Court Opinion

ID: 9714305
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:35:06.871573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:25.140471
License: Public Domain

M. J. Kelly, P.J.
(concurring). I concur in reversal but do not adopt the newly enunciated rule advocated by the majority. Adequate grounds for reversal exist in the trial court’s management of this witness without resort to a universal rule which may conflict with the prosecutor’s duty to produce all res gestae witnesses.
The trial court erred in its determination that witness Timothy Maguire waived his Fifth Amendment privilege by his responses to questioning at the evidentiary hearing. His testimony at that time concerned prior offenses, the people with whom he lived, when he first met defendant, and when he first learned of defendant’s arrest. None of these answers could be construed as incriminating.
Moreover, an examination of the testimony which the prosecution attempted to elicit indicates that Mr. Maguire’s assertion of privilege was, indeed, appropriate. The questions pertained to his ownership and the location of the car in whicli the contraband was found. Admission by the witness that he owned the vehicle in question, that he parked it in the plant parking lot, and that he had loaned the keys to defendant would certainly have provided a link in the chain of evidence necessary to prosecute the witness for possession of marijuana.
Once in front of the jury, the witness suffered a memory loss on many of the same matters originally the subject of his Fifth Amendment claim. When defense counsel objected to the line of questioning, the court stated that it would permit continued questioning because, "It’s hurting your client”. The course chosen appears to have been a *735deliberate approval of an approach concededly prejudicial to the defendant. The proper procedure for the court, which was obviously frustrated by the witness’s behavior, would have been to threaten the witness with contempt.