Court Opinion

ID: 9634293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:08:14.028901+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:00.399762
License: Public Domain

ELDRIDGE, Judge,
dissenting:
Today, this Court holds for the first time that, in a criminal case, an alibi "witness’s earlier failure to search out law enforcement authorities and relay information that could exonerate a defendant may be used for impeachment purposes. The majority reasons that the “natural impulse” of an alibi witness would be to tell the police or state’s attorney office prior to testifying that he or she has information exonerating the defendant, and failure to do so reflects negatively on the witness’s credibility. I disagree.
In my view, in large areas of society today, the average citizen’s natural impulse may well be to have as little to do with the law enforcement authorities as possible. Consequently, in a criminal case, an alibi witness’s credibility ordinarily should not be impugned solely because the witness did not previously contact the police or prosecutor. Furthermore, the majority’s holding today improperly burdens the defendant by placing the responsibility on the defense to explain a witness’s prior failure to contact law enforcement authorities.
I fully agree with the principle of evidence law that there are circumstances whereby prior silence may amount to an inconsistent statement and thus may be used to impeach the testimony of the witness. I seriously doubt, however, that *354such circumstances usually include the earlier failure of an alibi witness, in a criminal prosecution, to have contacted law enforcement authorities and given information about the defendant. In the majority of criminal cases, this failure is sufficiently ambiguous that it lacks significant probative value regarding the credibility of an alibi witness.
In these times, with the vast majority of serious criminal cases involving street crimes, crimes of violence, and drug-related crimes, I question the proposition that there is a natural tendency, by most of the average defendant’s acquaintances, to go forward to the police or the prosecutor with exculpatory information. Whether this is because many people are suspicious of government, or is due to a perceived governmental failure to stem the amount of violent and drug-related crime, or is due to abusive or arrogant conduct by a minority of law enforcement officers, or results from a combination of these or other factors, I do not know. Nonetheless, many persons want to have as little to do with the police as possible. That this may be unfortunate does not make it any less of a fact.
The majority adopts the assumption expressed in the leading case of People v. Dawson, 50 N.Y.2d 311, 318, 428 N.Y.S.2d 914, 918-19, 406 N.E.2d 771, 775 (1980), where the Court of Appeals of New York stated that “there exists a wide variety of situations in which the natural impulse of a person possessing exculpatory information would be to come forward at the earliest moment in order to forestall the mistaken prosecution of a friend or loved one.” In Dawson, the impeached alibi witness was the defendant’s mother.1 The New York Court of Appeals, holding that the impeachment of the mother based on her silence prior to trial was appropriate, implicitly recognized that the mother/child relationship is a unique one, involving perhaps the most protective and strong*355est bond between individuals. Thus, the Court assumed that, as a result of this bond, a mother would feel compelled to tell law enforcement authorities of information that would exonerate her son.
The theory applied in the Dawson case seems to contemplate a perfect society where, as to every mother/child relationship, a protective impulse exists that would cause a mother to give police and prosecutors information to exonerate her child prior to trial. We do not live in a perfect society, however, as indicated by daily news stories that document the breakdown in family relationships, including mother/child relationships. Moreover, even with respect to strong mother/child relationships, I am dubious about drawing the inference that exculpatory information, if true, would almost always be relayed to the police or to the state’s attorney’s office.
Moreover, even assuming that we should follow the decision in the Dawson case, I would not extend the principle of that case to relationships not as close as the relationship between mother/child. The instant case illustrates the fallacy of extending the principle announced in Dawson, under the guise that a “natural impulse” exists, to include relationships that are not among the closest of familial or personal relationships.
The defendant’s alibi witness, Mr. Bey, seems to have been, at best, an acquaintance or casual friend of the defendant; there is no indication that he was a relative of the defendant or an extremely close friend. Indeed, from the majority’s opinion all that can be discerned about the relationship between Mr. Bey and the defendant is that they knew one another for a certain length of time. This is hardly the type of relationship warranting the finding of a “natural impulse.”2 *356Cf. People v. Ratliff, 189 Cal.App.3d 696, 234 Cal.Rptr. 502 (1987) (defendant’s sister and friend); State v. Bryant, 202 Conn. 676, 523 A.2d 451 (1987) (defendant’s mother, stepfather, and friend); State v. Miller, 259 Kan. 478, 912 P.2d 722 (1996) (girlfriend and relatives of defendant as alibi witnesses); Com. v. Brown, 11 Mass.App.Ct. 288, 416 N.E.2d 218 (1981) (defendant’s step-sister and friend); People v. McClow, 40 Mich.App. 185, 198 N.W.2d 707 (1972) (defendant’s brother); State v. Silva, 131 N.J. 438, 621 A.2d 17 (1993) (defendant’s sister); State v. Plowden, 126 N.J.Super. 228, 313 A.2d 802 (1974) (defendant’s sister); State v. Howard, 56 Ohio St.2d 328, 383 N.E.2d 912 (1978) (defendant’s sister); Wright v. State, 531 P.2d 696 (Okla.Crim.App.1975) (defendant’s wife); Glover v. State, 531 P.2d 689 (Okla.Crim.App.1975) (defendant’s wife and aunt); Commonwealth v. Walloe, 472 Pa. 473, 372 A.2d 788 (1977) (defendant’s sisters).
The majority holds that this nebulous relationship between the defendant and Mr. Bey is all that the prosecution must prove in establishing the foundation for asking why Mr. Bey did not go to the police or to the state’s attorney office with his information. This is so despite the majority’s initial assertion (Opinion at 340) that, in addition to showing that the witness has a relationship with the defendant, a proper foundation requires evidence that the witness knew that the defendant has been charged with the crime, knew that the information he or she possesses is exculpatory, and knew the procedures for submitting information to the authorities. Although the majority refers to all four factors as “foundational requirements,” it ultimately concludes (Opinion at 344-345, emphasis added):
“Moreover, we believe that the relevance of that pretrial witness’s silence must be established as a matter of foundation prior to the proponent of the impeachment evidence being allowed to inquire into it. It is enough of a foundation, however, we believe, if the proponent of the impeach*357ment evidence establishes a relationship between the witness and the defendant, or circumstances, such as to permit the trial court to conclude that it would have been a natural impulse on the part of the witness to have come forward with the exculpatory evidence. The extent of the witness’s knowledge, the timing of its acquisition, etc. are matters, we hold, of defense or explanation, offerable by the defense
Thus, the majority ultimately places the burden on the defense for explaining how any relationship between the alibi witnesses and the defendant does not warrant an inference of non-credibility from inaction. Once the prosecutor has established that the alibi witness knows the defendant, even tangentially, the prosecution is then free to impeach the witness because the witness did not initially search out the police or the state’s attorney. The majority suggests that the witness may be rehabilitated by redirect examination, such as having the witness explain that he or she did not know how to contact the police or the state’s attorney office. The majority creates an unfair presumption in favor of the state by requiring only that the prosecutor show that there is a relationship between the defendant and the witness, and, as illustrated today, only that this relationship is that of a mere acquaintance.
In contrast, other jurisdictions following the “natural impulse” theory invoked by the majority do require that the foundational criteria be met before proceeding with the question of whether the alibi witness conveyed his or her information to law enforcement authorities prior to testifying. See People v. Dawson, supra, 50 N.Y.2d at 321 n. 4, 428 N.Y.S.2d at 921 n. 4, 406 N.E.2d at 777 n. 4 (the prosecution must establish that “witness was aware of the ... charges ..., recognize[d] that he possessed exculpatory information, had a reasonable motive for acting to exonerate the defendant and., was familiar with the means to make such information available to law enforcement authorities”). See also, e.g., People v. Ratliff, supra 189 Cal.App.3d at 701, 234 Cal.Rptr. at 504-505; State v. Bryant, supra, 202 Conn, at 705, 523 A.2d at 466; State v. Silva, supra, 131 N.J. at 447-448, 621 A.2d at 22.
*358The testimony from the trial transcript cited by the majority indicates that not only was the alibi witness in the present case lacking knowledge as to the procedural means to inform the authorities of his information but was prevented from explaining that lack of knowledge. The colloquy between the state’s attorney and Mr. Bey, cited by the majority, suggests that Mr. Bey was unaware of the procedure necessary to go to the police. More importantly, the very foundation that is required to be established in most jurisdictions, that the witness knew of the procedure by which to inform law enforcement authorities, was undermined when the prosecution prevented Mr. Bey from explaining his lack of awareness and proceeded to allow the witness only to answer with a yes/no response.
In my view, the trial court erred by permitting the prosecutor to impeach the alibi witness by the testimony that the witness did not “try to talk to the police or the state’s attorney’s office.” Under the circumstances, this had no bearing on the witness’s credibility.

. Although, the defendant also called his father and aunt as alibi witnesses, the Court of Appeals of New York held that the defendant did not preserve the issue of whether these witnesses’ prior silence could be used to impeach their trial testimony.

. The majority's own recitation of the facts of the instant case counters its assumption that most alibi witnesses would go to the police at some point to convey their exculpatory information. As the majority states (Opinion at 334), "when the victim returned on the second occasion [to the area where the crime occurred], the police were with him and the petitioner and other men on the corner ran away, as did Mr. Bey." If Mr. Bey ran from the police at the time of the incident between the *356victim and the defendant, why should it be assumed that he would ever feel compelled to go to the police?