Opinion ID: 2051397
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Did the Trial Court Abuse its Discretion in Refusing to Allow the Defendant to Impeach a Witness with a Specific Instance of Misconduct?

Text: A. Procedural background. At trial, the State called officer Richard Knief, a nineteen-year veteran of the police force who was actively involved in the investigation and arrests of the defendants. Knief testified extensively concerning the surveillance of the three residences, the activity leading up to the issuance of the search warrants, his role in the execution of the warrants, and the items seized from the residences searched. In addition to testifying as a fact witness, Knief also testified as an expert witness with respect to illegal drugs and drug dealing. During cross-examination of this witness, Greene sought to impeach Knief with a ruling issued by a federal district court judge in an unrelated case. In the federal ruling, the judge had suppressed evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant, finding Knief had made false, or at least misleading, statements to the judge issuing the warrant. Greene asserted this incident showed Knief's propensity for dishonesty. The district court sustained the State's objection to this evidence, ruling that any relevancy of the evidence to the witness's credibility was far outweighed by the waste of time and needless consideration of extraneous issues. On appeal, Greene claims this evidence was admissible under Iowa Rule of Evidence 608. Rule 608 governs the admissibility of evidence concerning the character or conduct of a witness as it reflects on the witness's credibility. The rule states in relevant part: (a) Opinion and Reputation Evidence of Character. The credibility of a witness may be attacked or supported by evidence in the form of opinion or reputation, but subject to these limitations: (1) the evidence may refer only to character for truthfulness or untruthfulness.... (b) Specific Instances of Conduct. Specific instances of the conduct of a witness, for the purpose of attacking or supporting his credibility, ... may not be proved by extrinsic evidence. They may, however, in the discretion of the court, if probative of truthfulness or untruthfulness, be inquired into on cross-examination of the witness (1) concerning his character for truthfulness or untruthfulness.... Iowa R. Evid. 608. B. Scope of review. We review a trial court's ruling on the admissibility of evidence under rule 608 for abuse of discretion. See Iowa R. Evid. 608(b) (allowing impeachment by specific instances of conduct in the discretion of the court); State v. Caldwell, 529 N.W.2d 282, 285 (Iowa 1995) (holding trial court's decision to exclude reputation evidence under rule 608(a) is reviewed for abuse of discretion). An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court exercises its discretion on grounds clearly untenable or to an extent clearly unreasonable. State v. Smith, 522 N.W.2d 591, 593 (Iowa 1994). Even if an abuse of discretion is found, reversal is required only when the abuse is prejudicial. See Caldwell, 529 N.W.2d at 285 (requiring prejudice before reversing exclusion of testimony under rule 608(a)); State v. Clark, 325 N.W.2d 381, 383 (Iowa 1982) (holding erroneous ruling of trial court with respect to exclusion of evidence of prior acts of misconduct was not reversible because error was not prejudicial). C. Error preservationrule 608(b). The State initially contends that Greene did not preserve error on the trial court's exclusion of this impeachment evidence under rule 608(b). We agree. Iowa Rule of Evidence 103(a) provides: (a) Effect of Erroneous Ruling. Error may not be predicated upon a ruling which admits or excludes evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected, and .... (2) Offer of Proof. In case the ruling is one excluding evidence, the substance of the evidence was made known to the court by offer or was apparent from the context within which questions were asked. An offer of proof serves to give the trial court an adequate basis for its evidentiary ruling and to make a record for appellate review. See State v. Lange, 531 N.W.2d 108, 114 (Iowa 1995). Such a record is necessary so the reviewing court does not have to base error on speculation as to the answers that would have been given to questions had the questions been asked. Id. Greene did make an offer of proof when the State objected to his attempted impeachment of Knief, but the State claims the offer was inadequate. In an offer of proof outside the presence of the jury, Greene elicited the following testimony: GREENE'S COUNSEL: Judge [J]arvey made written findings of fact about the warrant [application] that you had written. Is that correct? OFFICER KNIEF: Yes. Q: And the findings of fact had to do in part with the search warrant that you had applied to Judge Bower in this court? A: Yes. Q: You know what the judge wrote in his findings in [the federal court case]? A: Yes. Q: The Assistant United States Attorney in charge of that case shared that with you? A: Yes. Q: And the judge wrote this about you at.... Well, again, in the interest of time, I will just mention the pages, Your Honor, without a quotation. At page 6 there is a one line statement regarding the information is simply not true. At page 7 there is a one line statement that the warrant is further misleading in that it admits factsand at page 11 in the middle of the page there is a long two sentence piece talking about how Officer Knief could not have entertained the thought that these statements could have been true. With that, Your Honor, I have made my offer of proof. A copy of the federal ruling was made a part of the trial court record. In evaluating the sufficiency of this offer of proof for purposes of admission under rule 608(b), it is important to note the narrow scope of that rule. This part of rule 608 permits cross-examination of a witness concerning a specific instance of conduct by the witness; it does not permit such conduct to be proved by extrinsic evidence. Here, Greene, through the offer of proof, sought to lay a foundation for admission of the federal court ruling and to make it a part of the record. This evidence, however, is extrinsic; it is not an examination of the witness ... concerning his character for truthfulness or untruthfulness or, more specifically, whether the witness told the truth in applying for the search warrant at issue in the federal proceedings. Thus, the offer of proof did not include the cross-examination that would potentially have been permissible under rule 608(b). If Knief would not have admitted that he had made untruthful or misleading statements in the warrant application, rule 608(b) would have prevented Greene from disproving Knief's denial by introducing evidence of the federal court ruling. See Ripka v. Mehus, 390 N.W.2d 878, 880 (Minn.Ct.App.1986) (interpreting similar Minnesota rule of evidence). We have said that error is not preserved without an offer of proof unless the whole record makes apparent what is sought to be proven. Lange, 531 N.W.2d at 114. Here, we do not know from the offer of proof whether Knief would have admitted that the statements he made in the warrant application in the other case were untruthful or misleading. Nor is there anything in the record which makes clear what his testimony would have been. Without knowing what Knief's testimony would have been if he had been cross-examined within the bounds of rule 608(b), we have no way of determining whether any abuse in not permitting the cross-examination was prejudicial and, therefore, constituted reversible error. See id. (holding that prejudice would not be presumed when the answer to the question is not obvious and the proponent made no offer of proof). Thus, we conclude that error was not preserved on this issue. D. Admissibility of evidence under rule 608(a). Alternatively, Greene suggests that Judge Jarvey's ruling was admissible as opinion evidence under rule 608(a). This argument is flawed, however, because the federal court ruling did not address Knief's character; that ruling merely described a specific incident of misconduct by Knief. This distinction is important because rule 608(a) only allows testimony directed to a witness's  character for truthfulness or untruthfulness. Iowa R. Evid. 608(a) (emphasis added); see Wilson v. City of Chicago, 6 F.3d 1233, 1239 (7th Cir.1993) (The telling of a lie not only cannot be equated to the possession of a reputation for untruthfulness, but does not by itself establish a character for untruthfulness, as the rule explicitly requires whether the form of the impeaching evidence is evidence of reputation or opinion evidence. (Emphasis in original.)); United States v. Nazarenus, 983 F.2d 1480, 1486 (8th Cir.1993) (holding that testimony concerning a specific act of defendant was not admissible under rule 608(a) because it was not in the form of opinion or reputation as required by the rule); United States v. Cortez, 935 F.2d 135, 139 (8th Cir.1991) (Opinion testimony may be admitted to support the credibility of a witness if ... the testimony refers only to the witness's character for truthfulness. (Emphasis added.)); Iowa R. Evid. 608 comm. cmt. (stating that [r]ule 608(a) expands the admissible impeachment testimony to reputation and opinion ... and requires that the attack be directed to the trait of untruthfulness  (emphasis added)); 3 Jack B. Weinstein & Margaret A. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence ¶ 608[04], at 608-25, 608-27 (noting that rule 608(a) allows a witness to state his or her opinion of the principal witness's character for truthfulness, but does not allow the witness to testify to specific acts of misconduct). Because rule 608(a) cannot serve a basis for admission of the federal court ruling, we hold the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to allow the offered impeachment evidence.