State v. Robbins

• Citation: 318 A.2d 51
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)
• Decision Date: 03 April 1974
• Parties: STATE of Maine v. Robert William ROBBINS.

Page 51

318 A.2d 51

STATE of Maine v. Robert William ROBBINS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

April 3, 1974.

Robert S. Raymond, Asst. Atty. Gen., Augusta, for plaintiff.

Nisbet, MacNichol & Ludwig by Alexander MacNichol, South Portland, for defendant.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and DELAHANTY, JJ.

WEATHERBEE, Justice.

On the afternoon of March 22, 1972 the lifeless body of Edmund Feldman was found lying on the bed in his Portland hotel room. The shaft of a screwdriver was protruding from the victim's chest. A doctor subsequently fixed the time of death as Sunday evening, March 19.

On Thursday, March 23, one Edith Champagne told the Portland Police that a house guest named Richard Ross had told her early Monday morning that he had killed a man with a screwdriver in the Plaza Hotel on Sunday evening. She related in her statement that Ross came to her home very drunk late that Sunday night and later told her a vague story of committing a murder and showed her $200 in cash. Believing he was lying, Mrs. Champagne did not make a report to the police until Thursday after she had read the newspapers' first reports of the murder.

Two days later, on March 25, apparently as a result of her statement, Richard Ross was arrested by police in Portland. Ross first denied that he had taken part in the murder. Later, however, he changed his story and stated that Robert Robbins, the Defendant here, had murdered Feldman and had forced Ross to remove Feldman's money from envelopes in the man's hotel room, and that Ross had received some of the money.

Richard Ross and Mrs. Champagne testified at the May Term before the Cumberland County grand jury which indicted both Ross and Robbins for murder. Ross testified for the State in Superior Court at Robbins' trial. Mrs. Champagne was also a witness, called by the defense, but she refused to answer most of the questions put to her. The jury convicted Robbins of murder, and from this judgment he has appealed to this Court. We sustain his appeal and order a new trial.

The Appellant propounds five arguments on appeal, four of which deal specifically with the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. In this opinion we will discuss only the self-incrimination issues which will prove dispositive of this appeal and we do not find it necessary to examine the fifth claim of error.

The Appellant claims that the trial Court erred because (1) it allowed Edith Champagne to invoke the privilege against self-incrimination based on an improper standard; (2) it allowed Mrs. Champagne to use the privilege after she made out-of- court statements tending to show an ulterior motive in claiming the right not to testify; (3) it permitted Mrs. Champagne to make use of the privilege after the Court had a chance to examine her previous grand jury testimony which showed that no factual basis existed for her use of the privilege; (4) it disallowed the introduction into evidence of Edith Champagne's grand jury testimony after she had been permitted to invoke the privilege against self-incrimination and to decline to testify. Our entire discussion of the self-incrimination issue will touch on each of the above four aspects presented by the Defendant. We will first relate the background circumstances against which the claim of privilege arose.

A joint probable cause hearing for Ross and Robbins was held in Portland at the District Court on May 1 and 8, 1972. Ross did not testify there, and it appears from the Defendant's brief that Edith Champagne refused to answer certain questions due to possible self-incrimination. On May 9, both Ross and Mrs. Champagne testified at grand jury proceedings. At that time Ross, who at this point was being charged with the murder, had an attorney and waived his right not to testify after appropriate warnings from the prosecution. The record does not disclose that warnings were given to Mrs. Champagne who was apparently never considered to have been implicated in the crime. She testified and answered every question asked her by the State.

Mrs. Champagne testified under oath that early Monday morning, March 20, Richard Ross told her at her home that he 'did somebody in' with a screwdriver at the Plaza Hotel. He said that another person was also involved but did not name him. He also spoke vaguely of the difficulties of stabbing a person with a butter knife. She testified that Ross had also stated that he had been paid to kill the man who supposedly had raped a young girl. Her testimony revealed that Ross showed her two hundred dollars on that Monday morning. She said Ross was very drunk and she did not believe he was telling the truth. Ross left town for a few days, and it was during this interval that Mrs. Champagne read of the murder and went immediately to the police.

Ross also testified at the grand jury, but his statements at that time were inconsistent with those related by Mrs. Champagne. He stated that he and Robbins were together drinking on the afternoon of March 19, 1972. Robbins told Ross that a man at the Plaza Hotel might put them both to work on a construction job. Ross testified that he followed Robbins to the hotel. Both proceeded upstairs to the man's room, Robbins entering the room while Ross waited in the hall for over a half hour. When Robbins came out of the room, he directed Ross into the room where Ross found a man lying on the floor, dead, with a bloodstain on his shirt and a 'metal thing' in his chest. Ross said that he tried to call the police, but Robbins pulled a gun on him and threatened him. At Robbins' request, Ross then emptied money from several envelopes found in the room into a bag. At gunpoint Ross wiped the room clean of fingerprints and then went into the hall, followed a few minutes later by Robbins. Ross stated that the two left the building and walked through town to a restaurant where Robbins' wife worked. There Ross received $106 from an envelope then in Robbins' possession.

The grand jury indicted both Ross and Robbins for murder and Robbins' trial took place a few months later. The State presented Ross as a witness in the trial of Robbins. After waiving his right to remain silent, Ross now stated that he and Robbins had gone to the hotel to collect money which was owed Robbins by a resident at the hotel. Otherwise, his description of the events surrounding the murder was generally consistent with that which he had given the grand jury, but given in greater detail. He admitted returning drunk to Edith Champagne's house where he had been staying for three or four weeks and telling her 'some parts of the incident'.

The State produced witnesses who told of an unusual display of wealth by the two men when they returned to the bar to resume their drinking after a brief absence. It is clear, however, that the conviction of Robbins must have rested in large part upon the testimony of Ross.

After the State rested, the Defendant called Mrs. Champagne as a witness and sought to attack the reliability of Ross' testimony by presenting to the jury Mrs. Champagne's account of his admissions to her early Monday morning in which he allegedly had said he had done the actual killing. As to this the Defendant encountered several barriers which form the principal bases for the Defendant's appeal. Mrs. Champagne claimed the privilege against self-incrimination. The Presiding Justice refused to order Mrs. Champagne to answer most of the questions asked by Defendant's counsel. Defendant's counsel then sought unsuccessfully to introduce an out-of-court statement by Mrs. Champagne which would tend to show a lack of sincerity in her claim of the privilege. Finally, Defendant's counsel attempted to present to the jury the transcript of Mrs. Champagne's grand jury testimony.

Certainly Mrs. Champagne's testimony that Ross had made a statement to her shortly after the murder, inconsistent with his trial testimony and tending to exonerate Robbins, would have been relevant and important to Robbins' defense. If, in fact, Mrs. Champagne could have given such testimony, Robbins urges us that he was entitled to be aided by the Court in compelling the reluctant witness to reveal the inconsistent statement. Our guarantee of fair trial under the 'law of the land' (Me.Const. art. I, § 6) assures him of the right to present the testimony of witnesses in his behalf, but this assurance is necessarily subject to the effects of possible application of other constitutional principles. Here, we must also be concerned with the constitutional right of the witness to claim the privilege of declining to answer questions which might, if answered, incriminate her. So, for the first time, we are called upon to attempt to reconcile the conflict between the defendant's right to testimony in his defense and the witness' claim of the privilege of silence.

The problem created by a conflict between the State's need for a witness' testimony and the danger of such testimony incriminating the witness is not unknown here. Gendron v. Burnham, 146 Me. 387, 82 A.2d 773 (1951). To a considerable extent, at least, it has been alleviated by the enactment of 15 M.R.S.A. § 1314-A which permits the State to grant immunity from prosecution to the witness whose otherwise incriminating testimony it seeks to obtain.

The situation here is even more deeply disturbing. Two individuals-one charged with crime and the other called as a witness in his defense-each demand assistance of the Court in protecting constitutional rights which may prove to be impossible of complete observance.

Mrs. Champagne's claim of the privilege against self-incrimination

Mrs. Champagne was called to the stand by the defense and, after giving her name and address and acknowledging that she had testified before the grand jury and that she knew Richard Ross, she was asked:

'And, if you know, where he (Ross) was living at that time (prior to the day of the killing)?'

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