384
Opinion of the Court
at 123 (defense counsel's failure to object to jury charge did not bar consideration of federal claim where counsel had pressed the basic objection in a motion to dismiss made immediately before "brief" trial). Two of the prosecution's witnesses testified in part to anticipate and rebut the alibi. Tr. 443-487. An alibi instruction was apparently taken up at the charge conference held less than an hour before the trial court denied the continuance motion. See supra, at 368-369, n. 1. When defense counsel moved for a continuance, the judge asked a question indicating his recognition that alibi witness Gladys Edwards was Lee's mother. See supra, at 370, n. 2.
Given the repeated references to the anticipated alibi witness testimony each day of trial, it is inconceivable that anyone in the courtroom harbored a doubt about what the witnesses had traveled from California to Missouri to say on the stand or why their testimony was material, indeed indispensable, to the defense. It was also evident that no witness then in the Kansas City vicinity could effectively substitute for the family members with whom Lee allegedly stayed in Ventura, California. See Rule 24.10(a) and (c) (movant shall show "the materiality of the evidence sought," "[w]hat particular facts the affiant believes the witness will prove," and that "no other person" available to the movant could "so fully prove the same facts").
Moreover, Lee showed "reasonable grounds for belief" that the continuance would serve its purpose. See Rule 24.10(b). He said he knew the witnesses had not left Kansas City because they were to "ministe[r]" there the next two evenings; he provided their local address; and he sought less than a day's continuance to enforce the subpoenas for their attendance. App. 16-18.
Concerning his "diligence . . . to obtain" the alibi testimony, see Rule 24.10(a), Lee and his counsel showed: the witnesses had voluntarily traveled from California to appear at the trial; counsel had subpoenaed the witnesses when he
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