Court Opinion

ID: 9724808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:15:08.353313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:10:45.056686
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
In determining whether the trial court's ruling preventing appellant's own alibi testimony was consistent with Art. 1, § 13 of the Indiana Constitution, it is appropriate to begin with the text of that constitutional provision, which in pertinent part provides:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have the right .. to be heard by himself and counsel ..."
I take it that all would agree that the right guaranteed here is one basic to a fair adjudication of criminal guilt. From the language employed, ".. himself and counsel ..", it is clear that the nature of the right is such that it extends beyond the right to good counsel to the very person of the defendant. McDowell v. State (1947), 225 Ind. 495, 76 N.E.2d 249. The very person of the criminal defendant is seldom imbued with an understanding of Constitutions, statutes, or rules of evidence, which confine and restrain the presentation of testimony. It appears therefore to me that this aspect of the provision requires courts to be maximally deferential in favor of permitting one accused of crime to personally choose at trial whether to exercise the right the provision grants.
Art. 1, § 13, also employs the language ".. the right ... to be heard by himself ..". To be heard by me requires that I speak and that the person addressed hear and listen. The right surely includes the privilege of the person accused of crime to speak out in the courtroom, at his trial, and state what in his mind constitutes a predicate for his innocence of the charges. It likewise surely includes the duty of the *371trier of fact to hear and listen to such statements. When the accused is prevented by the court from stating his predicates for innocence from the stand, and the jury is aware that it not going to hear what the accused wishes to say, there is a severe adverse impact on the manner in which both the accused and the jury views the fairness of the proceedings, and an adverse impact on the rehabilitative potential of the accused. This is a serious matter indeed when the accused simply wishes to express himself orally under oath in a civil manner, and is restrained.
Based upon the strength of the language considered above, and the unique value which it places upon the desire of an individual when confronted with the reality of his actual trial on criminal charges, to personally speak out and give his version of the story to the court and jury, I conclude, as I did in my concurring opinion in Bowen v. State (1975), 263 Ind. 558, 334 N.E.2d 691, that a court inevitably trenches upon the right of the accused to testify, when it applies the exclusionary sanction of the alibi statute so as to prevent the accused from standing empty handed at trial, and personally testifying in oral form that he was not at the scene of the crime but was instead at another place. In this trial situation, I find strong constitutional bias in favor of permitting such personal testimony of the accused. And furthermore, I would assess the interests of the prosecution at stake in this trial situation at about the same level that I would assess the interest of the State in having advance notice that the defendant is going to testify at all on his own behalf so that it could prepare itself to impeach him, which is to say, small potatoes.