Case ID: mich-app_15/html/0022-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

PEOPLE v. WEEMS
    Witnesses — Impeachment—Conversation—Admissibility—Exception to the Hearsay Rule.
    Upon complainant’s testimony in criminal trial that she never told anyone that she was not sure of the identity of defendant, it is error for a trial judge to refuse to allow defendant’s mother to repeat a conversation she overheard between complaining witness and another person, which would tend to prove that complainant said she wasn’t sure of the identification of the defendant, for such testimony would be admissible as an exception to hearsay rule for the purpose of impeaching plaintiff’s credibility as to a material issue in the case.
    Reference for Points in Headnote
    58 Am Jur, Witnesses § 767 at seq.
    
    Appeal from Recorder’s Court of Detroit, Scallen (John P.), J.
    Submitted Division 1 December 3, 1968, at Detroit.
    (Docket No. 4,164.)
    Decided December 20, 1968.
    Rehearing denied February 14, 1969.
    Willie E. Weems was convicted of robbery armed. Defendant appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    . Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Robert A. Derengoski, Solicitor General, William L. Cahalan, Prosecuting Attorney, Samuel J. Torina, Chief Appellate Lawyer, and Luvenia D. Rockett, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.
    J. Goodman Cohen, for defendant on appeal.
   Per Curiam.

The defendant appeals his conviction of robbery armed.

At the trial the complaining witness denied that she had told someone in the courtroom that she was not sure of her identification of the defendant. The following day the defendant’s mother was called as a witness and testified she was seated alongside the complaining witness in the courtroom and that she had overheard a conversation between the complaining witness and another lady in reference to the case. The trial judge refused to allow the defendant’s mother to repeat the conversation she had allegedly overheard. This was error. The testimony was admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule for the purpose of impeaching the credibility of the complainant on a material issue in the case. People v. Babcock (1942), 301 Mich 518, 530; Strudgeon v. Village of Sand Beach (1895), 107 Mich 496, 501. Compare New York C. R. Co. v. Michigan Milk Producers Association (1966), 3 Mich App 648, 652.

Reversed and remanded for a new trial.

Levin, P. J., and Holbrook and Rood, JJ., concurred. 
      
       CM 1961, § 750.529 (Stat Aim 1968 Cum Supp § 28.797).