Court Opinion

ID: 9470081
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:56:43.784653+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:43.403850
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I join in Judge Hall’s dissent, and I would add a word.
The majority correctly notes that the jury could have only come to one conclusion, that the initial testimony of the witnesses was false and contrived to save Anderson. But that was the fault of the witnesses, not of the trial judge. Both the witnesses changed crucial parts of their testimony with respect to Anderson’s alibi; the changed testimony concerned times when Anderson was actually with them on the night of the murder.
That they were confessed perjurers is shown beyond any doubt by the following question and answer from the witness Phyllis Cook:
“Q. All right. Now I want you to tell the jury what we discussed in chambers and where if any error you might have made in the testimony that you gave regarding the time of the arrival of this Defendant, who he arrived with and what time he left. Go slowly, but tell the truth.
“A. Just the part where I lied at.” (Italics added.)
I think the jury was entitled to hear the changed testimony, and not only was the jury entitled to hear it, the trial court had every right to comment on it, and indeed an obligation to see that its proceeding was not corrupted by admittedly perjured testimony.
Even in the face of the extreme provocation recounted in the various opinions, the trial judge in his instructions to the jury bent over backward to instruct them that his opinion did not govern which testimony they should have believed:
“Anything the Court says about a given witness or a given line of testimony is not meant to say that we think that line ought to be preferred over something that tends to contradict it. That is your job. What we are trying to do is point *303out to you the real decision that is before you in these facts.”
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“Now you must consider all of the evidence bearing on whether or not this accused was the person who committed these acts. You are free and you are to consider all the evidence which tends to show that he was not. You are free to believe or disbelieve all or any part of any witnesses’ testimony.”
I doubt that the remarks of the trial judge now complained of exceeded permissible bounds under rules of state procedure upon the discovery of admittedly perjured, very crucial testimony, much less were outside constitutional limitations as the majority now holds.