Opinion ID: 2133087
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Eliciting Inadmissible Evidence

Text: We address first the question of whether the prosecutor committed misconduct by eliciting inadmissible testimony from Sergeant Violette. We recognize that the district court ultimately admitted the evidence. We have held that [t]he district court has broad discretion in ruling on evidentiary matters and we will not overturn a district court's evidentiary rulings unless appellant shows a clear abuse of discretion and that this abuse resulted in prejudice to him. State v. Steward, 645 N.W.2d 115, 120 (Minn.2002). But we are troubled by the state's repeated attempts to elicit testimony that had previously been ruled inadmissible. Ray made a motion in limine to restrict the proposed testimony of Sergeant Violette regarding the theory that there had been two gunmen. Sergeant Violette had performed an additional search of the scene two days after the shooting. The search did not uncover any new physical evidence. The day before Sergeant Violette was to testify, the state informed defense counsel that it intended to ask Sergeant Violette what his rationale was for going back to the scene to perform a second search. The state explained that Sergeant Violette had received information from a man who claimed that he had heard the sound of two different guns. Defense counsel argued that because the source of this information was unavailable, Sergeant Violette's testimony based on it would be inadmissible hearsay. The court agreed that if the state was pursuing some sort of a two-gun theory, this would be very significant hearsay and would not be allowed. At trial, the prosecutor asked Sergeant Violette a series of questions about the information he had obtained that suggested that the number of shots fired did not match the expended casings found at the scene. The prosecutor went on to ask the following: Prosecutor: [Y]ou were also aware that the expended casings and the live round were found in one general location? Violette: That is correct. Prosecutor: Does the fact that they were found in one general location, was that also a significant in respect to why you went back up there on the 16th? Violette: Yeah, the information that I had received was At this point, defense counsel objected and an off-the-record discussion was held. The defense then withdrew the objection. The prosecutor went on to ask Sergeant Violette if the second search was performed specifically to determine if there was evidence of a second shooter, to which Sergeant Violette replied affirmatively. Defense counsel did not object to this exchange. At a bench conference a short while later, defense counsel made a record regarding his earlier motion in limine to exclude evidence of Sergeant Violette's hearsay information. Counsel then made a motion for a mistrial based on the fact that the jury had essentially    been allowed to hear that there is a theory that there is more than one shooter. The court denied the motion for a mistrial but offered defense counsel the opportunity to draft a curative instruction. The following curative instruction, as drafted by defense counsel, was read to the jury: There has been testimony elicited from Sergeant Violette that he had received information that the sounds of shooting came from more than one position. You are hereby ordered to disregard that portion of Sergeant Violette's testimony. On redirect, the prosecutor returned to the line of questioning about the disparity between the number of shots reported and the number of spent casings found. He asked Sergeant Violette whether his second search was intended to turn up additional spent casings, to which Sergeant Violette replied Correct. The prosecutor then asked questions designed to have Sergeant Violette explain the conclusion he reached from his second search, but the objections were sustained. He then tried another tack, asking about eyewitnesses: Prosecutor: Now, you were asked about eyewitnesses to the shooting. I want to get into that. There really would have been only three eye-witnesses to the shooting, correct? Defense counsel objected on foundational grounds but was overruled. The prosecutor posed his question again, but prior to Sergeant Violette's reply, the district court interjected, asking, You're talking about based upon the information that he had. The prosecutor agreed and asked three leading questions to which defense counsel did not object, suggesting that the three eyewitnesses would have been Chauncey Teasley, Coley Gates, and Ray. The prosecutor then asked: So, the only ones who would have could have told you about who fired when and what and all that, answered those questions, answered thoseput together that last chapter, would have been one of those three? No objection was made and Sergeant Violette answered: That's correct. Following the district court's order in limine to exclude any information regarding two shooters, Sergeant Violette should have been briefed by counsel to avoid that subject. See State v. Underwood, 281 N.W.2d 337, 342 (Minn.1979). The prosecutor not only failed to instruct Sergeant Violette appropriately, he compounded the problem by persistently seeking to elicit the inadmissible testimony and did so by leading questions. In State v. Van Wagner, 504 N.W.2d 746 (Minn.1993), the state repeatedly tried to use a police witness to provide hearsay evidence. This court reversed prophylactically, noting that [t]he prosecutor is bound to seek that truth which is governed by the rules of evidence   . Id. at 750. There, we noted that the state's questioning, overall, was simply too pointed and persistent to make an innocent explanation plausible. Id. at 750 n. 1. Here, there can be no claim that the inadmissible hearsay was inadvertently mentioned by Sergeant Violette, because all references to it were contained in the prosecutor's leading questions, to which Sergeant Violette only responded in the affirmative. Assuming that there is no basis for the district court to modify its order in limine for the new trial, the state is directed to avoid any efforts to elicit this inadmissible hearsay evidence. [3] In addition, the prosecutor's concluding question, implying that Ray could have put together the last chapter by providing information about the crime is also objectionable as implying that Ray had some obligation to speak or present evidence, in violation of Ray's right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment.