Court Opinion

ID: 9645541
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:28:02.352712+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:29.356752
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent.
I was the lone dissenter when Crane’s appeal was originally heard in the Kentucky Supreme Court, and his conviction affirmed. The reason for my dissent was that the trial court had improperly suppressed evidence offered to show circumstances of “intimidation surrounding the taking of the confession, ... relevant to its credibility.” 690 S.W.2d 753, 755. The trial judge’s decision that the confession was not coerced, made when he decided to admit it, did “not preempt the jury’s need to consider evidence about coercion in deciding guilt.” Id.
The offered evidence, which was heard at the suppression hearing but suppressed at the trial, served multiple purposes, because the same evidence was relevant to both voluntariness and credibility, and thus “should be admitted when offered for the proper purpose.” Lawson, Kentucky Evidence Law Handbook, § 1.10(A) (2d ed. 1984).
The United States Supreme Court, with a rare showing of unanimity in the decision of a criminal constitutional law question, reversed the Kentucky Supreme Court, applying the same principles and reasoning set out in my previous Dissenting Opinion. See Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986). As stated in the United States Supreme Court’s decision:
“[T]he Constitution guarantees criminal defendants ‘a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense.’ ” California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 485, 104 S.Ct. 2528 [2532], 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984); ... That opportunity would be an empty one if the state were permitted to exclude competent, reliable evidence bearing on the credibility of a confession when such evidence is central to the defendant’s claim of innocence.” At _, 106 S.Ct. at 2146, 90 L.Ed.2d at 645.
However, rather than remanding this case back to the trial court for a new trial, the United States Supreme Court elected to remand this case back to the Kentucky Supreme Court for “harmless error analysis.” Id. at -, 106 S.Ct. at 2147, 90 L.Ed.2d at 646. The Court’s decision to do this is rather strange when we consider this statement in its opinion:
“We do, however, think it plain that introducing evidence of the physical circumstances that yielded the confession was all but indispensable to any chance of [Crane’s defense] succeeding.” Id. at -, 106 S.Ct. at 2147, 90 L.Ed.2d at 645.
The Commonwealth had contended in the United States Supreme Court that “the very evidence excluded by the trial court’s ruling ultimately came in through other witnesses.” Id. at-, 106 S.Ct. at 2147, 90 L.Ed.2d at 646. Rather than examine this contention, the United States Supreme Court remanded this case back to our Court to do so.
Since we are confronted with trial error of constitutional magnitude, “harmless error analysis” puts the burden on the Commonwealth to prove that excluding the evidence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). Considering that the evidence excluded was admittedly critical to the defense, its exclusion could hardly be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt unless the same evidence was elsewhere presented to the jury, and in an equally comprehensible form. Such is not the case.
On the contrary, as presented to the jury the evidence concerning the circumstances surrounding the taking of Crane’s confession was partially incomplete, and confusingly presented. Defense counsel had made this point, coercion in the circumstances surrounding the taking of the confession, the principal thrust of his opening statement. After the trial court ordered the evidence suppressed, the jury was left with the impression that the defense was left with a failure of proof. When a jury is told in opening statement what a lawyer *309expects to prove, and he subsequently fails to prove it, this significantly affects the credibility of his entire case. A.S. Julian, Opening Statements, Ch. 2, § 2.03.50 (cum. supp. 1985).
The defense proposed to prove that Crane was a sixteen year old boy who was questioned nearly two hours by five police officers in a small 10' x 10', windowless room in the absence of any family member or social worker. He was questioned about a number of crimes, and a number of things that he stated in his confession as to the present crime were demonstrably untrue. The confession was in error about the type of weapon actually used, about the setting off of an alarm system when there was no alarm system, and about the robbery occurring in daylight hours when in fact it happened at 10:00 p.m. Additionally, in the confession Crane stated that he got $400 in the robbery, when the evidence was that no money was taken.
The evidence related to the boy’s age and the circumstances of his questioning, which supposedly renders the suppression of the avowal evidence harmless, came in only tangentially and by inference. It omitted details and it fell far short of a complete picture of the circumstances of the interrogation as the defendant wished to present them.
In summing up the opinion, the majority opines, “[i]n view of the incriminatory testimony of appellant’s uncle and mother, it is inconceivable to us that the jury would have reached any other result in this case had they had the additional testimony....” However, the evidence introduced during trial from these witnesses to corroborate Crane’s confession was brought out in conflicting testimony with numerous denials.
This in no way suggests that I believe that Crane’s confession was coerced, that it lacked credibility, or that Crane is not guilty. But this is not our decision to make. Crane was entitled to present this claim of coercion in as clear and comprehensible a fashion as the law of evidence permits. It is for the jury to pass on its credibility in deciding the question of his guilt. Crane did not get this chance.
I dissent.
LAMBERT, J., joins in this dissent.