Court Opinion

ID: 9490429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:43:18.973777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:05.750352
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result:
I concur in the result although on somewhat different grounds from those expressed in Judge Oakes’s opinion.
With regard to the limitation on appellant’s cross examination of Winder, appellant has not shown that any of the various answers that might have been given to the questions at issue would have enhanced his defense in any material respect. In particular, he laid no foundation to show that the questions might shed light on his arguments concerning the lack of physical evidence of trauma.
With regard to the limitation on the testimony of the defense expert, the question seems close only because of hindsight. We now -know' of~tfie"unusual^verdict rendered. In light of that verdict, the"ambiguities regarding the use of the words “force” and “forcible” now seem obvious, and the limiting of the cross-examination was an event of considerable magnitude. But it is not error, much less constitutional error, to sustain objections to ambiguous questions.
With regard to the prosecutor’s comments on summation, I agree with Judge Oakes that they implicated appellant’s rights to be present at trial and to testify. I would, however, expressly limit our holding to the following circumstances.
First, the only evidence supporting the inference that appellant tailored his testimony to the prosecution’s case was his presence in the courtroom and that testimony itself. There was, for example, nothing in the record indicating that appellant had earlier given a different version of events and altered that version after learning of the prosecution’s evidence. The only support for the inference, therefore, was appellant’s exercise of constitutional rights.
Second, the inference suggested by the prosecutor was entirely unfair in thát appellant had no chance to anticipate and rebut it by testimony. Under New York law, absent a claim of recent fabrication, appellant could not have introduced evidence of prior consistent statements — that is, evidence that he had told the same story even before witnessing the prosecution’s case. See People v. McDaniel, 81 N.Y.2d 10, 16, 595 N.Y.S.2d 364, 611 N.E.2d 265 (1993); People v. McClean, 69 N.Y.2d 426, 428, 515 N.Y.S.2d 428, 508 N.E.2d 140 (1987). So long as New York prohibits criminal defendants from introducing prior consistent statements to demonstrate that their version of evidence was not fabricated after learning of the prosecution’s evidence, its prosecutors may not, in my view, argue that such fabrication occurred.
Third, the prosecutor’s argument was not harmless. The ease turned on detailed and conflicting versions of several .events given by prosecution witnesses and by the defendant. The prosecution witnesses were present only for their individual testimony while the defendant was present for the entire trial.1 The accusation that appellant heard *716the prosecution’s case and tailored his testimony to it was, therefore, a powerful argument. It affected none of the witnesses against him, and, as noted, was virtually impossible to rebut directly. The only effective way for appellant to have avoided this unfair but powerful argument would have been either to forego presence at the trial or testifying in his own defense — important constitutional rights.
I therefore concur in the result.

. We may assume for purposes of this matter that our dissenting colleague is correct in concluding that jurors generally expect a criminal defendant to be present in the courtroom during the trial and that remarking upon that presence merely states the obvious. However, the prose*716cutor's comments here went far beyond remarking upon Agard’s presence. They specifically emphasized that other witnesses were not present to hear each others' testimony and that the defendant therefore had a "big advantage” in being able "to sit here and think what I am going to say and .... [h]ow am I going to fit it into the evidence?” I doubt that many jurors are familiar with the practice of excluding witnesses except for their individual testimony. Indeed, courtroom scenes on television or in the movies may require the presence of the important characters for dramatic effect. In my view, therefore, the prosecutor's remarks explored matters far beyond the obvious and had a telling effect.