Opinion ID: 2199758
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: The admission of testimony of the State's witnesses for purposes other than stated in the bill of particulars.

Text: Two of the defendants, in slightly different phraseology, assert the State submitted a bill of particulars stating the names of witnesses upon whom it would rely to establish the defendants' presence at the scene of the offense. Having thus been dedicated to a specific purpose in the bill of particulars, it is now maintained that other testimony of these witnesses outside that specific limitation was inadmissible and error. The defendants' objection is best visualized by what occurred with the witness Quattrocchi. He testified to certain things that happened on the day of the holdup at 9 A.M., but, having been mentioned in the bill of particulars as one of the witnesses who would be relied on by the State to prove the defendants' presence at the scene of the crime at 8 A.M., it is claimed the additional testimony of what happened at 9 A.M. was wholly inadmissible, and what is more, its admission was reversible error and ground for a mistrial, and all this regardless of what the testimony was or its import. The only authority supplied is the rule itself, R.R. 3:5-9, which imposes no such limitation. Not only is the authority for this suggestion lacking, but there is not even the semblance of logical reasoning indicating why it should prevail and how it would constitute error so prejudicial as to be reversible. The argument falls of its own weight.