Opinion ID: 1359258
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Comments Concerning Guilt

Text: Appellant asserts that the district court improperly allowed the testimony in which the witness expressed a belief that Appellant was guilty of the crime charged to be admitted into evidence and that the testimony deprived him of his state and federal constitutional rights to have a fair trial. [T]estimony offering an opinion as to the guilt of the defendant, when elicited by a prosecuting attorney, should be perceived as error per se. Stephens v. State, 774 P.2d 60, 68 (Wyo.1989). The inquiry by the court when claims like this are raised, assuming that proper objections are presented, must be whether the testimony sought to be elicited will constitute a direct, and therefore impermissible, opinion with respect to the innocence or guilt of the accused or whether it is nothing more than related information offered to assist the jury in resolving the factual issues placed before it. Testimony that is given only as an aid to the jury in its pursuit of the facts and does not address directly the guilt of the accused in a conclusional way does not deprive a defendant of the constitutional right to a trial by jury. Saldana v. State, 846 P.2d 604, 617 (Wyo. 1993) (citations omitted). Appellant claims that in four instances the district court improperly allowed comments which pertained to his guilt to be admitted into evidence. All four comments occurred during the prosecutor's direct examination of a DCI agent: Q. Who did he say had packaged up each and every one of the 18 separate bindles? A. He said he had. Q. Did you question him about that? A. I told him that was a lot of work to go to. He had indicated that it was for personal use. And I told him that given the fact that we had found a large amount of currency in small denominations, which is consistent with the sale of small quantities of cocaine, due to the fact that we had found him with a lot of individual bindles that appeared to be ready for resale, the fact that he had the cocaine rock there ready to cut some more off possibly to sell or whatever, I told him that all those ... factors taken into consideration showed to me that indeed he had brought that cocaine up from Greeley to sell in Cheyenne; that it wasn't for personal use, that there was no way that he would take that much with him from Greeley to Cheyenne if it was just for personal use. Q. How did he respond? A. Well, he said that he had forgotten that he had it with him when he left Colorado, that when the Highway Patrolman pulled in behind him, turned [his] lights on, he got scared because he remembered he had it with him then and that he had hidden it under the seat at that time. Q. He told you that he forgot he left Greeley with it and he remembered he had it? A. After the Patrolman pulled in behind him. Q. Did you talk to him about going to the trouble of packaging 18 separate little bindles each with exactly one half gram in it for his own use? A. I did ask him about that, yes. Q. How did he respond? A. He said that he knew exactly how much cocaine he was using if he had them all weighed out and packaged like that, and I told him I didn't believe that. .... Q. Did you confront him with that very statement, it's not consistent with what I know? A. Yes, I told him all the factors taken into consideration, what we had caught him with, the money, the drugs packaged in that way, all indicated to me that he was up here to sell cocaine [DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I'll object, I'll object. [PROSECUTOR]: Your Honor, that's the form of the question he confronted the Defendant with. [DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Your Honor, it's an opinion and I request that it be excluded, it's an opinion that goes to the ultimate issue, the ultimate fact in issue and request that theif the Court allows the testimony that the Court instruct the jury as to the limited purpose for which it is presented. THE COURT: The objection is overruled. Q. [By [Prosecutor]) Did you confront him, in essence, with your expertise saying nobody does it that way? A. Yes. Q. How did he respond? A. He said he did it that way. (Emphasis added.) None of the DCI agent's statements constituted a direct statement of opinion with respect to Appellant's guilt. Saldana, 846 P.2d at 617. The statements were not direct statements to the jury; they merely related the DCI agent's conversation with Appellant to the jury. The statements were offered to assist the jury in resolving the factual issue of whether Appellant was telling the truth. Since the statements did not constitute a direct opinion as to Appellant's guilt, the district court properly allowed them to be admitted.