Court Opinion

ID: 9486302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:43:52.682774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:38.063969
License: Public Domain

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Although several of the opinions in this case are quite compelling in their discussion of a difficult constitutional issue, I do not believe that they address the ease actually before us. I therefore write separately to explain my view of the issue this case presents — one, I hasten to add, that raises less weighty constitutional concerns than those •with which my colleagues have struggled.
My colleagues’ opinions all start from the premise that Stephens offered the excluded testimony for the purpose of impeaching the complaining witness, Melissa Wilburn. They assume Stephens’ theory to have been that the offensive statements so angered Wilburn that she was prompted to fabricate the charge of attempted rape. See Plurality Op. at 1001; Flaum, J., concurring, at 1006-07;' Cummings, J., dissenting, at 1009-10; Cu-dahy, J., dissenting, at 1011; Coffey, J., dissenting, at 1018; Ripple, J., dissenting, at 1020-21, 1023. The content of the remarks was therefore important because the jury would have been unable to fairly assess Stephens’ theory without knowing whether the comments were sufficiently inflammatory to cause such a reaction. Based on this understanding, the dissenters have argued that denying Stephens the opportunity to present the testimony has significantly interfered with his constitutional rights. He has, in their view, been prohibited from offering evidence that goes to the heart of his defense, and he has been denied his right to confront an adverse witness. See Cudahy, J., dissenting, at 1012-14; Ripple, J., dissenting, at 1020-21, 1023; cf. Flaum, J., concurring, at 1006. As the numerous opinions suggest, balancing those weighty interests against the state’s interest in excluding the testimony makes for a very difficult case.
But this case does not, in my view, actually raise such troubling questions because, under Stephens’ own theory of the case, the evidence was neither central to his defense nor offered for the purpose of impeaching Wilburn. Contrary to my colleagues’ assumption, Stephens did not offer the evidence to support a theory of fabrication, but only to explain why Wilburn had withdrawn her previously-given consent. His only reference to the excluded comments during closing argument makes that clear:1
Lonnie says, something that he said, she told him stop, he stopped. She told him to leave, he left.
(Oct. 23, 1987, Tr. at 58).2 Although Stephens did argue that Wilburn had invented the charges, his fabrication theory was not related to Wilburn’s anger, but focused instead on her desire to placate her landlady’s concerns about the disturbance that had transpired. As his lawyer argued in closing:
[W]e’re talking about two and a half hours and an explanation for why she did finally report it to the police. Because she wanted to get out of trouble with her landlady, whether her landlady ... her landlady is a nice person, she’s not going to throw somebody out just because somebody attempted to rape me, but the way she phrased it to her, you have to control it, Melissa believed she had to do something, she has to do something to show this lady, it’s not my fault. Glenn Wilburn was there and that’s the reason they came down so I’ll do something, I’ll go make the report.
(Id. at 60.)
Even more significantly, Stephens’ offer of proof reflects the same theory.3 Outside the *1008presence of the jury, Stephens’ lawyer elicited this testimony from his client:
I said, I can’t say exactly what I said but I said something to the effect, we was doing it and I said that, referred to Tim Hall and Drema and that they, I had mentioned something about them switching partners and she was, it was the fashion we was doing it and she didn’t particularly care for what I said and she told me to quit.
(R. 1277.)4 After stating the content of the offensive comments, Stephens continued:
And she said, “What did you say?” And I said, and she asked me what I meant by that and I told her and she said, “Stop,” and that’s when I stopped and she said, “Get out of my house.” That’s exactly what I said.
(R. 1278.) This testimony again reflects Stephens’ theory that the comments had motivated Wilburn to withdraw her consent.
The subsequent colloquy between the attorneys and the court also indicates that Stephens’ comments and Wilburn’s resulting anger were relevant under Stephens’ theory only to explain why Wilburn had withdrawn her consent and asked him to leave:
[Prosecution]: We would like no further questions directed toward the conversation, that’s misleading, that’s twice now.
[Court]: Right, the Court will further sustain that, it’s up to the point, you know, when you get to that point before you ask what was said next and then, you know, coming up to offer to prove, you know, was there some reason you stopped. Let’s do the offer to prove before you get into those statements leading up because we’re just cutting him right off.
[Defense]: But your honor, you know, I’m cutting it off before I bring up anything about the evidence but I can’t even say that, did you say something that made her angry? I can’t even point that out to them?
[Prosecution]: Then get to the point when she got angry and he left.
* * * * * *
[Prosecution]: We’re at the point where she gets mad and he’s leaving so we’re done.
(R. 1279-81) (emphasis added). It was thus clear to all present that the only purpose of the testimony was to show why Wilburn had withdrawn her consent. At no time during trial did Stephens suggest that the evidence was relevant to support a theory of fabrication.5
Nor has Stephens suggested in his argument before this court that the testimony had that significance. His brief before the en banc court stated:
Stephensf] contention is that the offered testimony is evidence concerning the res gestae of the offense. It was offered to show what occurred at the time and place of the alleged offense not what the past sexual conduct of the prosecutrix had been.
(Stephens En Banc Br. at 5) (emphasis in original). Indeed, Stephens’ answer to the state’s petition for rehearing explicitly denied that the testimony had been offered in order to demonstrate that Wilburn had a motive to fabricate the attempted rape charge:
[T]he State has mischaracterized the purpose of the testimony. While the excluded testimony would have been important in showing the source of the alleged victim’s *1009anger toward the defendant and thus her underlying motive for fabricating a rape charge against the defendant, it is undeniable that the precipitating event for the filing of the charge was something else entirely. It is undisputed that thé alleged victim reported an attempted rape by the defendant in order to placate her landlady who was upset that the police had been called to the trailer.... Furthermore, in [his] Reply Brief, the defendant stated the following: “The primary relevance of the excluded testimony is that it shows why Wilburn ordered Stephens from her trailer and awakened her sister.”
* * * * * *
While the primary purpose of the offered testimony was made clear in the brief of the defendant and was then made even more abundantly clear in the Reply Brief, the Supreme Court of Indiana chose to ignore those assertions and state that the statements made by the defendant to the alleged victim “made her so angry she pursued the attempted rape charged against him.”
(Answer at 6-7) (emphasis in original) (footnote and citations omitted).6
As my colleagues have noted, the constitutional analysis in this case requires us to balance the state’s interest in excluding the testimony against Stephens’ interest in its admission. The analysis therefore depends entirely on the purpose for which thé testimony was offered. Fortunately, we need not decide whether excluding evidence offered to show that the complaining witness was lying is unconstitutional. The only question raised here is whether Stephens should have been allowed to introduce otherwise inadmissible evidence in order to show the precise content — rather than the general nature — of a comment that prompted Wilburn to withdraw her consent. That does indeed seem a more “minor imposition” than the one my colleagues have discussed. It neither goes to the heart of Stephens’ defense nor limits his ability to confront adverse witnesses.
Stephens’ interest in introducing the testimony for the limited purposes that he envisioned may, in my view, properly be subordinated to the State’s interest in excluding the evidence. I therefore concur in the decision to affirm the district court’s denial of Stephens’ petition.

. Stephens’ lawyer did not set out his theory of the case during opening argument, so we must rely solely on his closing argument.

. Stephens' lawyer also alluded to Wilburn's purported anger later in his closing argument:
She says that they stayed up, she was fearful of him coming back, she got Mary Riley up because she was mad, she was upset, her sister is someone she talks to....
(Id. at 63).

. It is at least arguable that Stephens' approach at closing was determined after the testimony *1008had been excluded, but the offer of proof suggests that the theory of defense was consistent throughout the trial.

. Record citations are to page numbers in the state court record.

. Stephens did allude to that rationale for the first time in a post-trial "Motion to Correct Errors/' which stated:
The purpose behind offering such testimony was that it would tend to support the theory that there was another reason why the prosecuting witness had filed charges against the defendant and that it was necessary to complete the defendant's version of the events.
But that first mention of the theory was of course too late to bring it into consideration. A defendant cannot advance one reason for admitting evidence during trial and then advance a wholly separate basis for admission in post-trial submissions or on appeal. An evidentiary rationale not raised before the trial judge at the time of ruling is waived. United States v. Biesiadecki, 933 F.2d 539, 544 & n. 1 (7th Cir.1991).

. The same brief later suggests that impeachment may have been a secondary purpose for offering the testimony. Quoting a district court filing, Stephens writes:
[The defendant] will accept that the alleged victim’s anger over his statements may have contributed to her filing an attempted rape charge; however, that was not his primary purpose in offering the testimony.
{Id. at 8.) The brief also later characterizes the original panel opinion — which had concluded that the testimony was offered to show why Wilburn withdrew her consent and why she fabricated rape charges — as “incorporating both purposes for introduction of the evidence.” {Id. at 9) (emphasis in original). But these comments cannot overcome Stephens’ waiver of the argument by explicitly disclaiming it in the same brief and,- even more importantly, by failing to timely make it before the trial court.