Court Opinion

ID: 9883275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 01:39:26.258746+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:22.186014
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.,
dissenting.
The .majority bases its holding on two conclusions: first, that the requirement of the plea agreement that the witness take and pass a polygraph examination could not be introduced to bolster the witness’ credibility because polygraphs are themselves unreliable; and second, that the evidence was beyond the scope of rehabilitation allowed by OEC 609-1 because it did not tend to show “a lack of bias or interest.”
My fundamental disagreement with the majority is that I do not think the evidence was introduced to bolster the credibility of the witness, although it might have had that incidental effect. In my view, the evidence was adduced and was properly admitted to rebut the plain implication of defendant’s cross-examination that the plea agreement constituted a contract between the witness and the state for the former to give perjured testimony. Stated differently, the evidence of the polygraph condition was not advanced to show that the testimony was true; its purpose was to show that the witness had not agreed to lie, and that the state had not resorted to such an agreement to make a case against defendant.
Given that purpose, it is beside the point whether the polygraph is scientifically reliable; the question is whether the jury could reasonably infer that the polygraph requirement caused the witness to think that the state wanted him to tell the truth and that it was at least possible the state would know if he did not. The witness’ state of mind in agreeing to the polygraph condition, and not the ultimate merits of the polygraph as a truth-finding mechanism, was the relevant point of the evidence.
For that reason, this case differs from State v. Green, 271 Or 153, 531 P2d 245 (1975), where the only reasonable inference to be drawn from evidence of the fact *687or results of the polygraph test was that the defendant had failed it. Even in Green, however, the court emphasized that the fact of the test and its results could be admissible if relevant to rebut certain defense evidence. See 271 Or at 171-72. Green and its progeny therefore lend no support to the proposition the majority extrapolates from them — that any evidence in which the word “polygraph” appears is tainted by the unreliability of polygraph testing as a procedure, even when the evidence is probative of something wholly independent of the investigatory objective of that procedure.
There is a somewhat similar flaw in the majority’s conclusion that the evidence was inadmissible as rehabilitation under OEC 609-1 because it did not tend to show “a lack of bias or interest” of the witness. The majority states: “The evidence proffered by the prosecutor in this case does not show any ‘lack’ of interest or bias: the witness’ interest is manifest.” As best I understand, the majority’s reasoning is that the witness was ipso facto “interested” because giving testimony was presumably in his penal (or, more correctly, anti-penal) interest, and neither the evidence in question nor any other evidence could show that he lacked that interest. Assuming but by no means agreeing that even that interest of the witness can be conclusively presumed, I do not think that is the nature of the interest concerning us. The question is not whether the plea agreement gave the witness an interest in testifying, but whether it gave him an interest in lying. I reiterate that defendant’s cross-examination was to the overt effect that the plea agreement was a contract for fabrication. There is no question that the evidence adduced through that cross-examination was permissible as impeachment under OEC 609-1(2). It seems self-evident to me — at least absent any reason the majority or defendant provides for believing otherwise — that an inference which can permissibly be supported by impeachment evidence under OEC 609-1(2) can be controverted by evidence under OEC 609-1(3). I do not agree that the legislature intended or said in OEC 609-1 that one party may introduce proof of a fact which the other party may not introduce evidence to disprove.
The majority seems to regard the evidence as a subterfuge for prosecutorial “vouching” for the state’s own *688witness. It is certainly true that the jury might regard the evidence as bearing on the credibility of the witness. However, that was not the purpose for which the evidence was adduced, and there is nothing in this situation which seems to me to differ from others where evidence admissible for one purpose might be considered for another which would not independently support its admission. Defendant does not contend that he sought a limiting instruction.
I am not as concerned as the majority apparently is that the admission of the evidence here would result in widescale use of plea agreements as a device for bootstrapping otherwise inadmissible evidence bearing on credibility into the record. The admission of this evidence would not mean that all conditions of all plea agreements could be used as evidence, or even that polygraph requirements of plea agreements could be so used where their only probative tendency is to substantiate testimony. For the reasons I have noted, the evidence here rebutted an inference the state was entitled to controvert. I do not see why the admission of this evidence will necessarily result in widespread and inappropriate use of polygraph evidence or evidence of other plea bargain conditions aimed at corroborating testimony. The courts have been responsible since antiquity for determining whether evidence is relevant and admissible in the context of particular cases. There is nothing about the nature of this evidence which warrants a general exclusionary rule, and I think the admission of the evidence in the context of this case was not error.
I respectfully dissent.
Van Hoomissen and Rossman, JJ, join in this dissent.