Court Opinion

ID: 9517214
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:09:30.923272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:41:37.800615
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE GREEN, dissenting: I agree with the majority that the admission of Anne Simpson’s testimony describing her actions and those of her husband, the defendant, at her trailer on the morning in question was not error. I disagree with their ruling that the admission of the testimony of Walter Kasten concerning the conversation between Mrs. Simpson and defendant at the county jail was error. Kasten testified that Mrs. Simpson said that defendant had told her at the trailer that he shot the victim. Kasten further testified that defendant then responded “Yes, but I told you later I was lying.” I agree that the purpose of the marital communication privilege is to allow each of the parties to rely on the free and unrestrained privacy of the marital relationship. Since the privilege does not protect constitutional rights and tends to impede the truth-seeking function of a judicial proceeding, I would not give it broad scope. The privilege gives the communicating spouse, here the defendant, no assurance that the other spouse, here the wife, will not reveal the communication to others. He is protected from her testimony that he made the statement. I would concede that, as here, the communicating spouse is also protected by the privilege and the hearsay rule from others testifying as to a disclosure of the communication that the other spouse may have made to them. Thus, had there been no evidence that the defendant admitted making the statement where he in turn admitted shooting the victim, the admission of Kasten’s testimony would have been error. Here, however, defendant publicly admitted making the statement for which privilege is sought. Neither text nor case authority dealing directly with the application of the privilege to this set of facts has been called to my attention. I see no social purpose, however, in granting privilege to a communication that the communicating spouse later publicly admits making. It would seem illogical to grant privilege to a communication so disclosed and to deny it to an oral communication overheard by an eavesdropper or a letter intercepted or misdelivered (see McCormick On Evidence 167 (2d ed. 1972).) I find no error in the admission of Walter Kasten’s testimony. In view of the disposition made of the case and the fact that the majority does not comment upon the propriety of the ruling on the tendered manslaughter instructions, I also choose not to comment on this issue.