C.F. v. State
| Decision Date | 25 April 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 82A04-8709-CR-276,82A04-8709-CR-276 |
| Parties | C.F., Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below). |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Bruce Heathcotte, Heathcotte and Turpin, Evansville, for appellant.
Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Jay Rodia, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
C.F. appeals her conviction for direct contempt for failure to fully answer questions propounded to her by the Vanderburgh Circuit Court grand jury.
We reverse.
Restated, the sole issue presented by this appeal is: whether a grand jury target witness is subject to contempt proceedings for answering "I don't know why I started the fire," when repeatedly asked "what was your reason or motive for starting the fire?"
In October, 1986, C.F., a night shift disc jockey at WYNG radio in Evansville, went to the station's basement early one morning and set the building on fire. Several minutes later she returned with a fire extinguisher and tried to extinguish the blaze. However, the smoke was too thick, she was unable to do so. In 1987, the Vanderburgh Circuit Court grand jury began investigating the fire. C.F. was granted use and derivative use immunity to obtain her testimony before the grand jury.
During her testimony C.F. was asked more than 20 times why she started the fire. C.F. gave no rational explanation, but kept responding as to her motive or reason, "I do not know why I started the fire." The trial court found C.F. in contempt then sentenced her to 90 days in the Vanderburgh County Jail, she then to be returned to court upon completion of sentence "for the purposes of responding to the questions posed to her by the Grand Jury."
C.F. appeals.
Our Supreme Court has succinctly stated the standard of review in appeals involving direct contempt. It has said
... [O]ur standard of reviewing direct contempt proceedings requires this Court to accept as true the statement entered of record by the lower court of the matter constituting the contempt, and to interfere with the judgment only where it clearly appears alleged acts do not constitute contemptuous acts. Grimm v. State (1959), 240 Ind. 125, 162 N.E.2d 454; Russell v. State (1981), Ind.App., 428 N.E.2d 1271.
In re: Caito (1984), Ind., 459 N.E.2d 1179, 1182.
Regarding witnesses who testify under a grant of immunity, IC 35-34-2-8(c) provides
(c) If a witness refuses to give evidence after he has been granted use immunity, he shall be brought before the court and the court shall proceed as if the witness had refused in open court.
IC 34-4-7-2 reads in part
Every person who, being sworn to testify as a witness in any court of record, in any trial or proceeding therein, shall refuse to testify touching the same; ... shall be deemed guilty of a direct contempt thereof.
As to whether C.F.'s answers constituted contemptuous acts, i.e. evasive answers tantamount to a refusal to testify, the trial court determined
(6) that her response to the question of why she started the fire is not a bona fide effort to answer the question and as such, constitutes an evasive answer subject to direct contempt.
(R. 24).
In Ex Parte Hudgings (1919), 249 U.S. 378, 39 S.Ct. 337, 63 L.Ed. 656, a witness at trial repeatedly testified he believed certain signatures were the writing of the persons named, but he could not so state from having seen those persons write "because he could not recollect ever having seen them do so." Hudgings, 249 U.S. at 380; 39 S.Ct. at 338. The trial court jailed Hudgings for contempt. It believed Hudgings had committed perjury by giving an evasive answer by wilfully refusing to answer the question truthfully. He was to be committed until he had purged himself of the contempt for which he was being punished. The Hudgings court determined a court may punish such witness for contempt as well as perjury only when the act complained of amounts to an obstruction to the performance of judicial duty. The court noted although prior cases had treated perjury without any other element as adequate to sustain a punishment for contempt, these cases were mistaken because
if the conception were true, it would follow that when a court entertained the opinion that a witness was testifying untruthfully the power would result to impose a punishment for contempt with the object or purpose of exacting from the witness a character of testimony which the court would deem to be truthful; and thus it would come to pass that a potentiality of oppression and wrong would result and the freedom of the citizen when called as a witness in a court would be gravely imperiled.
In In re Michael (1945), 326 U.S. 224, 66 S.Ct. 78, 90 L.Ed. 30, a witness had given "false and evasive" testimony before a federal grand jury which in the trial court's opinion "obstructed the said grand jury in its inquiry and the due administration of justice." The federal circuit court of appeal determined the witness had directly responded with unequivocal answers which were clear enough so that if they were shown to be false, the witness would clearly have been guilty of perjury and subject to indictment for that offense. There, the Supreme Court said
All perjured relevant testimony is at war with justice, since it may produce a judgment not resting on truth. Therefore it cannot be denied that it tends to defeat the sole ultimate objective of a trial. It need...
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