Court Opinion

ID: 9461553
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:17:07.033074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:07.187230
License: Public Domain

McCREE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent, and I would reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the case for an evidentiary hearing on the question whether the defense witnesses were so terrorized in the courthouse that they perjured themselves or refused to testify because of fear for their safety. The affidavit of trial defense counsel states that he was made aware of the threats made by a prosecution witness and that he communicated this fact to the trial judge. The affidavits of several intended defense witnesses that their lives were threatened if they dared to testify and that they did not testify out of fear, or testified falsely, support defense counsel’s affidavit. According to some of the affiants, they had been sworn as witnesses, and during a recess of the trial, were approached and terrorized outside the very door of the courtroom in which the trial was in progress. Others were threatened before they testified and some were so terrified that they left the courthouse and did not testify.
If these representations are true, there can be no doubt that there was a denial of the fundamental fairness guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Persons who attend our courts for the purpose of testifying must be protected from terror in the corridors. See Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86, 43 S.Ct. 265, 67 L.Ed. 543 (1923). Since this issue was presented to and rejected by the state courts without a hearing, People v. Burks, 30 Mich.App. 102, 186 N.E.2d 18 (1970), the district court should have held an evidentiary hearing to see whether these incidents occurred and whether the state trial judge took appropriate measures to safeguard witnesses in the courthouse. Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963).