Court Opinion

ID: 9686307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:40:59.685292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:17.517036
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(dissenting). I join part i of Justice Weaver’s opinion. Because I would find that there was no constitutional or evidentiary error in these cases, it is not necessary to reach the issue left open in People v Mateo, 453 Mich 203; 551 NW2d 891 (1996). Moreover, if there were error, it would be harmless under any test. Given this fact, the majority’s motivation is obvious; it has simply used this case as a vehicle to adopt the high-probability standard, thereby rendering any meaningful exploration of one of the most important questions in our jurisprudence an exercise in futility. I otherwise agree with Justice Weaver’s reasoning and result and write separately to add only these observations regarding the lead opinion by Justice Brickley.
If I understand the lead opinion, there is no constitutional doctrine applicable to this case. Nor is there evidentiary error of the type referenced in Namet v United States, 373 US 179; 83 S Ct 1151; 10 L Ed 2d 278 (1963). Further, neither People v Giacalone, 399 Mich 642; 250 NW2d 492 (1977), nor People v Dyer, 425 Mich 572; 390 NW2d 645 (1986), in terms apply, because each involved the calling of a witness for the purpose of having the witness invoke a valid Fifth Amendment privilege. In short, as far as I can determine, Commonwealth v DuVal, 453 Pa 205; 307 A2d 229 (1973), is the only court of last resort to hold that the prosecutor commits error calling a witness who has no privilege to refuse to testify. The rule of this case, therefore, is that prosecutors commit an ethical violation and are presumably subject to discipline when they merely call a witness to the stand who just does not want to get involved.
*227Aside from the lack of wisdom in creating a bright-line rule that places the power of determining who will be called to testify in the hands of recalcitrant witnesses, the Court simply assumes it has the authority to create an ethical rule for the conduct of prosecutors, to call it an “evidentiary rule,” and to assert that violation is error.
The need for probative evidence is the paramount concern of the system. Any rule that undermines that objective bears a heavy burden of justification by reference to another value of equal or greater importance. Even where there is a potentially valid privilege, as Professor McCormick has observed, a multifactor analysis is applied to determine whether error is committed when a prosecution witness is questioned before the jury and validly invokes his privilege.
Among the relevant considerations are the prosecutor’s certainty that the witness will invoke the privilege, the number and nature of the questions as to which the privilege is invoked, whether other evidence has been introduced on those matters as to which the jury might draw an inference from the witness’s invocation of the privilege, and the giving — and likely effectiveness — of an instruction to the jury to draw no inference from the witness’s action. [1 McCormick, Evidence (4th ed), § 137, p 513.]
Given that the prosecutors in these cases acted in good faith, there can be no finding of “evidentiary” error on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct. Simply stated, if the privilege asserted is valid, because the judge just ruled it was valid, there is no ethical violation when the witness is merely called to the stand. Thus, there is no error based on the prosecutor’s breach of ethics.
*228While making much of the prosecutor’s ethical obligation not to offer inadmissable evidence or call a witness knowing he will claim a valid privilege, the lead opinion ignores not only the trial courts’ rulings on the validity of the privileges asserted, and the prosecutor’s good faith, but also the prosecutor’s ethical obligations as an officer of the court to put the truth before the jury. Ante at 196.
Giacalone turned on the Court’s acceptance of the reference in the ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice1 to the ethical rule that “[a] lawyer may not knowingly offer inadmissable evidence or call a witness knowing that he will claim a valid privilege not to testify.” Giacalone at 645. In these cases, neither prosecutor knew that a witness would claim a valid privilege because the judge ruled otherwise. Moreover, neither acted in an unethical manner in any way. Thus, Justice Brickley’s opinion takes precedent that rests on the dual concerns that a prosecutor should not force a witness to claim a valid privilege and that a jury may draw inferences that are impermissible from such exercise and converts it into a rule that the prosecutor may not call a witness who has no privilege to refuse to testify because the jury might hold it against the defendant.
Concern that the witness’ refusal to testify might play a role in the jury’s deliberations harmful to the defendant is speculative, not evidentiary. In Gearns, the prosecutor asked the witness, “Who do you reside *229at that address with?” The only inference that could have been drawn from that question is that the witness lived at the address with defendant, an inference that would have little or no probative force in the case against the defendant and that was established independently. The prosecutor did not ask any substantive questions after the witness refused to answer that question, and any inference from the failure to answer that question would not add “critical weight” to the prosecutor’s case within the evidentiary approach of Namet. Id. at 187. The inference could not have supplied any missing link in the evidence because other witnesses testified that the defendant and the witness lived together and were observed cleaning the floor. Thus, as in Namet, supra at 189, the case is not one “in which a witness’ refusal to testify is the only source, or even the chief source, of the inference that the witness engaged in criminal activity with the defendant.”
In Thomas, the witness refused to answer any questions whatsoever, “ ‘refusing to say anything ....’” Ante at 179. As in Geams, the conclusion that an adverse inference reasonably could be drawn from the testimony is bald speculation.
A jury is entitled to know that a witness has been produced and will not testify, rather than be told that it is not to speculate on the reasons why the witness is not present. Contrary to the principle that each man owes the court his evidence, the majority creates a rule that makes it easier to avoid that responsibility, that may result in an adverse inference against the prosecutor, and that deprives the jury of the full story.
*230[B]eyond the power of conventional evidence to support allegations and give life to the moral underpinnings of law’s claims, there lies the need for evidence in all its particularity to satisfy the jurors’ expectations about what proper proof should be. . . . “If [jurors’] expectations are not satisfied, triers of fact may penalize the party who disappoints them by drawing a negative inference against that party.” Expectations may also arise in jurors’ minds simply from the experience of a trial itself. The use of witnesses to describe a train of events naturally related can raise the prospect of learning about every ingredient of that natural sequence the same way. If suddenly the prosecution presents some occurrence in the series differently, as by announcing a stipulation or admission [or that they are not to speculate about why a named and produced eyewitness is not present], the effect may be like saying, “never mind what’s behind the door,” and jurors may well wonder what they are being kept from knowing. A party seemingly responsible for cloaking something has reason for apprehension. . . .
A syllogism is not a story, and a naked proposition in a courtroom may be no match for the robust evidence that would be used to prove it. People who hear a story interrupted by gaps of abstraction may be puzzled at the missing chapters, and jurors asked to rest a momentous decision on the story’s truth can feel put upon at being asked to take responsibility knowing that more could be said than they have heard. A convincing tale can be told with economy, but when economy becomes a break in the natural sequence of narrative evidence, an assurance that the missing link is really there is never more than second best. [Old Chief v United States, 519 US 172, 188-189; 117 S Ct 644; 136 L Ed 2d 574 (1997).]
A rule depriving the jury of knowledge requires a compelling justification. There being no right to refuse to testify in these circumstances, no ethical violation by the prosecutor, and no legally cognizable prejudice to the defendant from the witness’ recalci*231trance, compelling justification is not present. Because the result will make it easier for reluctant witnesses to withhold their testimony, I dissent.

 The current ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Standard 3-1.1, Prosecution Function and Defense Function (3d ed), p 3, specifically state that “[tjhese standards ... are not intended to be used as criteria for the judicial evaluation of alleged misconduct of the prosecutor to determine the validity of a conviction. They may or may not be relevant in such judicial evaluation, depending upon all the circumstances.”