Jason Ferrell v. A.T. Wall, Warden of the Adult Correctional Institutions

Summary

The Supreme Court of Rhode Island reversed an order granting Jason Ferrell post-conviction relief and reinstated his convictions for conspiracy and assault-related offenses arising from the murder of John Carpenter. The court held that an unsworn videotaped recantation was insufficiently reliable and inadmissible hearsay where the recanting witness invoked the Fifth Amendment and was unavailable for cross-examination. The court also addressed Ferrell’s ineffective-assistance claim based on trial counsel’s failure to disclose portions of an alibi witness’s anticipated testimony.

Holdings

1. The hearing justice clearly erred in finding Evans's unsworn, out-of-court videotaped recantation credible enough to support post-conviction relief because Evans did not testify under oath or submit to cross-examination at the hearing, while his original trial testimony had been sworn and extensively cross-examined.
2. The videotaped recantation was inadmissible hearsay and did not qualify as non-hearsay under Rule 801(d)(1)(A) or as a statement against penal interest under Rule 804(b)(3). The hearing justice therefore abused his discretion by admitting it as substantive evidence.
3. Ferrell failed to establish constitutionally significant prejudice from counsel's Rule 16 violation because the excluded alibi testimony was cumulative of alibi evidence admitted at trial; therefore, his ineffective-assistance claim failed under Strickland.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the Superior Court clearly erred in finding an unsworn, out-of-court videotaped recantation credible when the recanting witness invoked the Fifth Amendment and could not be cross-examined at the post-conviction hearing.
2. Whether the videotaped recantation was admissible as non-hearsay or under the statement-against-penal-interest exception.
3. Whether trial counsel's Rule 16 failure to disclose additional alibi testimony caused constitutionally significant prejudice under Strickland v. Washington.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded