Court Opinion

ID: 9796323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:55:18.064027+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:00.898497
License: Public Domain

LEWIS, J.,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
1 1 Cleon Johnson would have testified for the defense that he ordered the murders of Ples and Shelly Vann, and their son, Bud Tennyson, as retaliation for Tennyson's involvement in the murder of a member of Johnson's gang, the Hoover Crips. Johnson would have testified that he gave this alleged order to Demarco Campbell while the two were detained in the David Moss Criminal Justice Center. Johnson was a convicted felon and admitted perjurer with plenty of questionable motives for giving this testimony. His credibility was subject to proper proof at trial and could have been weighed by the jury in considering his trial testimony. I concur in the Court's opinion that this much of Johnson's proposed testimony was relevant to who killed Ples and Shelly Vann. Because this testimony met the broad test of relevance long established by the rules of evidence, exclusion of this testimony was error under section 2402 of the Oklahoma Evidence Code and the holding of Gore v. State, 2005 OK CR 14, ¶¶ 13-29, 119 P.3d 1268, 1272-77. However, the record before the Court firmly convinces me that Johnson's confession that he ordered these murders could have no substantial influence on the outcome in Appellant's trial Exelusion of the evidence was harmless and does not warrant reversal.
12 Aside from the confession that he ordered the murders, Cleon Johnson's proposed testimony consisted entirely of extrajudicial statements attributed to others, offered to prove that Demarco Campbell, not the Appellant, committed the murders. These statements were hearsay. 12 0.8.8upp.2002, § 2801(A)(8) (hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted). After receiving Johnson's proposed testimony in camera, the trial court found that the evidence was "hearsay" and contained "no clear corroborating circumstance brought to my attention which would indicate the truthfulness of the statement." The trial court's conclusion here clearly referred to pertinent language in Ti*153tle 12, section 2804(B)(8) of the Oklahoma Evidence Code, the statement against interest exception to the hearsay rule, which provides in part:
A statement tending to expose the declar-ant to criminal liability and offered to exculpate the accused is not admissible unless corroborating cireumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement.
The question presented by this ruling is whether the trial court abused its discretion in excluding the evidence as hearsay. An abuse of judicial discretion is an "unreasonable, unconscionable and arbitrary action taken without proper consideration of the facts and law pertaining to the matter submitted." Harvey v. State, 1969 OK CR 220, ¶ 9, 458 P.2d 336, 338.
13 The trial court's exelusion of Cleon Johnson's hearsay testimony did not result in the kind of due process violation that confronted the Supreme Court in Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319, 126 S.Ct. 1727, 164 L.Ed.2d 503 (2006) and Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 85 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973). The Constitution's due process guarantee prohibits "the exclusion of defense evidence under rules that serve no legitimate purpose or that are disproportionate to the ends that they are asserted to promote." Holmes, 547 U.S. at 326, 126 S.Ct. at 1732. By contrast, our Gore jurisprudence embodies precisely the kind of reasonable limitations on third party perpetrator evidence that the Supreme Court recognized in Holmes (in a footnote, no less) as "widely accepted" and consistent with due process of law. 547 U.S. at 327, n., 126 S.Ct. at 1733, n. (citing Gore and other state cases). Oklahoma's standard of admissibility for such evidence is reasonable and longstanding. The news of its death is exaggerated.
{4 The firmly established and widely accepted rules of evidence form an equally important component of the due process of law. Within this procedural framework, the constitutional "right to present a meaningful defense" is a right to present admissible evidence important to one's defense, nothing more or less. Pavatt v. State, 2007 OK CR 19, ¶ 45, 159 P.3d 272, 287 (defendant's right to present evidence in his defense ultimately turns on whether evidence at his disposal is admissible). The proponent of evidence at trial bears the burden to lay a proper foundation for its admission. Cline v. State, 1989 OK CR 69, ¶ 8, 782 P.2d 399, 401; United States v. Porter, 881 F.2d 878, 882 (10th Cir.1989). In addition to showing the unavailability of the hearsay declarant(s), which the majority seems to assume without comment,1 the proponent of a statement against interest, when offered to exculpate the accused under section 2804(B)(@8), must also establish "corroborating cireumstances" that "clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement."
15 The majority incorrectly suggests that only slight corroboration of the alleged hearsay with some known facts of the case compels its admission as a matter of constitutional law. However, the language and purposes of section 2804(B)(8B), and case law applying that rule, indicate that the proponent must show corroborating cireumstances related to the exculpatory facts that the statement is offered to prove. Put another way, the proponent must establish corroborating cireumstances clearly indicating that the exculpatory "matter asserted" in the hearsay statement is trustworthy. Pavatt, 2007 OK CR 19, ¶¶ 47-53, 159 P.3d at 287-89 (trial court considered cireumstances suggesting exculpatory matters asserted in hearsay statement were recently fabricated, and properly excluded the statement); Primeaux v. State, 2004 OK CR 16, ¶¶ 31-54, 88 P.3d 893, 901-904 (where trial court determined "matter asserted" for its truth in alleged statement against interest was untrustworthy, statement offered to exculpate accused was properly excluded as hearsay); Porter, 881 F.2d at 883 (recognizing "the *154need for corroborating cireumstances that clearly indicate the trustworthiness of [de-clarant's] statement exeulpating [defendant]") (emphasis added); see also, Holmes, 547 U.S. at 323, 126 S.Ct. at 1730 (eyewitness testimony placing hearsay declarant near the scene of the crime corroborated hearsay asserting declarant's incriminating statements about murder to four other witnesses); and Chambers, 410 U.S. at 300, 93 S.Ct. at 1048 (independent eyewitness testimony that hearsay declarant was seen with a gun immediately after shooting, and onee owned same caliber weapon as one involved in murder, corroborated hearsay evidence of declarant's confession to three other witnesses).
T6 Cleon Johnson's proposed testimony was excluded by the trial court's discretionary application of this carefully balanced evi-dentiary rule. The trial judge received the testimony in camera, encouraged counsel to ask any questions of Johnson they thought relevant, and considered the testimony in light of all the cireumstances. Unlike the testimony erroneously excluded in Chambers and Holmes, the record amply supports the trial court's finding that the statements offered here are not properly corroborated or trustworthy. The majority opinion shows that Cleon Johnson himself is anything but trustworthy. He would undoubtedly perjure himself just as readily to "cheat the gallows of its due or consign innocence to a felon's cell," Coleman v. State, 6 Okl.Cr. 252, 283-84, 118 P. 594, 607 (1911); and has seemingly attempted both in this very case. However, Johnson's eredibility really is not the issue. 2 Leo H. Whinery, Oklahoma Evidence: Commentary on the Law of Evidence § 81.17 (2d ed. 2000) ("it is the hearsay statement that must be corroborated and not the credibility of the witness who testifies to the statement") (emphasis in original).
T7 The critical consideration here is that the proponent of the hearsay offered no corroborating cireumstances to indicate the trustworthiness of the exculpatory matters asserted therein, ie., the assertions indicating that Demarco Campbell, rather than the Appellant, murdered the Vanns. Nothing established Campbell's presence at the crime scene, or even in Tulsa, at the time of the murders; nothing established his opportunity to commit the erimes; nothing placed him in the company of the self-admitted participants, McKinney and Fellows; nothing established his access to either of the murder weapons-both recovered, at different times, along pathways so recently traveled by Appellant and his friends. The majority reproaches the trial court's analysis as "much too cursory," while avoiding any close factual comparisons of the statements tendered here with the corroborated statements offered by the defendants in Chambers and Holmes. The absence of factual corroboration starkly distinguishes Cleon Johnson's proposed testimony from the kind of probative evidence excluded in those cases; and provides sufficient reason to affirm the trial court's exelusion of the statements as hearsay. Pavatt, 2007 OK CR 19, ¶ 52, 159 P.3d at 289 (statements against interest offered to exeulpate accused were inadmissible "because there simply was nothing offered to corroborate them").
T8 Section 2804(B)(3) of the Oklahoma Evidence Code is "nothing like" the arbitrary rules that worked injustice in Chambers and Hoimes. Pavatt, 2007 OK CR 19, ¶ 19, 159 P.3d at 289. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Indiana has noted that Federal Rule of Evidence 804(B)(8) "closely mirrors" the approach of the Supreme Court in Chambers, allowing certain exeulpatory hearsay where corroborating cireumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement. Thomas v. State, 580 N.E.2d 224, 226 (Ind.1991). Federal Rule 804(B)(8) "serves to assure a defendant his due process right to present evidence in his favor while protecting the trial court's ability to exclude evidence that is irrelevant or insufficiently trustworthy." Thomas, 580 N.E.2d at 226. Oklahoma's rule is substantially identical in purpose and effect. The district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the proposed defense testimony as hearsay, and its ruling did not violate due process of law. I respectfully dissent.

. The majority opinion recites Cleon Johnson's statement that Demarco Campbell is somewhere in federal prison. Robert Fellows, another of Cleon Johnson's alleged hearsay informants, testified at Appellant's trial and was clearly available. Only Greg McKinney was clearly unavailable to testify as a result of his untimely death. 12 O.S.Supp.2002, § 2804(A)(4) (defining unavailability).