People v. Rutter

202 A.D.2d 123, 616 N.Y.S.2d 598, 1994 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8992
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York·Decided September 22, 1994·Published·Cited by 11 cases

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Murphy, P. J.

The within application for a writ of error coram nobis presents a claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel (see, People v Bachert, 69 NY2d 593).

Following a jury trial in Bronx County, petitioner, Timothy Rutter, was convicted by judgment rendered March 26, 1982, of murder in the second degree and sentenced to a prison term of 25 years to life. The judgment of conviction was affirmed by this Court, without opinion, by order entered February 2, 1984 (99 AD2d 933, lv denied 62 NY2d 653).

The evidence at trial credited by the jury, established that on July 17, 1980 the petitioner along with William Bowen, Bowen’s then 18-year-old girlfriend, Tina Swane, and the victim, Matthew Whitworth, travelled from Philadelphia to [125] New York City in Whitworth’s car. Swane, whose testimony constituted the only direct evidence of petitioner’s involvement in the crime, stated that on reaching the Hunt’s Point section of the Bronx on the morning of July 18, 1980 petitioner, who had a knife and had threatened to do "something real bad” to Whitworth, stabbed Whitworth while Whitworth was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car. A struggle ensued outside of the car during which petitioner continued to stab Whitworth while Bowen struck him with a jack handle.

Swane, a substance abuser with an extensive psychiatric history who had worked as a prostitute since the age of 16, acknowledged on cross-examination that she had made numerous statements inconsistent with the account of the crime given in her direct testimony. She admitted telling the Philadelphia police on September 18, 1980 and the Denver, Colorado, police on February 5, 1981 that she had not seen the murder, and admitted that she had informed both the New York police and Grand Jury that Bowen had not participated in the crime. Indeed, up until two weeks before trial, Swane maintained in statements made to the Assistant District Attorney handling the Bronx prosecution of petitioner and Bowen that she had not witnessed Whitworth’s demise. The petitioner’s strategy was, accordingly, to attempt to discredit Swane’s trial account of the homicide by raising questions as to her over-all credibility and specifically as to the truthfulness of her relatively recent claim that she had been present during the crime and had observed Whitworth being slain. Swane’s testimony as to how the crime occurred was, however, bolstered by the receipt in evidence, over the defendant’s objection, of a piece of bloodstained carpet removed from the Whitworth vehicle. The carpet fragment had been recovered from the vehicle by a Philadelphia police officer who testified that while examining the inside of the car on September 26, 1980, more than two months after the crime, he discovered what was subsequently ascertained to be a human bloodstain on a portion of the car carpet adjacent to the front passenger seat, the area in which Swane had testified that petitioner had commenced knifing the victim. The officer, however, also acknowledged that the Whitworth vehicle had been inspected by the Philadelphia police in August of 1980 at which time no bloodstains were found1 and that in the time intervening [126] between that search and the subsequent September 26, 1980 inspection, the car had been used by the victim’s stepfather and had been involved in an accident. Indeed, the September 26, 1980 inspection took place while the vehicle sat awaiting repairs in an autobody shop. It was, moreover, never determined what type of blood had produced the carpet stain, much less whether the blood was of the same type as the victim’s.

The morning after Swane was excused from the witness stand, the prosecution disclosed that it had just come into possession of the transcript of a polygraph interview conducted by the Philadelphia police on September 18, 1980 in which Swane denied any knowledge of the Whitworth homicide. The relevant portion of the transcript reads as follows:

"question: Do you know for sure who murdered Matthew?
"answer: No.
"question: Did you see Matthew murdered?
"answer: No.
"question: Right now can you take me to the weapon used to murder Matthew?
"answer: No.
"question: What can you tell me about the murder of Matthew Whitworth?
"answer: Nothing.
"question: What can you tell me about the last time you saw Matthew?
"answer: He was alive.
"question: Where was that?
"answer: In his car in front of a club in the Bronx, New York City, Tim and Akia [the name Swane used to refer to Bowen] were in a car with him. They left and were gone about five hours, and just Tim and Akia came back and said Matthew had gotten in a car with his cousin.”

Defendant’s counsel requested that Swane be returned to the witness stand so that she could be cross-examined with the newly disclosed material. The request was, however, denied, the trial court stating simply, "Ms. Swane is not being recalled. She was on the stand yesterday morning, from early yesterday morning until four o’clock”. Although effectively precluding use of the statement for cross-examination, the Court did permit the transcript of the polygraph interview to be read into the record.

[127] On appeal, petitioner’s assigned appellate counsel briefed three points the headings of which follow verbatim:

"1. Could the defendant Rutter be convicted of murder if the main testimony was based solely on conflicting, perjurious statements from a 19 year old admitted paranoid prostitute and drug addict?”
"2. Was the judge in error in not immediately granting defendant’s motion for a mistrial when evidence was introduced by the district attorney’s questioning alluding to an uncharged crime committed by the defendant?”
"3. As a matter of law, Tina Swane should have been considered an accomplice and it was plain error for the court not to have given the jury an accomplice witness charge considering the weight of her testimony.”

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People v. Rutter, 202 A.D.2d 123, 616 N.Y.S.2d 598, 1994 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8992 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1994).

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