Court Opinion

ID: 9772292
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:13:16.749926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:42.858614
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Justice, dissenting. I take serious exception to the part of the majority opinion that holds the trial court erred in allowing State rebuttal witness Holly Scott to testify, and in permitting the State to use appellant’s earlier trial testimony to show she lied. Appellant claimed she was playing bingo in Oklahoma on the evening of October 19, 1995. Contrary to appellant’s version of events, two police officers and their informant testified that she twice sold them cocaine on the same night. At appellant’s first trial, she took the witness stand and testified that, on October 19, 1995, at about 7:00 p.m., she caught a bus at the State Line, rode to Choctaw where she played bingo, and won two mini pots. She said she returned to the State Line that night at 11:30 p.m. where her car had been parked and drove home. Appellant’s alibi contradicted the State’s case-in-chief wherein Officers Ervin Dennis and Johnny Alexander and informant Vercina Lindsey testified appellant twice sold them cocaine on the evening of October 19 — at 7:48 p.m. and 11:38 p.m. At appellant’s second trial, the State presented its same case against appellant, but appellant chose not to testify in her own defense. Instead, she put her alibi defense before the jury by calling Faye Walker and Edmund Colbert, her son. Walker related that she had seen appellant on the evening in question at the bingo parlor. Appellant’s son, Colbert, who resided with appellant, also asserted his mother went to play bingo at Choctaw on the evening in dispute, .but his story became questionable on cross examination. The prosecutor asked Colbert whose car was parked in appellant’s front yard on the evening of October 19, 1995, and whose license number was YEW 523. Colbert’s response was that the car would have been his, but he had paid no attention to his license plate. Colbert claimed appellant, on October 19, 1995, had left home driving her car and stated that she would probably play bingo in Oklahoma. The State, however, submitted that license plate YEW 523 was appellant’s. Obviously, details of appellant’s alibi defense were in dispute — for example, (1) whose car was in appellant’s yard at the time the drug sales took place? (2) did appellant drive her car to Oklahoma to play bingo or did she take a bus? (3) did appellant go to Oklahoma on October 19, or were the officers and their informant telling the truth when they testified she sold them cocaine twice on the evening in controversy? Our case law is clear that the State is entitled to rebut appellant’s alibi by showing that it was fabricated. See McCree v. State, 280 Ark. 347, 658 S.W.2d 376 (1983). Flere, the trial court properly concluded that the State had a right to rebut appellant’s alibi defense and that a part of that rebuttal involved the credibility of the witnesses presented. This court has held that it is within the trial court’s discretion to decide the propriety of evidence offered in rebuttal. Isbell v. State, 326 Ark. 17, 931 S.W.2d 74 (1996). Because appellant’s alibi conflicted with the State’s case and with significant details of her son’s testimony, it was well within the trial court’s discretion to allow the jury to have all versions of what was said to have occurred on October 19. How else could the jury determine whose story to believe? Accordingly, the trial court allowed the State to call Holly Scott, co-manager of Choctaw Bingo, who testified that her business had no record of appellant winning a mini pot on October 19, 1995, nor was appellant’s name listed on the bus manifest showing she had been a passenger on the bus appellant claimed she rode that night. The trial court also allowed the State to read relevant portions of appellant’s earlier trial testimony where appellant claimed she drove her car to the State Line to board the bus to Oklahoma even though a car bearing her license plate had been seen in her front yard at the time officers said she had sold them cocaine. In conclusion, the majority’s decision allows appellant to present the part of the alibi defense she thinks favors her, but to exclude those versions that draw her defense into serious question. Once appellant asserted alibi as a defense, all evidence touching on that defense was relevant. Again, the trial court clearly did not abuse its discretion when determining the propriety and admissibility of portions of appellant’s prior trial testimony and that of Scott’s. I would affirm. Arnold, C.J., and Imber, J., join this dissent.