rebutting evidence

The State of New York charged petitioner Harris in a two-count indictment with twice selling heroin to an undercover police officer on January 4 and January 6, 1966. At the jury trial, the undercover officer testified as to the details of the two sales, a second officer verified collateral details, and a third offered testimony about the chemical analysis of the heroin. Petitioner Harris took the stand in his own defense. He admitted knowing the undercover police officer but denied a sale on January 4. He admitted making a sale of the contents of a glassine bag to the officer on January 6 but claimed it was baking powder and part of a scheme to defraud the purchaser. On cross-examination, petitioner was asked whether he had made specified statements to the police immediately following his arrest on January 7 that partially contradicted his direct testimony. In response, petitioner testified that he could not remember virtually any of the questions or answers recited by the prosecutor. At the request of petitioner’s counsel, the written statement was placed in the record for possible use on appeal but was not shown to the jury. The trial judge instructed the jury that the statements attributed to petitioner could be considered only in passing on his credibility and not as evidence of guilt. The jury found petitioner guilty on the second count of the indictment. The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction in a per curiam opinion. The prosecution made no effort in its case in chief to use the statements. The prosecution conceded they were inadmissible under Miranda because no warning of a right to appointed counsel was given before questions were put to petitioner when taken into custody. Petitioner made no claim that the statements were coerced or involuntary. The Supreme Court granted the writ to consider whether such a statement may be used to impeach the petitioner’s credibility.

In the early hours of June 21, 2000, Officer Jeffrey Moritz of the Flagstaff Police responded in uniform to complaints that a pickup truck with loud music blaring was circling a residential block. When he located the truck, the officer turned on the emergency lights and siren of his marked patrol car. This prompted petitioner Eric Clark, the truck’s driver (then 17), to pull over. Officer Moritz got out of the patrol car and told Clark to stay where he was. Less than a minute later, Clark shot the officer. The officer died soon after but not before calling the police dispatcher for help. Clark ran away on foot but was arrested later that day with gunpowder residue on his hands. The gun that killed the officer was found nearby, stuffed into a knit cap. Clark was charged with first-degree murder under Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §13–1105(A)(3) for intentionally or knowingly killing a law enforcement officer in the line of duty. In March 2001, Clark was found incompetent to stand trial and was committed to a state hospital for treatment. Two years later the same trial court found his competence restored and ordered him to be tried. Clark waived his right to a jury, and the case was heard by the court. At trial, Clark did not contest that he shot the officer or that the officer died. He relied on his own undisputed paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the incident to deny that he had the specific intent to shoot an officer or knowledge that he was doing so. The prosecutor offered circumstantial evidence that Clark knew the victim was a police officer. The prosecutor also offered testimony indicating that Clark had previously stated he wanted to shoot police and had lured the victim to the scene to kill him. In presenting the defense case, Clark claimed mental illness. He sought to introduce it for two purposes. First, he raised the affirmative defense of insanity. This put the burden on himself to prove by clear and convincing evidence that at the time of the crime he was afflicted with a mental disease or defect of such severity that he did not know the criminal act was wrong. Second, he aimed to rebut the prosecution’s evidence of the requisite mens rea. Ruling that Clark could not rely on evidence bearing on insanity to dispute the mens rea, the trial court cited the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Mott. That decision refused to allow psychiatric testimony to negate specific intent. It held that Arizona does not allow evidence of a mental disorder short of insanity to negate the mens rea element of a crime. As to his insanity, Clark presented lay testimony describing his increasingly bizarre behavior over the year before the shooting. This included testimony that Clark thought Flagstaff was populated with aliens trying to kill him and that bullets were the only way to stop them. A psychiatrist testified that Clark was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia with delusions about aliens when he killed the officer. The psychiatrist concluded that Clark was incapable of luring the officer or understanding right from wrong and was thus insane at the time of the killing. In rebuttal, the State’s psychiatrist gave his opinion that Clark’s paranoid schizophrenia did not keep him from appreciating the wrongfulness of his conduct before and after the shooting. The judge then issued a first-degree murder verdict. The judge found that Clark had not established that his schizophrenia distorted his perception of reality so severely that he did not know his actions were wrong. Clark moved to vacate the judgment and life sentence. He argued that Arizona’s insanity test and its Mott rule each violate due process. The trial court denied the motion. Affirming, the Arizona Court of Appeals held that the State’s insanity scheme was consistent with due process. The court read Mott as barring the trial court’s consideration of evidence of Clark’s mental illness and capacity directly on the element of mens rea. The Supreme Court of Arizona denied further review. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.

On the night of August 30, 1982, eight young boys returning home from a party were confronted by a trio of other boys who demanded money. When the eight boys refused to comply, one member of the trio produced a gun and fired into the larger group, killing one boy and seriously injuring another. When the police arrived, the remaining members of the larger group provided eyewitness accounts of the event and descriptions of the perpetrators. The next evening, two detectives of the Chicago Police Department took 15-year-old Darryl James into custody as a suspect in the shooting. James was found at his mother’s beauty parlor sitting under a hair dryer; when he emerged, his hair was black and curly. After placing James in their car, the detectives questioned him about his prior hair color. He responded that the previous day his hair had been reddish brown, long, and combed straight back. The detectives questioned James again later at the police station. He further stated that he had gone to the beauty parlor to have his hair dyed black and curled to change his appearance. The State subsequently indicted James for murder and attempted murder. Prior to trial, James moved to suppress the statements regarding his hair. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court ruled that the statements would be inadmissible at trial. At trial, five members of the larger group of boys testified for the State, and each made an in-court identification of the defendant. Each testified that the person responsible for the shooting had reddish hair, worn shoulder length in a slicked-back style. James did not testify in his own defense. He called as a witness Jewel Henderson, a friend of his family. Henderson testified that on the day of the shooting she had taken James to register for high school and that, at that time, his hair was black. The State then sought to introduce James’ statements as a means of impeaching the credibility of Henderson’s testimony. One of the interrogating detectives then reported James’ prior admissions that he had reddish hair the night of the shooting and he dyed and curled his hair the next day to change his appearance. James ultimately was convicted of both murder and attempted murder and sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment. On appeal, the Illinois Appellate Court reversed James’ convictions and ordered a new trial. However, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed and ordered James’ convictions reinstated. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari.

Virginia Code Annotated § 18.2-423 makes it unlawful for any person, with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons, to burn or cause to be burned a cross on the property of another, a highway, or other public place. The statute further provides that any such burning of a cross shall be prima facie evidence of an intent to intimidate a person or group of persons. In 1998 three individuals were separately convicted under this statute in two incidents. Barry Black was convicted for leading a cross burning at a Ku Klux Klan rally on private property in Carroll County. Richard Elliott and Jonathan O'Mara were convicted for burning a cross on the lawn of their African-American neighbor James Jubilee in Virginia Beach. The Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed the convictions of both Elliott and O'Mara. The Supreme Court of Virginia consolidated the appeals and held the statute unconstitutional on its face. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2002 to review the decision.