Opinion ID: 1111213
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Cross-examination of Defense Expert

Text: (16) Defendant additionally assigns as misconduct several instances in the prosecutor's cross-examination of a defense expert, Dr. Benson. The prosecutor asked Dr. Benson if he had ever testified for the prosecution in cases involving sodium amytal interviews. Defendant contends she did so knowing the witness's negative response would suggest a pro-defense bias. Defendant also asserts the prosecutor committed misconduct by referring to facts not in evidence when she cross-examined Dr. Benson on his opinion that defendant did not know Doreen was pregnant. In particular, defendant criticizes the prosecutor's statements that defendant's stepmother and brother knew of Doreen's pregnancy. Defendant also cites the prosecutor's questioning the doctor's acceptance of defendant's statements about the fetus just popping out in light of the doctor's review of the crime scene photographs and the autopsy reports. None of these alleged instances of misconduct was so aggravated that an admonition could not have avoided any potential harm. As previously noted, the court admonished the jury that counsel's questions and statements were not evidence. [11] The court also instructed the jury not to accept as true any insinuation suggested by a question. Consequently, the absence of an objection waives any prosecutorial misconduct claim. In any event, counsel may cross-examine an expert witness more extensively and searchingly than a lay witness, and the prosecution was entitled to attempt to discredit the expert's opinion. ( People v. Hendricks (1988) 44 Cal.3d 635, 642 [244 Cal. Rptr. 181, 749 P.2d 836].) In cross-examining a psychiatric expert witness, the prosecutor's good faith questions are proper even when they are, of necessity, based on facts not in evidence. ( People v. Nye (1969) 71 Cal.2d 356, 374-376 [78 Cal. Rptr. 467, 455 P.2d 395].) The record does not disclose bad faith on the prosecutor's part in her cross-examination of Dr. Benson. Given Dr. Benson's opinion and his acceptance of defendant's statements to him, the prosecutor's cross-examination permissibly tested the credibility of that acceptance.