State v. Williams

• Citation: 536 A.2d 583,206 Conn. 203
• Decision Date: 02 February 1988
• Docket Number: No. 13082,13082
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Vance WILLIAMS.
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut

Page 583

536 A.2d 583

206 Conn. 203

STATE of Connecticut v. Vance WILLIAMS.

No. 13082.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 1, 1987.

Decided Feb. 2, 1988.

John M. Massameno, Asst. State's Atty., with whom were Frank S. Maco, Asst. State's Atty., and, on the brief, John J. Kelly, Chief State's Atty., for appellant (State).

John A. Gawrych, with whom was Jamie V. Gregg, Torrington, for appellee (defendant).

Before PETERS, C.J., and ARTHUR H. HEALEY, SHEA, GLASS and HULL, JJ.

SHEA, Associate Justice.

The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the defendant, Vance Williams, has standing to challenge the procedure by which a witness against him has been immunized under General Statutes § 54-47a. ¹ We conclude that the defendant lacks standing to raise such a challenge. There is error, and the case is remanded to the trial court with direction to permit the immunized witness to testify at the trial of this case.

The chief court administrator appointed Anthony V. DeMayo, a judge of the Superior Court, to conduct an inquiry pursuant to General Statutes (Rev. to 1985) § 54-47 ² into allegations of professional gambling and municipal corruption in the city of Torrington. During the course of that inquiry a witness, Daniel Sabia, invoked his right not to testify under the fifth amendment to the United States constitution. Thereafter, the special prosecutor assisting in the inquiry notified Sabia and his attorney that he would, pursuant to § 54-47a, submit to a judge of the Superior Court an application for an order directing Sabia to testify under a grant of immunity. That application was heard and granted by Judge DeMayo on August 26, 1985. Sabia later responded to the question posed.

The evidence Sabia gave, together with other evidence, led to the arrest of the defendant, a Torrington police officer, on charges of possessing cocaine and hindering prosecution. Prior to trial, the defendant filed a motion seeking to bar the admission into evidence of the opinion testimony of Sabia and others that substances they had provided to the defendant or had observed him possess or consume were in fact narcotic substances under our drug laws. During the course of a hearing concerning that motion, Sabia refused to testify and asserted his federal and state constitutional rights against self-incrimination.

The state's attorney then made a second application for an order directing Sabia to testify under a grant of immunity. In the argument that ensued, the trial court, Moraghan, J., was apprised that it was Judge DeMayo who had acted upon the earlier application for the order directing Sabia to testify during the inquiry he was conducting. The defendant then claimed that a judge conducting an inquiry under § 54-47 could not, in essence, "wear two hats," and that the prior grant of immunity was, therefore, invalid. The court agreed but, nevertheless, after the state had applied for another grant of immunity to Sabia, granted this second application. Sabia then testified in accordance with the court's order in such a manner as to implicate the defendant in the crimes charged.

Notwithstanding its order directing Sabia to testify, the trial court, after defense counsel renewed his objection, later suppressed that testimony. The trial court relied on two separate grounds for excluding Sabia's testimony. First, the trial court determined that a judge who has been appointed for the purpose of an investigation under § 54-47 cannot grant immunity to a witness in connection with that inquiry. Second, the court held that our immunity statute required the state to establish an independent source for all immunized testimony whenever its admission is objected to by any party. The trial court concluded that, although the general rule of standing would forbid the vicarious assertion of fifth amendment rights, this case called for an exception because, in its view, the grant of immunity had been made without authority. The trial court also relied upon the last sentence of § 54-47a(b) as giving the defendant standing to challenge the admission of Sabia's testimony. Accordingly, the court ordered his testimony to be suppressed. The state then moved to dismiss with prejudice all pending charges; see State v. Ross, 189 Conn. 42, 51, 454 A.2d 266 (1983); and, after that motion had been granted, sought permission to appeal. After a hearing, the motion for permission to appeal was granted. This appeal followed.

The state raises the following issues in challenging the trial court's exclusion of Sabia's testimony: (1) whether the immunity statute or considerations of public policy forbid a judge of the Superior Court who is conducting a judicial inquiry from performing the allegedly nondiscretionary act of granting an application for an order to compel a witness to testify before the inquiry; (2) whether, even if there were error in granting the application to compel testimony during the inquiry, the exclusionary rule would in any event be applicable; (3) whether the defendant has standing to contest the allegedly erroneous grant of immunity to Sabia; and (4) whether our immunity statute requires the state to establish an independent source for immunized testimony. In view of our conclusion that the defendant lacks standing to challenge the admissibility of Sabia's testimony, we shall not address the state's first two claims.

I

The trial court acknowledged that a defendant ordinarily lacks standing to challenge a grant of immunity to a witness who testifies against him. United States v. Foster, 478 F.2d 1001, 1003 (7th Cir.1973); State v. Melvin, 390 A.2d 1024, 1029 (Me.1978). The trial court determined, nevertheless, that because the grant of immunity by Judge DeMayo to Sabia was "clearly illegal" that "this case demand[ed] an exception to the general rule that one party has no standing to raise another's rights." We conclude that the circumstances of this case do not warrant a departure from the general principle that a defendant does not have standing to challenge the method by which a witness against him has been immunized.

The trial court relied on Ellis v. United States, 416 F.2d 791, 799 (D.C.Cir.1969), for the proposition that a defendant has standing "to complain that his conviction was obtained in a case where the trial judge went outside his judicial province to grant immunity to a witness." We note initially that Ellis is not binding precedent on this court, in contrast to a decision by the United States Supreme Court. We decline to apply the rationale of Ellis to this case for two reasons. First, subsequent decisions by the United States Supreme Court, while not directly overruling Ellis, have emphasized that the right to be free from testimonial compulsion is a personal one that may not be asserted vicariously. Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391, 398-99, 96 S.Ct. 1569, 1574-75, 48 L.Ed.2d 39 (1976); Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 610-11, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 2914-15, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973). Second, the facts in Ellis were quite different from those in the case at bar. In Ellis, the District Court had usurped executive power by acting on its own initiative to grant immunity to a witness. The District Court in Ellis had assumed a role outside the scope of the judicial power. In the present case the state applied for an order directing Sabia to testify under a grant of immunity. The defendant concedes that any judge of the Superior Court except Judge DeMayo could properly have granted immunity to Sabia. We decline in the present circumstances to depart from the general rule that a defendant lacks standing to challenge the procedure by which a witness against him has been immunized. We hold that the defendant does not have standing in this case to challenge whether a judge of the Superior Court who is conducting a judicial inquiry may properly grant an application for an order to compel a witness to testify before the inquiry.

II

The trial court also held that the defendant had standing to challenge the admissibility of Sabia's compelled testimony under § 54-47a(b), because the last sentence of the statute provides that, "[w]henever evidence is objected to as inadmissible because it was discovered as a result of or otherwise derived from compelled testimony or evidence, the burden shall be upon the person offering the challenged evidence to establish a source independent of the compelled testimony or evidence." Acknowledging that its construction of our immunity statute might well produce a "bizarre" result, the trial court nevertheless concluded that the quoted provision requires the state, even when the immunized witness is not a defendant, to establish an independent source for immunized testimony whenever an objection is raised. We conclude that the trial court erred in construing our immunity statute to confer standing upon anyone but the immunized witness in a proceeding against the witness to require the state to establish an independent source for evidence derived from compelled testimony.

The state argues that the trial court's interpretation of the last sentence of the statute effectively renders the entire immunity statute unworkable. Section 54-47a(a) requires the state to establish that a grant of immunity "is necessary to the public interest." A serious question would arise whether immunized testimony was "necessary to the public interest" if "a source independent of the compelled testimony or evidence" existed. General Statutes § 54-47a(a) and (b). Under the court's interpretation of the statute the state is enmeshed in a virtually unsolvable conundrum. The state would have to provide independent evidence corroborating the testimony of an immunized witness before that compelled evidence might be admitted. It would be inappropriate, however, for the state to apply for immunity of a witness, if independent evidence were available of the facts to be elicited from the witness, because his...