Opinion ID: 2106628
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The State's Tactics in Cross-Examining Artie Terrell

Text: On the day of trial, just prior to the commencement of the State's opening statement, the State informed the court that for the first time since the day of the robbery of Read's Lounge the Milwaukee police had succeeded in locating and subpoenaing the patron Artie Terrell. Defense counsel had also been unable to talk with Artie Terrell prior to trial. The court postponed the commencement of trial for a day to allow both sides to talk with Mr. Terrell and to allow him to try to identify the defendant at an out-of-court lineup. At this lineup Mr. Terrell could not identify any of the participants as the robbers. Although Mr. Terrell's identification testimony was thus essentially adverse to the State, the State did call him as its first witness to corroborate Mrs. Read's version of the events which occurred and the clothing worn by the robbers. In anticipation of the unfavorable identification testimony that would be elicited from Terrell by the defense, the prosecutor sought to impeach Mr. Terrell's credibility by reference to some prior inconsistent statements he made to the police at the scene of the crime. She examined him adversely by asking leading questions concerning these prior statements. The defense first objected to these questions as irrelevant but then objected to them as leading. However, the court permitted the prosecutor to ask leading questions, even though Terrell was a State's witness, because her questions were adverse. The prosecutor asked Mr. Terrell whether at the scene of the crime a police officer asked him if he would be able to identify the robber. Mr. Terrell denied that such a conversation took place. The prosecutor then asked Mr. Terrell, Isn't it a fact . . . that you stated to [the police] at that time that you would not be able to identify the suspects? Mr. Terrell testified, No, I didn't. The State never offered evidence which contradicted Mr. Terrell's denials. The defendant, therefore, argues that to ask leading questions without producing the factual predicate for them is improper impeachment of the witness. The factual predicate for the State's questions is contained in a police report of interviews with Mrs. Read and Mr. Terrell made by one of the investigative officers on the day of the crime. This report showed that Mr. Terrell stated that he would not be able to identify the suspects, but, if we did hold a line-up, he would be willing to come down and see if possibly he could make an identification. However, because this report also contained a statement of Mrs. Read's that the shorter man was 5'10 to 5'11, heavy, 176-180 lbs., physical features that do not fit the defendant, the State did not offer the report into evidence as proof that Mr. Terrell had in fact made some statements to the police contradicting his testimony in court. Nor did the State call the detective who made this report and who was on vacation at the time. However, the factual predicate for these questions was eventually admitted into evidence nonetheless. The defense moved for and obtained admission of this police report later in the course of the trial in order to impeach the testimony of Mrs. Read. The full report, including the prior inconsistent statements of both Mr. Terrell and Mrs. Read, was one of the exhibits that went with the jury into the jury room during deliberations. Though the defense counsel eventually objected to the prosecutor's questions to Mr. Terrell as leading, he never moved to have the questions and the answers stricken at the completion of the testimony on the grounds that the State failed to follow them up with any evidence that prior inconsistent statements were actually made. The defendant concedes that the first time he claimed error on the ground that the State failed to produce a factual predicate to its questions was in a motion for a new trial. [1, 2] The defendant contends that, despite his failure to object during the course of the trial, he is entitled to raise this claim of error on appeal because the error is of constitutional dimension in that it denied him a fair trial. As the defendant points out, this court will decide a constitutional question improperly preserved below if it is in the interest of justice and where there are no factual issues in need of resolution. Bradley v. State, 36 Wis.2d 345, 359-59a, 153 N.W.2d 38, 155 N.W.2d 564 (1967); Ramaker v. State, 73 Wis.2d 563, 570, 243 N.W.2d 534 (1976). However, this court has applied this rule only to evidentiary errors which have a direct constitutional basis, such as the admission of evidence derived from an illegal search and seizure, State v. Morales, 51 Wis.2d 650, 187 N.W.2d 841 (1971); illegal identification testimony, Madison v. State, 64 Wis.2d 564, 573, 219 N.W.2d 259 (1974); involuntary self-incriminating statements, State v. Johnson, 60 Wis.2d 334, 343, 210 N.W.2d 735 (1973); use of ex parte evidence, Ramaker v. State, supra . The failure to supply a factual predicate to a leading question is of constitutional dimension only in the sense that, if prejudicial, it denied the defendant a fair trial. In prior cases in which we have dealt with a failure to supply a factual predicate for questions asked adversely, we have not considered this error to be plain error of constitutional magnitude; rather we have required the error to be preserved by a timely motion to strike, and we have emphasized that the error must be prejudicial. In State v. Dean, 67 Wis.2d 513, 534, 227 N.W.2d 712 (1975), we held that it is improper and unprofessional to ask a question which implies a factual predicate which the examiner knows he or she cannot support by evidence. In that case the state did not follow up cross-examination questions with evidence contradicting the defendant's answer, but the court held that the error was not preserved by timely objection, and in any event the error was not prejudicial. In State v. DeHart, 242 Wis. 562, 570, 8 N.W.2d 360 (1943), the court held that questions implying that the defendant ran away with a woman not his wife which were not followed up with evidence to show this was true were improper but were not preserved and were not prejudicial in view of the defendant's confession. See also: State v. Richter, 232 Wis. 142, 145, 286 N.W. 533 (1939). In this case the prosecutor did not ask questions with a factual predicate which she knew to be false. She merely asked questions without intending to make the predicate known to the jury. Some courts have permitted cross-examination where the evidence was available but counsel had no present intention of producing it or where counsel had no factual foundation but a reasonable suspicion that the circumstances might be true. United States v. Harris, 542 F.2d 1283, 1307 (7th Cir 1976), cert. denied 430 U.S. 934 (1977); Hazel v. United States, 319 A.2d 136 (D.C. App. 1974). As the court in Harris has pointed out, an examiner need not produce a factual predicate in every case because the rules of evidence forbid the use of extrinsic evidence to impeach a witness on collateral matters. See also: sec. 906.08 (2), Stats. [3] Defense counsel never objected or moved to strike the testimony for which no factual predicate was supplied. Thus the trial court never had an opportunity to strike the objectionable testimony and provide a curative instruction to the jury. Most important, the trial court did eventually receive into evidence the police report which contained the factual predicate to the Terrell cross-examination, and this report went to the jury room during the jury's deliberations. We do not find that the prosecutor's failure to supply the factual predicate for her adverse examination of Artie Terrell is grounds for reversal here.