Court Opinion

ID: 9559203
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:24:35.430369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:05.535652
License: Public Domain

EUBANK, Judge
(dissenting in part).
I concur with the majority opinion conclusions in Sections II (Bad Acts), III (Jury Instructions), IV (Jury Option — -Involuntary Manslaughter), but I dissent from those set out in Section I (The Confessions).
It is my opinion that Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed. 2d 1 (1971), applies to the facts here. Harris holds that an accused’s prior inconsistent statements, not admissible under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), may be used to impeach the accused’s credibility if he elects to take the stand and testify. The rationale of the Court was based on Wald-er v. United States, 347 U.S. 62, 65, 74 S.Ct. 354, 356, 98 L.Ed. 503, 507 (1954), where Justice Frankfurter said:
“It is one thing to say that the Government cannot make an affirmative use of evidence unlawfully obtained. It is quite another to say that the defendant can turn the illegal method by which evidence in the Government’s possession was obtained to his own advantage, and provide himself with a shield against contradiction of his untruths. Such an extension of the Weeks doctrine would be a perversion of the Fourth Amendment.”
This is the law in Arizona. A.R.S. § 13-163(A) provides:
“A defendant in a criminal action or proceeding shall not be compelled to be a witness against himself, but may be a witness in his own behalf. If he offers himself as a witness in his own behalf, he may be cross-examined to the same extent and subject to the same rules as any other witness.”
See State v. Young, 109 Ariz. 221, 508 P.2d 51 (1973); State v. Thompson, 110 Ariz. 165, 516 P.2d 42 (1973); Udall, Arizona Law of Evidence, §§ 45, 68 (1960).
Although the “exclusionary” rule has been extended to cover the pre-trial silence of a defendant when it is introduced for impeachment purposes on cross-examination (Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976)), pre-trial silence is not involved here. See State v. Scott, 26 Ariz.App. 361, 555 P.2d 118 (filed July 29, 1976). Harris permits the introduction of the taped confession on cross-examination because of the great need to permit the jury to know the truth and to assess the defendant’s credibility, especially since she has taken the oath to tell the truth. To reject such evidence is to sanction half-truth, or, worse yet, perjury.