Opinion ID: 1401400
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Trial Court Erred by Excluding the Testimony of Officer Bartholomew and Trooper Manns from the Supplemental Proceedings.[8]

Text: In Wasserman I we noted that [t]he determination of the context in which the improperly excluded evidence should be heard will be left, in the first instance, to the trial court. [9] We essentially gave the superior court its choice among three options: After giving the parties the opportunity to be heard, the trial court should decide whether to reopen the evidence solely to entertain the testimony of Delores Delacruz, to reopen to entertain her testimony and any other evidence within the ambit of her testimony, (allowing, for example, impeachment and rebuttal evidence), or to hold a new trial. [10] On remand, the trial judge chose the second option; it allowed the State to call Roger Hanson, the Safeway produce manager, as a witness to impeach Delacruz's account of events. Hanson's account corroborated Officer Roberts's version of events. [11] The State also insinuated during Delacruz's cross-examination that she was biased against the police. Notwithstanding the attacks on Delacruz's credibility in rebuttal and cross-examination, the superior court denied Wasserman's request to call eyewitnesses who could corroborate Delacruz's story. One could reasonably read our decision in Wasserman I as giving the superior court the discretion to limit the post-remand proceedings to Delacruz's testimony. [12] But once the court allowed the State to attack Delacruz's credibility both through cross-examination questions about bias and through the impeachment-type rebuttal [13] testimony of Roger Hanson, it was an abuse of discretion to disallow admissible evidence supporting Delacruz's testimony. McCormick on Evidence describes as a truism the rule that when there has been evidence of impeaching facts the proponent may bring contradictory evidence asserting the untruth of the alleged impeaching facts. Such a denial is always relevant and generally allowable. [14] Similarly, Alaska Rule of Evidence 607(b) provides that [e]vidence proffered by any party to support the credibility of a witness may be admitted to meet an attack on the witness' credibility. By admitting such impeachment evidence, the court was obligated to allow Wasserman to support Delacruz's credibility through the testimony of eyewitnesses who could corroborate Delacruz's account.
The trial court excluded the officers' testimony on the ground that it was cumulative. We disagree. As we explained in Wasserman I, evidence properly excludable as cumulative falls into two categories: evidence supporting an uncontested or established fact and evidence repeating a point made by previous evidence. [15] Given that the trial court ultimately did not believe Delacruz's account, her testimony was hardly uncontested. Thus, any testimony that would corroborate her account would not fall into the first category of cumulative evidence. The officers' testimony also does not fall into the category of evidence repeating a point made by previous testimony. In Wasserman I, we warned that courts should be wary of excluding otherwise relevant evidence on this ground: [R]epetition of the same evidence on a disputed point by several witnesses is often persuasive in establishing the truth of that evidence. Evidence should only be excluded on a disputed point as cumulative if the evidence on the point is already so full that more witnesses to the same point could not be reasonably expected to be additionally persuasive. [16] Here, the trial court found Delacruz's testimony to be unpersuasive for two reasons. First, the court found that it was inconsistent with much of the other evidence presented and was contradicted by that of Roger Hans[o]n and others. Second, the court concluded that Delacruz's probable bias against the police had colored her testimony. Logically, then, if the testimony of either Trooper Manns or Officer Bartholomew would have provided support for Delacruz's account that was not clouded by anti-police bias, it would have been additionally persuasive and not cumulative. An examination of the record and of the officers' depositions reveals that the testimony of Manns and Bartholomew would indeed have been consistent with Delacruz's account of events. We identified several disputed issues in Wasserman I on which Delacruz's testimony would be relevant; specifically, whether the police officers were identifiable as peace officers, whether an officer held Keith Wasserman in a choke hold, and what the officers told Wasserman before they seized him. [17] Delacruz testified in the post-remand proceeding that the officers were wearing black clothes that were not obviously police uniforms, that the officers did not identify themselves to Wasserman, and that Trooper Roberts had Wasserman in a neck hold. Both Officer Bartholomew and Trooper Manns's descriptions of the incident in their depositions do corroborate certain aspects of Delacruz's version of events. For example, Bartholomew stated that, instead of a full police uniform, he was wearing a black sweater with a little emblem badge sewn on it. He also stated that none of the officers indicated to Wasserman that he was under arrest and that Trooper Roberts did indeed put his hands around Wasserman's neck. Manns similarly testified in his deposition that no one told Wasserman he was under arrest and that Trooper Roberts grabbed Wasserman from behind and put his arms between the chin and the shoulders. Manns's testimony is particularly crucial given that, with the exceptions of Hanson and Delacruz, he was the closest non-party eyewitness to the scene. [18] The officers' testimony directly contradicts Roger Hanson's testimony in the post-remand trial that [t]he police came and asked for identification, and said that they were placing [Wasserman] under arrest. Given that the trial court relied on Hanson's testimony in discounting Delacruz's version of events, the officers' testimony would not have been merely cumulative. The City of Fairbanks argues that Wasserman failed to prove that the exclusion of the officers' testimony was not harmless. Alaska Civil Rule 61 precludes disturbing a judgment because of an erroneous evidentiary ruling unless the ruling appears to the court inconsistent with substantial justice. Here, the trial court based its dismissal of Delacruz's testimony in part on her anti-police bias and on inconsistencies between her testimony and that of Roger Hanson and other witnesses. Given that the officers' testimony would have contradicted Hanson's account and would have been free of bias against the police, the admission of the testimony could very well have affected the trial court's findings. We therefore conclude that the trial court's error in excluding the testimony was not harmless.
The City of Fairbanks argues in its supplemental briefing that Wasserman failed to make a sufficient offer of proof that Officer Bartholomew and Trooper Manns's testimony would corroborate Delacruz's testimony. We disagree. A party must generally make an offer of proof to preserve error based on a trial court's ruling excluding evidence. [19] The party must show that the substance of the evidence was made known to the court by offer or was apparent from the context within which questions were asked. [20] We believe Wasserman made this showing with respect to the officers' testimony. Wasserman made the substance of Bartholomew and Manns's proposed testimony known to the court on several occasions. At the original trial, Wasserman's expert on police tactics referred in his testimony to portions of both officers' depositions in which they described Trooper Roberts's alleged neck hold on Wasserman. Specifically, the expert noted Bartholomew's statement that Roberts used a choke hold [21] and explained his reliance on Manns's deposition in forming his professional opinion: Trooper Manns, who was with Trooper Roberts, says that [Roberts's] arm was between [Wasserman's] shoulders and his chin, and the only thing that's there is a neck, so ... That's the conclusion I reached: that he'dwas using a choke hold. And in the post-remand proceedings, Wasserman's attorney requested that the court allow the officers to testify after Ms. Delacruz: [T]he offer I would make, would be to call both Manns and Bartholomew ... to testify, because if there is any implication that Mrs. Delacruz has been less than honest or biased, I would, by way of offer of proof, [state] that Mr. Manns and Mr. Bartholomew will testify the same thing happened... that they saw. (Emphasis added.) The fact that the superior court knew enough about the content of the officers' testimony to label it cumulative suggests that the court understood the substance of the testimony. Additionally, with respect to Trooper Manns, the State actually called Manns as a witness at trial. Manns stated that he was about six feet from the officers and that he could hear what was being said and see the altercation. This testimony, albeit limited, alerted the court to the substance of Manns's testimony concerning Wasserman's interactions with the officers. And after notifying the court in the first trial that he might want to call Manns as a rebuttal witness, Wasserman's attorney, William Satterberg, explained the relevance of Manns's testimony: Satterberg: I may want to call Trooper Manns as my witness on rebuttal, [since] I have been so limited by the scope [of] his testimony by the court and Mr. Olsen. So, I may have to call him and ask some questions. Court: Well, I don'tlet's address that specifically. Because you were not limited to the extent you didn't get to make your points. Satterberg: The only point that I would've brought out as well, Your Honor, which has been brought out in testimony previously in the case, was how Manns saw Trooper Roberts take downtake down Mr. Wasserman.... [R]ecognizing that they're apparently call[ing] Mr. Hanson and Mr. McCormick[,] ... I may have to ask Trooper Manns[,] ... What did you see happen? The court asked Satterberg whether Manns's deposition addressed new facts and advised him to offer only portions of Manns's deposition. But Satterberg insisted that Manns's testimony does address, again, the issue of the neck hold and ... goes to counter what was testified to by Trooper Roberts. The court denied the request as cumulative. The court noted to Satterberg that [W]e know your offer of proof, because it's pages 42, 43 and 44 of Trooper Manns'[s] deposition. That portion of Manns's deposition discusses Roberts's grabbing Wasserman. After reviewing the record, we conclude that Wasserman's representations as to the content of the officers' testimony were more than sufficient to constitute a proper offer of proof for both Office Bartholomew and Trooper Manns's testimony.