Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1967

Washington v. Texas

388 U.S. 14 | 87 S. Ct. 1920 | 18 L. Ed. 2d 1019 | 1967 U.S. LEXIS 1083

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Takeaway

In short, this case establishes that state defendants have a fundamental right to present material defense witnesses, and a State cannot arbitrarily bar an accomplice from testifying for the accused while permitting that witness to testify for the prosecution.

Background

Jackie Washington was convicted of murder with malice in Dallas County, Texas, and sentenced to 50 years in prison. The prosecution’s evidence placed Washington and Charles Fuller outside the home of Jean Carter, Washington’s former girlfriend, when a shotgun blast killed Carter’s new boyfriend.

Washington testified that Fuller, who was intoxicated, took the gun from him and fired it after Washington tried to persuade Fuller to leave. Washington sought to call Fuller, who had already been convicted of the same murder, to corroborate that account. Fuller was the only other person who could testify directly about who fired the gun and whether Washington tried to prevent the shooting.

The trial court excluded Fuller under Texas statutes that barred alleged accomplices or coparticipants from testifying for one another, even when separately tried or convicted. Yet Texas permitted such a witness to testify for the prosecution. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Washington’s conviction, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the Sixth Amendment right to compulsory process for obtaining defense witnesses applies to state criminal proceedings through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Holding

Yes. The right to compulsory process is fundamental and essential to a fair trial and therefore applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

Reasoning

The Court had already held that several Sixth Amendment guarantees—including counsel, confrontation, speedy trial, and public trial—are fundamental components of due process in state prosecutions. The right to compulsory process stands on the same constitutional footing because a meaningful defense requires more than merely challenging the State’s evidence.

Compulsory process is, in practical terms, part of the accused’s right to present a defense. It gives a defendant the means to present his own version of events through witnesses and permits the jury, rather than the government alone, to hear evidence bearing on where the truth lies.

The history of the Clause reinforced that conclusion. The Framers adopted it against a common-law background in which defendants accused of serious crimes had once been forbidden to call defense witnesses at all. The constitutional guarantee was meant to ensure that the accused could obtain and use witnesses in his favor.

Issue #2

Whether Texas violated Washington’s constitutional right by categorically barring his alleged accomplice from testifying for the defense, although that same person could testify for the prosecution.

Holding

Yes. Texas arbitrarily denied Washington the right to present a physically and mentally capable witness whose firsthand, relevant, and material testimony was vital to his defense.

Reasoning

The Texas rule did not merely limit the State’s obligation to bring a witness to court. It made Fuller’s testimony inadmissible even though Fuller was available and prepared to testify. A right to secure a witness’s presence would be hollow if the defendant had no right to place that witness on the stand.

The common-law exclusion of accomplice testimony rested on a distrust of interested witnesses and a fear of perjury. But the Court explained that modern law generally favors hearing testimony from persons with knowledge and allowing the jury to decide its credibility and weight. The Sixth Amendment does not permit arbitrary categorical exclusions that suppress potentially crucial defense evidence.

Texas’s distinction was especially irrational because it allowed an accomplice to testify for the State but prohibited the same witness from testifying for the accused. An accomplice may have substantial incentives to curry favor with the prosecution, so the State could not plausibly assume that such a witness is trustworthy for the prosecution but inherently untrustworthy for the defense.

The statute also allowed an accomplice to testify for a codefendant after acquittal, when the witness could testify without fear of renewed prosecution. Those exceptions showed that the rule did not coherently identify a class of witnesses uniquely likely to lie. Fuller had personal knowledge of the critical events, and his testimony was relevant, material, and indispensable to Washington’s account; excluding it violated the Constitution.

The Court did not question valid testimonial privileges, such as the privilege against self-incrimination, or nonarbitrary competency rules for persons unable to observe events or testify reliably because of mental incapacity or infancy. Its ruling instead condemned an arbitrary disqualification based solely on an accomplice’s status.

Concurrences

Justice Harlan

Reasoning

Justice Harlan agreed that Washington’s conviction had to be reversed, but rejected the majority’s view that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates particular provisions of the Bill of Rights. In his view, due process protects against substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints through a broader, rational constitutional inquiry rather than through incorporation of isolated textual guarantees.

Harlan regarded the case as one of arbitrary discrimination in the use of competent evidence, not as a compulsory-process case. Texas recognized that an accomplice’s testimony could be relevant and competent by allowing the prosecution to call that witness, but it denied the defendant the same opportunity without any justification. The Due Process Clause, Harlan concluded, forbids that unequal and arbitrary restriction.

He distinguished this discrimination from generally applicable evidentiary rules that may disqualify a class of witnesses because of a valid judgment about their ability to provide reliable testimony, such as persons who are mentally incompetent or convicted of perjury. Texas had made no comparable truth-seeking justification for excluding Fuller only when he was called by the defense.