Court Opinion

ID: 9624109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:51:16.228016+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:39.088225
License: Public Domain

Justice WEBB
dissenting.
I dissent from the majority. It appears to me that the resolution of this case depends on what the General Assembly intended for the word “competent” to mean. The majority says that although the General Assembly has made persons competent to testify against their spouses, a defendant spouse has the privilege to prevent the disclosure of confidential communications between the parties. I believe the majority is in error.
I believe that the parts of N.C.G.S. § 8-57(b) that render a spouse competent to testify without any stated exception for confidential communications, coupled with the statement in subsection (c) that a spouse is not compellable to testify as to a confidential communication, shows that the General Assembly intended to make a spouse able to testify as to confidential communications in spite of an objection by the defendant spouse. If a defendant can stop his or her spouse from testifying as to confidential communications, there is no need for that part of subsection (c) which provides that a spouse may not be compelled to testify as to confidential communications. The majority has made this part of the statute to be surplus.
The majority says the “common law has long recognized a privilege protecting confidential marital communications, that is, information privately disclosed between a husband and wife in the confidence of the marital relationship.” If this is true it has never before today in this jurisdiction been recognized independently of the rule which made a person incompetent to testify against his or her spouse. Prior to State v. Freeman, 302 N.C. 591, 276 S.E.2d 450 (1981), a person was incompetent to testify against his or her spouse. There was no reason for a rule barring testimony as to confidential communications. I believe the rule excluding confidential marital communications was based on the incompetency *837of a spouse as a witness and when the incompetency was removed that removed the bar to confidential communications.
One difficulty with the majority opinion is that it treats N.C.6.S. § 8-57 as not being complete. I believe when this section was revised and adopted by the General Assembly, it was intended to state the law as to marital testimony. The majority holds that there is a phase of the law dealing with confidential communications which is not covered by the statute. This is contrary to the manner in which the General Assembly normally operates and I do not believe it was its intention to leave a part of the law uncovered.
As the majority observes, in State v. Freeman, 302 N.C. 591, 596, 276 S.E.2d 450, 453, we said, when speaking of confidential marital communications, that a spouse was incompetent to testify to them. It is only natural that when the General Assembly was revising N.C.G.S. § 8-57 it would believe it could change the rule by saying the person is competent to testify against his or her spouse.
I vote to reverse the Court of Appeals.
Justices MEYER and Mitchell join in this dissenting opinion.