Court Opinion

ID: 9497578
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:54:34.659103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:16.698577
License: Public Domain

IRENAS, J.,
Concurring.
I concur in the judgment and agree that the trial court was justified in excluding the proffered alibi testimony based on the holding in Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400, 108 S.Ct. 646, 98 L.Ed.2d 798 (1988), which permits the exclusion of alibi testimony, without consideration of the prejudice to the State, when the defendant engages in willful misconduct. I write separately because Judge Leval’s excellent opinion may convey the impression' that Petitioner’s three year flight from justice should be considered in assessing the prejudice to the prosecution caused by his' failure to timely file notice of an alibi defense as required by New York law! Therefore, I join all parts of the majority’s opinion except that captioned “b. Prejudice to the prosecution from the late notice.”
Many jurisdictions, including New York State, have statutes or court rules which require a defendant to give early notice of *146an intention to offer alibi testimony. See, e.g., Fed.R.Crim.P. 12.1. Taylor holds that the Compulsory Process Clause bars the exclusion of such testimony as a sanction for late notice to the prosecution if some lesser sanction can serve to eliminate any prejudice to the State caused by the untimely notice. However, Taylor also carves out an exception to this general rule: “Regardless of whether prejudice to the prosecution could have been avoided in this particular case, it is plain that the case fits into the category of willful misconduct in which the severest sanction is appropriate.” 484 U.S. at 417, 108 S.Ct. 646 (emphasis added). Taylor thus provides that in some instances of egregious misconduct by the defense the ultimate sanction of exclusion is justified to vindicate certain public concerns such as the “integrity of the adversary process” and the preservation of the “truth-determining function of the trial process,” without regard for the State’s ability to remedy any prejudice. Id. at 414-15,108 S.Ct. 646.
Taylor identifies two types of willful misconduct justifying the exclusion of alibi testimony without consideration of the prejudice to the State. First, “[i]f ... the omission was willful and motivated by a desire to obtain a tactical advantage that would minimize the effectiveness of cross-examination and the ability to adduce rebuttal evidence, it would be entirely consistent with the Compulsory Process Clause simply to exclude the witness’ testimony.” Id. at 415, 108 S.Ct. 646. Second, “[i]f a pattern of discovery violations is explicable only on the assumption that the violations were designed to conceal a plan to present fabricated testimony, it would be entirely appropriate to exclude the tainted evidence regardless of whether other sanctions would also be merited.” Id. at 414, 108 S.Ct. 646.
I agree that the Appellate Division could have reasonably found that Petitioner engaged in both types of willful misconduct and that excluding Ms. Jackson’s tardily proffered alibi testimony was not an “unreasonable application of’ Taylor. I also agree that evidence of Petitioner’s pre-arrest flight may be relevant to determining whether the late notice was given with the intent to either gain a tactical litigation advantage or to proffer fabricated trial testimony. In this context, evidence of flight may be considered analogous to evidence admissible under Fed.R.Evid. 404(b) to prove “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, ... or absence of mistake or accident....”
Here, Petitioner moved to Albany for three years after hearing that he was a suspect in this case and used aliases to avoid the police. He claims not to remember where he was on the night his longtime friend was killed, yet is able to recall in detail the events of an otherwise unremarkable evening he claims was several days prior to the murder. Suddenly, four years later and on the eve of trial, Petitioner’s cousin mentions off-hand to defense counsel that Petitioner was in fact nowhere near the scene of the crime. Petitioner’s efforts to evade the police combined with a belated and convenient recollection of an alibi suggest a willfulness which would make exclusion an appropriate remedy under Taylor, even where prejudice to the state by late notice might otherwise be curable.
However, I cannot join the majority’s conclusion that the prosecution would have suffered incurable prejudice from the admission of Ms. Jackson’s testimony. Moreover, such a holding is unnecessary to the result we reach here. My concerns lie with how evidence of Petitioner’s flight is used to assess the extent of the prejudice to the State caused by the late alibi notice. *147For purposes of the Compulsory Process Clause, Petitioner’s pre-prosecution conduct should not be relevant in determining the quantum of prejudice suffered by the State when it receives late notice of proposed alibi testimony.. While the prosecution (and for that matter the defense) may be hampered by Petitioner’s three year absence, a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights are not diminished by flight to avoid prosecution. Had Petitioner given timely notice of Ms. Jackson’s testimony, the State could not have objected to that evidence on the ground that its ability to develop cross-examination or investigate rebuttal testimony was prejudiced by the passage of time before his arrest. Therefore, I believe that we must analyze prejudice to the State not from the date of Petitioner’s flight, but from the date that the alibi notice should have been given.
Putting aside the evidence of Petitioner’s three year flight, my review of the record does not satisfy me that it would be a reasonable application of Taylor for the Appellate Division to conclude that there was incurable prejudice caused solely by the delay in filing notice of the alibi witness. The argument expressed in footnote five, supra, of the majority opinion has an instinctive appeal, but I disagree with its logic. Justice Appelman felt that the prosecution’s concerns could be alleviated with an adjournment to provide time for the State to investigate Petitioner’s alibi defense. I agree with her assessment that lesser sanctions were appropriate, as the one year post-arrest delay was neither so severe nor irremediable as to justify the extreme sanction of preclusion. Moreover, because the panel is in unanimous agreement as to the existence of willful misconduct, there is no need to reach this issue.