Opinion ID: 1401400
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Once the trial court allowed Delacruz to be impeached, it should have allowed Wasserman to call corroborating witnesses.

Text: In Wasserman I we noted that [t]he determination of the context in which the improperly excluded evidence should be heard will be left, in the first instance, to the trial court. [9] We essentially gave the superior court its choice among three options: After giving the parties the opportunity to be heard, the trial court should decide whether to reopen the evidence solely to entertain the testimony of Delores Delacruz, to reopen to entertain her testimony and any other evidence within the ambit of her testimony, (allowing, for example, impeachment and rebuttal evidence), or to hold a new trial. [10] On remand, the trial judge chose the second option; it allowed the State to call Roger Hanson, the Safeway produce manager, as a witness to impeach Delacruz's account of events. Hanson's account corroborated Officer Roberts's version of events. [11] The State also insinuated during Delacruz's cross-examination that she was biased against the police. Notwithstanding the attacks on Delacruz's credibility in rebuttal and cross-examination, the superior court denied Wasserman's request to call eyewitnesses who could corroborate Delacruz's story. One could reasonably read our decision in Wasserman I as giving the superior court the discretion to limit the post-remand proceedings to Delacruz's testimony. [12] But once the court allowed the State to attack Delacruz's credibility both through cross-examination questions about bias and through the impeachment-type rebuttal [13] testimony of Roger Hanson, it was an abuse of discretion to disallow admissible evidence supporting Delacruz's testimony. McCormick on Evidence describes as a truism the rule that when there has been evidence of impeaching facts the proponent may bring contradictory evidence asserting the untruth of the alleged impeaching facts. Such a denial is always relevant and generally allowable. [14] Similarly, Alaska Rule of Evidence 607(b) provides that [e]vidence proffered by any party to support the credibility of a witness may be admitted to meet an attack on the witness' credibility. By admitting such impeachment evidence, the court was obligated to allow Wasserman to support Delacruz's credibility through the testimony of eyewitnesses who could corroborate Delacruz's account.