Court Opinion

ID: 9730231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:06:11.778433+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:05.156625
License: Public Domain

Marbury, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion, in which Bruñe, C. J., and Horney, J., concurred.
While I agree with the majority that the lower court was correct in declining to propound the two questions to the panel of prospective jurors, I am of the opinion that the trial judge’s rulings on proffers of evidence under the circumstances of this case amounted to a denial of a fair and impartial trial of the appellant Twining.
Appellant complained that the trial judge refused to allow him to cross-examine the prosecutrix with respect to her association with Wolfe and Immerwahr. He further complained that he was .not permitted to ask Wolfe and Immerwahr, his own witnesses, questions concerning their associations, respectively, with her during the period of possible conception.
Dr. Sani Okutman, a general practitioner with considerable experience in such cases, delivered the baby. He testified at the second trial, as well as at a former trial where the jury was unable to agree upon a verdict, that conception was at least forty weeks before delivery. Dr. Howard E. Hall, called by the State, testified that in his experience first pregnancies, such as this, often run a little longer than nine months. Thus counting back from July 4, 1962, forty weeks, the conception could have taken place in late September, one of the two crucial months when the prosecuting witness was associating with men other than the accused.
The permissible scope of the appellant’s cross-examination of the. prosecuting witness was first argued extensively out of the presence of the jury. Defense counsel’s proffers as to all three of these witnesses were made in the presence of the jury. In each instance when there was a protracted discussion of the court’s rulings the jury was admonished to disregard the colloquy.
In counsel’s attempted cross-examination of the prosecutrix the record discloses the following colloquy:
*107“Court: You may ask this witness whether or not she had sexual relations with any other man within one month prior to October 31st or within a month subsequent to October 31st and the Court will permit that, but beyond that it will not go.
“Mr. Fradkin: You will not permit me to ask her anything [except] whether she had sexual relations?
“Court: Yes sir, sexual relations.
“Mr. Fradkin: If you limit me, I can only take exception.
“Court: You can take an exception or any number of them.
“Mr. Fradkin: I have no other choice, that I can take but under cross examination it was during this period that you talk [of] and a month prior to the time that she could have conceived that any line of inquiry directed to her conduct during that month.
“Court: Illicit relations alone.
“Mr. Fradkin: Well leading to illicit relations, Your Honor closed the door because you say to me I can ask her but one question. I can say to her, did you have illicit relations or did you have sexual relations that one month and she says ‘no’ and then your Honor says the door is closed and I can ask no further questions.
“Court: That’s right.
“Mr. Fradkin: * * * Would your Honor say that if a girl, prosecuting witness, went out in a car with a man during an evening and spent the evening in his car alone that this is not evidence that a Jury might consider of an illicit relationship despite the fact that she denies it.
“Court: I do so hold.
“Mr. Fradkin: Then I have to go along with the Court’s ruling and except to it.”
Unquestionably the controlling principles of law are to be found in Seibert v. State, 133 Md. 309, 105 Atl. 161. How*108ever, I think that case is distinguishable on the facts. First, many of the questions which the appellant had not been allowed to ask the witnesses concerned the prosecuting witness’s association with men other than the appellant -which occurred outside the period of possible conception. They were clearly immaterial and too remote and were quite properly rejected on that basis. Second, I think the proffer here goes much further than the one considered in Seibert.
Counsel told the court that if permitted he would show, in cross examining the prosecuting witness, that she had the opportunity of having intercourse with Wolfe and Immerwahr. He made a proffer to the court to show that the prosecutrix had dated Wolfe, took a ring from him, went with him to dances and drive-in theaters and parked in a car with him, all within the time she could have conceived. As to Immerwahr, counsel for the appellant made a proffer to prove that the prosecutrix went out with him four or five times, went with him to drag races and a drive-in restaurant, and parked in a car with him, all within the time she could have conceived the child. Both of these proffers, as I have said, were in the presence of the jury who were warned to disregard the entire colloquies. I must assume they heeded the court’s admonitions.
What the trial court was in effect requiring was direct proof that the prosecutrix had illicit relations with either or both of these other men. It seems to. me that this asks too much of a defendant in a bastardy case. I think a fair analogy can be drawn to the proof of adultery required in divorce actions. Adultery may be inferred from circumstances under which the inference is the only plain, natural or logical deduction to be drawn. In such an inquiry the two most important facts to be considered are, first, whether there was a disposition to commit adultery, and, second, whether there was an opportunity, for, if the two concur, ordinarily it will be inferred that adultery was committed. Swoyer v. Swoyer, 157 Md. 18, 31, 145 Atl. 190. Other than by means of eyewitnesses or the admission of the participants in bastardy cases, circumstantial evidence appears to be the only means by which the accused can prove the commission of the act with the prosecutrix by one other than himself.
*109In State v. Kvenmoen, 232 N. W. 475 (N. D.), the defendant offered to prove on cross examination of the prosecuting witness (1) that she was at a house party alone with three men other than the defendant until the early morning hours; (2) that she went out with A in an automobile from 8:30 p.m. until 1:30 a.m.; and (3) other evidence of opportunity for the commission of sexual relations. The trial court sustained the State’s objections that it was not proper cross-examination unless the defendant brought in the persons who would admit to these facts. The prosecuting witness, in addition, denied having relations with any others during the crucial months.
On appeal, the Supreme Court of North Dakota reversed, stating that in view of the conflict in the testimony as to the paternity, the defendant had the right to prove, if he could, that on or about the time set by the complaining witness as the date of intercourse, she had been in the company of other men frequently, alone, and at unusually late hours. The Court stated at page 477:
“The trial court seemed to be under the impression that it was not sufficient to show this opportunity only, but it was necessary to prove that the other men had intercourse with her. This was correct in the main, but did not require confession or ocular evidence. It could be proved by circumstances, and the jury had the right to know these things. The court stated that it would permit the testimony if these men would come forward and admit they had intercourse with her. This is too narrow an interpretation of the rule.”
In I. v. D., 158 A. 2d 716 (N. J.), a case decided as recently as 1960 by the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, the prosecuting witness testified on direct examination that she never had sexual intercourse with any person other than the defendant at any time. On two occasions the trial court sustained objections to inquiries, not as strong as those in the instant case, by the defendant on cross examination concerning the prosecutrix’s association with other men during the crucial time period. The defendant was the appellee on appeal and made no point of contesting these rulings. Neverthe*110less, the Court, in reversing the trial court, said at page 721-722:
“We are, however, reluctant to visit the defendant with paternity of a child where it is possible that legal evidence he was foreclosed from developing on cross-examination might have been weighty enough to change the preponderance of the evidence as to' his responsibility. The interests of justice require that the case be remanded to the County Court for the continuance of plaintiff’s cross-examination in the respects noted above, and for the taking of such additional proofs as either of the parties wishes to adduce concerning plaintiff’s other male associations, or the absence thereof, during the period when the child could have been conceived.”
I think that intercourse can as well be proven by circumstantial evidence as by direct evidence. It is true that some of the preliminary questions were, if isolated, not directed to proving illicit relations. As I read the record, however, appellant’s counsel was developing a pattern, a “line of investigation” leading to the proof. The trial court might have allowed the questions subject to being stricken if counsel failed to establish what he proffered. But I think the judge, during the trial, prejudiced the appellant’s case by limiting the cross-examination of the prosecutrix with respect to her association with others to any question other than the devastating final one '(whether she had sexual relations with the named parties) which he in desperation did ask. Certainly counsel should have been allowed to ask the prosecutrix whether she had parked in a car with the other men. It can not be said that parking in a car late at night is not a suspicious circumstance, when in fact the prosecutrix herself claimed that the child was conceived in appellant’s parked car. Certainly the jury should have been allowed to consider such evidence from which it could draw an inference of an illicit relationship despite the fact that she denied it.
I agree that a different principle is involved with respect to the proffers made to the court by appellant’s counsel when he *111was examining his own witnesses, Wolfe and Immerwahr. The trial court again ruled that the only inquiry that would be allowed with respect to his association with the prosecutrix would be whether they had sexual relations with her. I have already indicated that this was too limited a view and that counsel should have been permitted to make further inquiry. However, the direct question was asked each of these witnesses and each denied having had intercourse with the prosecutrix. The majority is correct I think in stating that since no effort was made by the appellant to show his witnesses were hostile, no surprise was claimed, and no prior inconsistent statement shown, the appellant properly could not have impeached the witnesses, and therefore was required by the usual rules of evidence to vouch for their testimony.
Clearly the legal questions involving the scope of the proffers made by defense counsel during the trial should have been argued and decided out of the presence of the jury. It is impossible to assess the impression left in the jurors’ minds by the colloquies. At one point the trial court said:
“Well, Gentlemen of the Jury, pay no attention to any of these questions which relate to whether or not this girl knows somebody. She may know some member of the jury but that does not mean that she has had sexual relations with them. Now the question here is, whether or not she had sexual relations with anyone other than the defendant which would have produced this conception.”
This admonition may have misled the jury and could have been prejudicial to the defendant at this point in the trial.
Defense counsel was faced with a Hobson’s choice. If he did not ask the one question the court repeatedly stated was the only one allowed, he might have left the impression with the jury that there was no merit at all to this claim so difficult to prove by direct testimony. If he did ask the question and got answers denying sexual relations (for to have admitted relations would virtually destroy the prosecutrix’s case and could have incriminated appellant’s own witnesses) he ran the risk of having damaging uncontradicted evidence before the triers of fact.
*112I wish to be understood as agreeing that the admonition stated in the Seibert case, supra, that the defendant may not introduce testimony merely to reflect upon the character of the prosecutrix must be adhered to. I would leave to the sound discretion of the trial judge in each case what questions are proper to show that the prosecutrix had sexual relations with others than the defendant, and which are mere innuendos and insinuations that the defendant knows he can never prove but which are offered to besmirch the character of the mother.
In a criminal prosecution such as this where the State’s case must be made out almost entirely upon the testimony of the complaining witness (whose motives may be questionable) and which is usually predicated solely upon circumstantial proof, I can not vote to affirm the conviction of a defendant of the crime of bastardy where a reading of the entire record leaves me, as it does here, convinced that he was not given a fair and impartial trial. I think that the trial judge went beyond the proper exercise of his discretion and unduly restricted the appellant’s counsel in pursuing the interrogation to show conduct on the part of the prosecutrix suggesting a sexual relation with other men within the period of possible conception. I would reverse and remand for a new trial.
Chief Judge Bruñe and Judge Horney authorize me to say they concur in the views herein expressed.