Opinion ID: 1983429
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Cross-Examination of Defendant Dube

Text: Defense counsel also moved for a mistrial at the end of the District Attorney's cross-examination of Dube, arguing that the accumulative effect of the series of obviously improper and objectionable questions asked by the District Attorney along with the badgering of Mr. Dube during his cross-examination amounts to a trial by innuendo; and I think it has been extremely prejudicial and most of the questions have been, obviously, objectionable. For that reason I think he has been denied a fair and impartial trial and that the jury has been unduly and unfairly inflamed. The presiding justice denied that motion. Dube contends on appeal that the denial of that motion was error. As a preliminary matter, whether Dube preserved for review the alleged errors by the District Attorney during his lengthy cross-examination of Dube is doubtful, because Dube's trial counsel failed in most instances to make any specific and contemporaneous objection to the alleged errors now focused upon by appellate counsel. [2] See State v. Libby, 435 A.2d 1075, 1078 (Me.1981). Trial counsel's failure to object specifically to many of the alleged errors at the time they supposedly were made deprived the presiding justice of the opportunity to eliminate or minimize any prejudicial effect with curative instructions or other appropriate measures. However, because the presiding justice considered on its merits the motion for mistrial made by defense counsel at the end of the Dube cross-examination, we will review his denial of that motion for any error in that ruling. Id. The presiding justice did not exceed the broad scope of the discretion an appellate court must accord to him in recognition of the advantages enjoyed by a trial judge in assessing the effect of alleged errors at trial. The presiding justice is in a better position than the reviewing court to gauge the impact of the objectionable testimony. State v. Hilton, 431 A.2d at 1302; see also State v. Dana, 406 A.2d 83, 86 (Me.1979). Because defense counsel's motion for a mistrial did not focus the presiding justice's attention on specific instances of alleged objectionable conduct in the District Attorney's cross-examination of Dube, the presiding justice had to rule on the basis of the impact of that cross-examination as a whole. The presiding justice concluded that the court hasn't observed anything that amounts for grounds of [sic] a mistrial and that the District Attorney's questioning was not prejudicial in the sense required. When we examine the cold transcript of the District Attorney's cross-examination of Dube, we cannot conclude that the alleged improprieties now pointed to by Dube's appellate counsel mandate an opposite conclusion. We are not persuaded that there are [the] exceptionally prejudicial circumstances or [the] prosecutorial bad faith necessary to justify an appellate court's overruling the trial judge's exercise of judgment on a motion for a mistrial. State v. Hilton, 431 A.2d at 1302. Specifically, Dube contends on appeal that several different areas of the District Attorney's cross-examination were unfairly prejudicial. Dube asserts that the District Attorney through his questions improperly tried to picture Dube as an alcoholic and as one who engages in casual sex. Evidence that Dube was an alcoholic was not admissible. See M.R.Evid. 404. Defense counsel successfully objected to questions posed by the District Attorney whether Dube thought he had an alcohol problem. Even if the District Attorney's questions merely by being asked served to suggest to the jury that Dube did have an alcohol problem, that suggestion was harmless error. By Dube's own admission he drank a large quantity of alcohol in the hours before the events in question: whether he did so because he acted in conformity with a character trait for alcoholism rather than for some other reason could have had but very slight effect if any at all upon the jury. State v. Conner, 434 A.2d at 514. The State's questions regarding whether it was usual for defendant to have sex with women so soon after meeting them, far from an attempt to show that on the night in question he had acted in conformity with his past sexual practices, were an attack upon the credibility of defendant's version of the events of that night, namely, that the prosecutrix wanted to have intercourse with him less than an hour and a half after meeting him at the Ruby Lounge. The District Attorney's facetious questioning, which Dube contends was prejudicial, regarding Dube's story of oral sex in the Ruby Lounge parking lot was properly based upon, and was similarly designed to question the credibility of, Dube's claim that the whole sexual encounter was consensual. The District Attorney's cross-examination of Dube is evaluated not for mere prejudice, but for unfair prejudice. Unfair prejudice means an undue tendency to move the tribunal to decide on an improper basis, commonly, though not always, an emotional one. Field & Murray, Maine Evidence § 403.1 at 59 (1976). The District Attorney could properly use any element of the testimony Dube gave on direct to discredit during cross-examination Dube's attempted justification for the oral sex and intercourse that he admitted having had with the prosecutrix. See M.R. Evid. 611(b). Dube's assertion that the prosecutrix was the sexual aggressor also provided the State's attorney with a proper basis to attempt to demonstrate the incredibility of that assertion by characterizing the prosecutrix as a mother of five, a grandmother of six, and almost old enough to be [Dube's] mother. The fact that such characterization, as Dube contends, could possibly have inflamed the prejudices of the jury did not make it impermissible. A question is not impermissible merely because it is inflammatory. See State v. Graves, 224 A.2d 57, 60-61 (Me. 1966). If a question is proper in form and substance, a prosecuting attorney is free to persist in his inquiry.... State v. Moore, 377 A.2d 1365, 1366 (Me.1977). The District Attorney improperly remarked, after Dube testified as to the amount of alcohol Dube had consumed, I probably would have been on my butt by now, thus offering his own testimony as to the effect of that much alcohol. See M.R.Crim.P. 26(d); M.Bar R. 3.7(e)(2)(iv). However, we find that remark harmless error. The jurors were surely able to evaluate for themselves from their collective experience and from the testimony of the witnesses the probable effect of the alcohol consumed by Dube. Furthermore, Dube's degree of inebriation was at best a collateral issue; the State's evidence of the nonconsensual nature of Dube's physical and sexual assault upon the prosecutrix was strong enough to make it highly probable that any error on that collateral issue did not affect the jury's verdict.