State v. Lucas

Rondall Lucas (defendant) was driving on the highway when he allegedly pulled his truck alongside another car and moved his pelvis up and down in the window while exposing his penis. At Lucas’s trial on obscenity charges, the judge placed all the witnesses under sequestration. The witnesses were not allowed in the courtroom to hear the other witnesses’ testimony, they were not allowed to discuss the other witnesses’ testimony with anyone, and they were not allowed to discuss their own testimony in the presence of other witnesses. At one point during trial, the prosecution (plaintiff) asked for a hearing about a possible violation of the sequestration order by all of the defense’s witnesses. An employee of the district attorney’s office testified at the hearing that she saw the witnesses talking and laughing in the hallway and that it looked as though they were trying to demonstrate Lucas’s alleged pelvic motion. The witnesses testified that they had not been talking about the case or making any pelvic motions related to the case. There was no evidence at the hearing that the witnesses had seen or heard any of the testimony in the courtroom or that Lucas knew about the witnesses’ actions. Following the hearing, the trial court found that the witnesses had violated the sequestration order and barred the witnesses from testifying at trial. The jury ultimately found Lucas guilty, and he appealed.