Anthony v. State

967 S.W.2d 552, 332 Ark. 595, 1998 Ark. LEXIS 236
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedApril 16, 1998
DocketCR 97-655
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 967 S.W.2d 552 (Anthony v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Anthony v. State, 967 S.W.2d 552, 332 Ark. 595, 1998 Ark. LEXIS 236 (Ark. 1998).

Opinions

Ray Thornton, Justice.

Appellant Pearl Gennette Anthony was convicted of two counts of delivery of a controlled substance, cocaine, and sentenced to two consecutive thirty-year terms of imprisonment in the Arkansas Department of Correction. She does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support her convictions. Instead, she argues that the trial court erred by (1) allowing the State to introduce certain rebuttal testimony, (2) admitting a bus manifest as a business record, and (3) improperly commenting on the evidence. We agree with the first point and reverse and remand for a new trial.

In her first point of appeal, appellant contends that the trial court erred during the rebuttal phase by permitting the State to introduce portions of her testimony from her first trial, which ended in a mistrial, and the testimony of Holly Scott. Appellant elected not to testify at her second trial, and she alleges the introduction of this testimony was improper in two respects: (1) the introduction of her testimony from the first trial was, in effect, a direct comment on her failure to testify in the second trial, in violation of her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination; and (2) both her testimony and that of Ms. Scott were improper rebuttal.

During its case in chief, the State presented the testimony of Johnny Alexander, a detective with the Pine Bluff Police Department, who testified that he bought cocaine from appellant on two separate occasions on the evening of October 19, 1995. Detective Alexander testified that he and a confidential informant purchased crack cocaine from appellant at her home around 7:48 p.m. He further testified that around 11:30 p.m., he returned to appellant’s home to make a second buy.

After the State rested, appellant presented the testimony of Faye Walker. Ms. Walker testified that, on the evening of October 19, 1995, she saw appellant in Idabel, Oklahoma, at Choctaw Bingo, a bingo parlor. On cross-examination, Ms. Walker testified that she did not know whether appellant won any money that night or how appellant traveled to the bingo parlor.

Appellant also presented the testimony of her son, Edmund Colbert, who testified that she left their residence at approximately two or three o’clock on the afternoon of October 19, 1995. Mr. Colbert testified that appellant told him she was “going up town,” and then she would “probably go to bingo.” He also testified that he was home that evening and that appellant returned home “a little after one.”

Before the defense rested, the court advised appellant of her Fifth Amendment rights, and she choose not to testify. During the rebuttal phase, the trial court allowed the State to introduce testimony from appellant’s first trial where she had testified that she was playing bingo in Idabel, Oklahoma, on the night she allegedly sold cocaine to Detective Alexander, that she won two mini pots that night, and that she rode a Sue Long Corporation bus to the bingo parlor. Appellant objected to the use of her prior testimony by asserting that it was improper rebuttal, that it violated her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and that it was misleading and confusing. The trial court ruled that appellant’s prior testimony was admissible for the purpose of rebutting the defense of alibi.

After the State read portions of appellant’s testimony from her first trial, the trial court then permitted the State to introduce the testimony of Holly Scott, co-manager of Choctaw Bingo. Ms. Scott testified that their records showed that appellant neither won two mini pots nor rode the Sue Long bus to the bingo parlor that night.

We begin our review by addressing appellant’s contention that the admission of her prior testimony amounted to a direct comment on her election not to testify in violation of her Fifth Amendment rights. This argument is without merit.

In Harrison v. United States, 392 U.S. 219 (1968), the Supreme Court considered whether the defendant’s former testimony was improperly admitted at his second trial, following a reversal of his conviction in the former trial. The Court held that because the defendant was compelled to testify in the earlier case to respond to illegally obtained confessions, his testimony in that case violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and could not be introduced in the second trial. Id. at 224-25. However, the Court specifically noted:

In this case we need not and do not question the general evidentiary rule that a defendant’s testimony at a former trial is admissible in evidence against him in later proceedings. A defendant who chooses to testify waives his privilege against compulsory self-incrimination with respect to the testimony he gives, and that waiver is no less effective or complete because the defendant may have been motivated to take the witness stand in the first place only by reason of the strength of the lawful evidence adduced against him.

Id. at 222. See also United States v. Houp, 462 F.2d 1338 (8th Cir. 1972); People v. Carlson, 677 P.2d 390 (Colo. Ct. App. 1983); Sherley v. Commonwealth, 889 S.W.2d 794 (Ky. 1994); State v. Hunt, 457 S.E.2d 276 (N.C. 1994); Bryan v. State, 837 S.W.2d 637 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992).

Based on the authorities cited above, we conclude that, by voluntarily testifying at her first trial, appellant waived her privilege against self-incrimination with respect to the testimony that she gave. The fact that appellant exercised her right to remain silent at the second trial does not preclude the use of her testimony given at the first trial, if it would otherwise be admissible. Accordingly, we turn to appellant’s argument regarding the admissibility of the evidence during rebuttal.

Appellant contends that neither her prior testimony nor the testimony of Ms. Scott was proper rebuttal because it was not responsive to any evidence that she introduced in her second trial. Appellant argues that the rebuttal evidence did not contradict the testimony of Ms. Walker, the alibi witness; instead, Ms. Scott’s testimony impeached appellant’s prior testimony.

The State, however, asserts that the evidence was properly admitted as rebuttal in order to show that appellant’s alibi was fabricated. The State relies primarily on Kellensworth v. State, 276 Ark. 127, 633 S.W.2d 21 (1982), in support of this proposition. In Kellensworth, the defendant did not testify, but his parents testified in his defense and established an alibi. Id. at 130, 633 S.W.2d at 23. The State called a rebuttal witness who admitted that he had testified about a false alibi during the defendant’s previous trial, which had ended in a mistrial. Id. Defendant argued that the testimony of the rebuttal witness was inadmissible because it improperly put his character in issue and attacked the credibility of his parents upon a collateral issue. Id.

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Bluebook (online)
967 S.W.2d 552, 332 Ark. 595, 1998 Ark. LEXIS 236, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anthony-v-state-ark-1998.