Court Opinion

ID: 9792569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:30:57.198235+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:43.654415
License: Public Domain

QUINN, Justice,
specially concurring:
I specially concur in the judgment. Section 19-10-112, C.R.S.1973 (1978 Repl.Vol. 8), provides that “[t]he.privileged communication between husband and wife shall not be a ground for excluding evidence in any judicial proceeding resulting from a report pursuant to this article.” I read this section to remove any claim of marital privilege only with respect to the child abuse report and any evidence acquired or developed from the report. I do not read this section, however, to abrogate the protection of section 13-90-107(l)(a), C.R.S.1973, which provides:
“(1) There are particular relations in which it is the policy of the law to encourage confidence and to preserve it inviolate; therefore, a person shall not be examined as a witness in the following cases:
(a) A husband shall not be examined for or against his wife without her consent, nor a wife for or against her husband without his consent; nor during the marriage or afterward shall either be examined without the consent of the other as to any communications made by one to the other during the marriage; but this exception does not apply to a civil action or proceeding by one against the other nor to a criminal action or proceeding for a crime committed by one against the other.”
In contrast to other statutory privileges this statute not only creates a testimonial privilege for confidential communication between spouses but also, as important here, perpetuates the common-law doctrine of witness disqualification in the case of non-consensual spousal testimony regardless of its content. See Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40, 100 S.Ct. 906, 63 L.Ed.2d 186 (1980) (discussion of origin of marital privilege).
The purpose of section 19-10-112, as I read it, is to make clear that the marital privilege shall not extend to those situations where one spouse confesses an act of child abuse to the other spouse and the spouse who is the recipient of the communication discloses it to the department of social services or to the local law enforcement agency, even though such disclosure is in breach of the confidentiality intended by the confessing spouse in making the disclosure to his or her marital partner. Without this statute it could be argued that the privilege is not lost merely because the reporting wife chooses to disclose to a third party what has been told her in confidence by her husband. C. McCormick, Handbook of the Law of Evidence (2d ed. E. Cleary 1972) § ⅜2. With the statute, however, it is clear that the report itself and other evidence developed therefrom are not inadmissible on the basis of the marital privilege. Because section 19-10-112 does not address the statutory disqualification of adverse spousal testimony or, for that matter, the admissibility of testimony from the reporting spouse describing the contents of a confidential communication from her husband with respect to an act of child abuse, the question of the admissibility of the wife’s testimony in this case should be determined on the basis of section 13-90-107(l)(a).
*690The exception in section 13-90-107(l)(a) abrogates the statutory prohibition against nonconsensual spousal testimony as well as the privilege for spousal communication in any “criminal action or proceeding for a crime committed by one [spouse] against the other.” This court in several cases has broadly construed the term “a crime committed by one against the other” to encompass those situations where the crime is anti-marital in character in the sense of adversely affecting the marital relationship. E.g., Jordan v. People, 161 Colo. 54, 419 P.2d 656 (1966), cert. denied, 386 U.S. 992, 87 S.Ct. 1308, 18 L.Ed.2d 338 (1967) (husband prosecuted for indecent liberties against stepdaughter and wife permitted to testify against him); O’Loughlin v. People, 90 Colo. 368, 10 P.2d 543 (1932) (wife prosecuted for murder of stepdaughter and husband permitted to testify against her); Wilkinson v. People, 86 Colo. 406, 282 P. 257 (1929) (husband prosecuted for rape of stepdaughter and wife permitted to testify against him); Schell v. People, 65 Colo. 116, 173 P. 1141 (1918) (husband prosecuted for bigamy and wife permitted to testify against him); Dill v. People, 19 Colo. 469, 36 P. 229 (1894) (perjury prosecution against husband for making false affidavit in earlier divorce proceeding and wife permitted to testify against him). I would rely upon a similar construction in resolving this case. The sexual molestation of the wife’s eleven year old sister, in addition to being a crime against the child, injuriously affects the wife as a party to the marriage and, in this respect, is an offense against the marital relationship.
I would hold that for the purpose of the marital privilege the defendant’s conduct constituted “a crime committed by one [spouse] against the other.” The wife, therefore, was not disqualified from testifying against her husband in this case, nor was the admission of her testimony viola-tive of the statutory privilege for spousal communications. For these reasons I believe the district judge erred in striking the testimony of the wife; and, were such testimony not stricken, there was probable cause to believe the defendant committed the crime charged.
I am authorized to say that Justice ERICKSON and Justice DUBOFSKY join me in this specially concurring opinion.