1. Is a defendant immune from impeachment when he opens the door by basing his entire defense around the implicit representation that he always pleads guilty when he is guilty?Here, Bowley took the stand in his own defense in a felony DWI trial. He admitted to pleading guilty to several prior offenses, but he denied committing the felony DWI. Thus, he conveyed the idea to the jury that he took responsibility for his conduct when he was actually wrong, but because he was not doing so here, he must be not have violated the law. On cross-examination the State asked whether the reason he was not pleading guilty now was "because we couldn’t agree on a plea agreement that you preferred." Bowley objected, and the trial court sustained the objection, but refused to give an instruction to disreard the statement regarding the plea negotiation.
2. Is questioning the defendant's underlying motives for refusing to accept a plea offer error in all situations, no matter what the defendant says or does through his own testimony?
3. Was the court of appeals correct in essentially finding harm per se based solely on a public policy analysis without any meaningful harm analysis?
The Amarillo Court of Appeals held that this amounted to harmful error. The court of appeals explained that the references to plea negotiations were very prejudicial and of limited or no relevance. The court of appeals went on to note that it is the "policy" of this state that unless an instruction to disregard is given, the jury can consider the evidence for all purposes. Also revealing plea negotiations adversely affects the "policy" of encouraging plea bargains. Finally, "there exists a legitimate question as to whether affirming this judgment by holding the error harmless would invite the State to repeat this wrong and others." Here's the underlying court of appeals case info and the CCA case info.
[I love a good policy argument as much as the next guy, but the court's jump to the policy argument seemed a little like repressed anger to me. Regardless of the policies at work here, seems like the fact that the defendant opened the door to this type of impeachment might not hurt those policies too much. Also, the court of appeals seems to be coming from the position that the comment wasn't permissible simply because the trial court sustaining the objection. Perhaps an analysis of whether the trial court should have sustained the objection in the first place might have resulted in a different outcome.]
