Snyder v. Coiner

• Decision Date: 07 February 1975
• Docket Number: No. 73--2367,73--2367
• Citation: 510 F.2d 224
• Parties: Clyde SNYDER, Appellant, v. Ira M. COINER, Warden, West Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 224

510 F.2d 224

Clyde SNYDER, Appellant, v. Ira M. COINER, Warden, West Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellee.

No. 73--2367.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 3, 1974.

Decided Feb. 7, 1975.

Jack L. Gould, Bowie, Md., for appellant.

David P. Cleek, Asst. Atty. Gen. of W. Va. (Chauncey H. Browning, Jr., Atty. Gen. of W. Va., Richard E. Hardison, Deputy Atty. Gen. of W. Va., on brief), for appellee.

Before WINTER, CRAVEN and RUSSELL, Circuit Judges.

DONALD RUSSELL, Circuit Judge:

The petitioner, a state prisoner convicted of rape, seeks federal habeas relief, after exhausting state post-conviction remedies. The District Court denied relief and we affirm.

I

The primary claim of error, asserted by the petitioner, concerns the limitation placed by the trial court on the cross-examination of a prosecution witness. The defense sought to establish by cross-examination of the witness that five years earlier, he, then fifteen years of age, at the insistence of his father, had falsely testified at a deposition that he was a passenger, rather than the driver, of a car that had been involved in an accident. The prosecution objected to the admission of such evidence. The trial court permitted full inquiry to be made by the defense into the incident without the presence of the jury before ruling on the admissibility of such evidence. The witness admitted the incident but stated he acted at the direction of his father. At any rate, after a full inquiry without the presence of the jury during which counsel for the petitioner was allowed to inquire into all the details, the trial court ruled that, under all the circumstances, it would not permit the petitioner to impeach the credibility of the witness by offering proof of such false testimony.

It is the petitioner's contention that the trial court's ruling, limiting the right of cross-examination of the witness, denied him his constitutional right of confrontation. The right to an effective cross-examination, it is well established, is an integral part of the right of confrontation guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment, ¹ made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. ² Accordingly, while the scope and extent of cross-examination is generally declared to be within the sound discretion of the trial court, ³ that discretion must be exercised with due regard for the defendant's constitutional rights. Specifically, it is an abuse of discretion and a violation of constitutional rights to deny to a defendant the right to cross-examine a witness at all on 'a subject matter relevant to the witness's credibility,' such as an instance of prior false swearing. Davis v. Alaska (1974) 415 U.S. 308, 318, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 1112, 39 L.Ed.2d 347; United States v. Jordan (4th Cir. 1972) 466 F.2d 99, 104--105, cert den. 409 U.S. 1129, 93 S.Ct. 947, 35 L.Ed.2d 262; Simon v. United States (4th Cir. 1941) 123 F.2d 80, 85, cert. den. 314 U.S. 694, 62 S.Ct. 412, 86 L.Ed. 555; Pullman Co. v. Hall (4th Cir. 1932) 55 F.2d 139, 141; Gaiten v. Stahl (D.C.N.C.1971) 327 F.Supp. 415, 421. This, however, is not an inflexible rule. ⁴ It does not extend to transactions or convictions which may be considered too remote in time and circumstance. ⁵ This is so because to permit inquiry into events too remote in time and circumstances is unreasonably to harass, annoy or embarrass the witness, and such harassment is not within constitutional guarantees. Courts, however, have not established any fixed time or settled circumstance by which remoteness may be determined in this context. Since remoteness in this context is an issue to be resolved in the light of the facts of the particular case, it is the rule generally followed in federal courts as well as in West Virginia courts that the issue is a 'matter primarily for the trial court's judgment, and its rulings in this respect will not be disturbed except for clear and prejudicial abuse of discretion.' Hawkins v. Missouri Pac. R. Co. (8th Cir. 1951) 188 F.2d 348, 351--352; State v. Price, supra (167 S.E. at 866). ⁶ The trial court, in the exercise of its discretion, denied cross-examination in this case because the conduct in question occurred five years earlier at the time when the witness was a juvenile fifteen years of age, acting under the directions of his father. ⁷ As we have said, ordinarily that ruling would not be 'disturbed except for clear and prejudicial abuse of discretion.' It is unnecessary, however, for us to determine in this case whether the exercise of discretion by the trial court to the effect that the specific instance about which the defendant was denied the right of cross-examination, on account of remoteness in time and circumstance, constituted 'clear and prejudicial abuse of discretion.' Assuming arguendo that such ruling was a 'prejudicial abuse,' the error was clearly harmless within the principle of Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705.

The testimony of the witness in question could only be considered as corroborative and corroborative of facts that were undisputed even by the defendant himself. A careful comparison of Franck's and the defendant's testimony clearly demonstrates such corroboration. The witness (Franck) testified that, while he and the prosecutrix sat in a car parked on a sideroad, the car door was suddenly jerked open and he, after being 'insulted', was grabbed by the shoulder and dragged out of the car by four men, among whom was the defendant. The defendant admits that he was in the group. He went further and admitted that it was he who actually jerked the door open suddenly, and that he participated in dragging the witness 'rudely' from the car. ⁸ He admitted, too, that both Franck and the prosecutrix plead with him and his companions to 'let him (Franck) and his girlfriend go.' Franck testified that, after he was pulled 'rudely,' to use the defendant's own term, from the car, and despite his pleas to the group to let him and 'his girlfriend' alone, he was kicked, beaten and knocked down by the group. Again, the defendant admits all this. He testified freely that he was among those struggling with, hitting and kicking Franck. Franck testified someone in the group had a gun and that the gun was fired. The defendant admits there was a gun and that it was fired a number of times. The defendant sought to give the shooting an innocent purpose by stating that one of the group was engaging in target practice on some beer cans at night! The defendant claimed too the gun was in the possession of another member of the assaulting group and inferred he had no connection with the gun. However, he later testified that when he was getting into the car prior to his alleged assault on the prosecutrix, he had in his possession the gun which he at that point took out of his pocket and gave to another member of the group. Franck, who was being held on the ground some distance in front of his car by one of the group, was not able to see the actual assaults and did not cover them in his testimony. The only testimony given by him that could relate to the assaults consisted of his statement that he heard the prosecutrix struggling and screaming during the time he was being held. The defendant admitted that the prosecutrix struggled, kicked, fought and screamed. He thus confirmed by his own testimony the statement of Franck to this effect. But he contends simply that this did not occur while he was with the prosecutrix. In short, he testified the prosecutrix resisted the others but welcomed him to her embraces and that, while Franck was correct in his statement that the prosecutrix was screaming and struggling, the screams and struggling heard by the witness did not take place while he was with the prosecutrix. Finally, Franck testified to the fact that, after he was released and the group had run off (apparently because of the approach of another car), he hastened back to the prosecutrix in the car. At that time, he testified, the prosecutrix was in a dazed condition, with her hair caught in the window latch, and with 'blood on her chest' and 'blood coming out of her nose and mouth.' Photographs of the prosecutrix, taken the next morning after the alleged rapes, confirmed cuts and abrasions on the prosecutrix. The existence of cuts and abrasions on the prosecutrix and her bleeding, again, the defendant does not deny, but he contended in his testimony, that it was another member of the group who inflicted these injuries on the prosecutrix.

This constitutes a review of the extent of Franck's testimony, so far as it might be considered as affecting the defendant. At most, the testimony of Franck simply confirmed the defendant's own admissions as to his conduct and its nature as well as the conduct of his group. Any restrictions on the right of the defendant to impeach the credibility of the witness imposed by the trial court, if too severe, were thus harmless.

This conclusion is also reinforced by the overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt, ⁹ leaving aside Franck's testimony. The defendant admitted that he and his companions had been drinking. He testified he himself had had two drinks of whiskey and some beer. A cousin of the defendant, who was with the group, testified that the defendant and one Ratliff shot pool just before they embarked upon their assault on Franck and his companion for the purpose of determining which one would first assault the girl they confidently assumed was in the parked car they had observed earlier on the back road and to which they intended to go. According to the defendant's cousin, Ratliff won, a somewhat significant fact since, when the group had pulled Franck, the male companion of the prosecutrix, out of the parked car, it was Ratliff who first assaulted the prosecutrix. This testimony, if believed, established the criminal purpose with which the defendant and other members of the group approached the occupants of...