. Ed. 1270, the court said:
“The use of informers, accessories, accomplices, false friends, or any of the other betrayals which are ‘dirty business’ may raise serious questions of credibility. To the extent that they do, a defendant is entitled to broad latitude to probe credibility by cross-examination and to have the issues submitted to the jury with careful instructions.” 343 U. S. at 757. (Emphasis added.)
Judge Wisdom, speaking in Phelps v. U. S., 252 F. 2d 49 (5th Cir. 1958), spoke to this problem as follows:
“A skeptical approach to accomplice testimony is a mark of a fair administration of justice. From Crown political prosecutions, and before, to recent prison camp inquisitions, a long history of human fraility and governmental overreaching for conviction justifies distrust in accomplice testimony. Cobham’s misplaced hope for immunity that helped send Raleigh to the tower is on the same level with the hope of some narcotic peddler or some other poor wretch to save his skin by laying the entire blame on a friend or close associate.” 252 F. 2d at 52.
This skeptical and suspicious approach to the testimony of an accomplice springs from more than a simple distrust of a witness involved in criminal activity. The power the State holds over the future of an accomplice, especially one under indictment, is awesome. From promises of immunity from prosecution, through promises of leniency in the charge or the sentence, to promises of special favors (e.g., low bail), the prosecution has valuable currency to pay for an accomplice’s testimony. Where the price of such testimony is so high (to the accomplice) we justifiably fear that the testimony purchased may not be motivated solely by the pursuit of truth. As was aptly pointed out in State v. Mangrella (1965), 86 N. J. Super. 404, 207 A. 2d 175, quoting State v. Begyn (1961), 34 N. J. 35, 167 A. 2d 161:
“We deal with the ‘accomplice’ as having a ‘special interest’ only because our law has accepted the assumption that *278a witness ‘already enmeshed’ ... in the hope of leniency . . . may falsely involve another.”
Realization of these problems has led to the rule in many states that a conviction cannot be sustained on the testimony of an accomplice alone. See 30 AM. JUR. 2d, § 1151, for a list of these states.
Thus, the testimony of an accomplice has been accepted only with extreme caution with the proviso that the trier of fact be made aware of the suspicious status of such testimony, U. S. v. Davis, 439 F. 2d 1105 (9th Cir. 1971) ; People v. Valerio (1970), 13 C. A. 3d 912; Tillery v. U. S., 411 F. 2d 644 (5th Cir. 1969) ; McMillen v. U. S., 386 F. 2d 29 (1st Cir. 1967) ; U. S. v. Aqueci, 310 F. 2d 817 (2d Cir. 1962) ; Freed v. U. S., 266 F. 2d 1012 (D.C. Cir. 1920), and the failure to caution the jury about accomplice testimony has been held in certain circumstances to be plain error, requiring reversal although no request for such an instruction had been made. Tillery v. U. S., supra; Williamson v. U. S., 332 F. 2d 123 (5th Cir. 1964).
In the case before us, the testimony of the accomplice contained all the elements which lead us to accept such testimony with extreme caution. The accomplice, indicted with the defendant but granted a separate trial and still awaiting trial, exonerated himself completely while pinning the blame on the appellant and another. The accomplice admitted that he lied in previous written statements to the police, admitted that he bore a grudge against the appellant, and admitted that his former version of the offense implicated the appellant in the death to a far greater extent than his final version. In such a case the cautionary instruction to the jury is clearly called for and should have been given in my opinion.
The jury, as all juries, was instructed that the State had the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in order to sutain a conviction. Then the court went on to define the term reasonable doubt, as is the general custom. Surely *279the majority would find no error in thus giving the jury a legal definition of reasonable doubt, even though the phrase is a commonly understood one which could be amplified by counsel in closing argument. Such a setting of the legal framework within which a case is given to the jury is not usually considered to be an invasion of the province of the jury. Yet, I see no more of an invasion of that province in the giving of this simple accomplice instruction which seeks only to cast the case in its proper legal context.
Note. — Reported in 280 N. E. 2d 621.