Opinion ID: 1256193
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Risk to the State's Witnesses

Text: {36} Defendant asserts that the trial court erred by allowing testimony about the inmate code under which inmates may place their own safety in jeopardy by testifying against other inmates. Defendant also challenges the prosecutor's remark regarding the possibility that inmate witnesses could get a shank in them. {37} The prosecutor's line of questioning was invited by defense counsel's repeated attacks on the credibility of the inmate witnesses. During his opening statement, for example, defense counsel stated, the only people who are going to be pointing to [Defendant] and saying he [did] it are ... jailhouse snitches. Defense counsel continued to raise the issue of the inmates' credibility during cross-examination, when he questioned each of the inmate witnesses about possible incentives that might have given these witnesses a motive to lie. During closing argument, defense counsel urged the jury not to base its verdict on the word of child rapers, liars, thieves, [and] people hoping to get lesser sentences when they face judgment themselves. {38} Given that attacking the credibility of the inmate witnesses in this manner was such a central theme of the defense, the prosecution was entitled to introduce evidence to rebut this attack. See United States v. Mitchell, 556 F.2d 371, 379-80 (6th Cir.1977); 4 Jack B. Weinstein & Margaret A. Berger, Weinstein's Federal Evidence § 607.09[1], at 607-104 to-107 (Joseph M. McLaughlin, ed., 2d ed.1999); 27 Charles Alan Wright & Victor James Gold, Federal Practice and Procedure § 6098, at 583-85 (1990). Further, the evidence that the prosecution introduced to support the inmate witnesses' credibility logically refutes the specific focus of the attack on their credibility. 27 Wright & Gold, supra, § 6098, at 585. Such evidence suggested that the benefits to be obtained from giving untruthful testimony favorable to the prosecution, if any existed, might be outweighed by the burdens of testifying against another inmate. Finally, we note that even though the prosecutor's remarks were invited by the defense, the trial court sustained defense counsel's objection to the statement that the inmate witnesses could get a shank in them. The prosecutor did not make any further remarks of this nature. Under these circumstances, we conclude that this issue does not provide a basis for reversal of Defendant's convictions or his death sentence.