Opinion ID: 1239233
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Cross-Examination of Roderick M.

Text: During the cross-examination of Roderick M., defense counsel attempted to impeach Roderick with statements attributed to him in an interview summary prepared by Sergeant Adams. Specifically, defense counsel asked about a statement Adams attributed to Roderick which suggested Roderick had left the house earlier than indicated by his trial testimony. Reading from the summary, defense counsel asked if Roderick remembered stating that he ran out his front door. The State objected, and during the bench discussion asserted that a lengthy taped interview existed and that defense counsel should not be able to read a summary into the record. Defense counsel informed the district court that she was not aware of a taped interview. The district court responded by saying [w]e'll talk about that during the break and for [r]ight now if you want to examine him, do it properly and don't argue. Defense counsel proceeded to ask about several statements contained in various police reports without reading from statements and without drawing an objection. After a recess, the State admitted to having made a misstatement because there was no recorded conversation of Roderick M.'s interview. [1] However, the State asserted the objection was valid as to form because defense counsel was literally reading from Officer Adams' summary of an interview verbatim while impeaching the witness. The district court upheld its earlier ruling sustaining the State's objection. Later, during cross-examination of Adams, defense counsel was able to elicit testimony on the statements contained in the interview summary which counsel had been unable to ask of Roderick. Graham later moved for a mistrial on the ground that the court erred when it denied him the opportunity to use impeachment evidence during the cross-examination of Roderick. This motion was denied. Graham now argues that the State was making unfounded objections. We consider the question of whether it was error for the district court to sustain the State's objection to defense counsel's use of Sergeant Adams' summary during the cross-examination of Roderick M. We conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion in sustaining the objection. The issue raised by Graham is whether a witness may be impeached with extrinsic evidence contained in a third-party summary of the witness's statements. To impeach under Minn. R. Evid. 613(a), an inconsistent statement [whether written or not] need not be shown nor its contents disclosed to the witness at that time, but upon request [it] shall be shown or disclosed to opposing counsel. But, extrinsic evidence is not admissible unless the witness is afforded a prior opportunity to explain or deny the same and the opposite party is afforded an opportunity to interrogate the witness thereon, or the interests of justice otherwise require. Minn. R. Evid. 613(b). Rule 613 permits a party to ask about the contents of a third-party statement that have been attributed to a witness. But if the witness has not adopted the statement attributed to him as his own, counsel may not offer extrinsic evidence in the form of reading verbatim from a third-party summary to impeach the witness. Hyde v. Kloos is an early example of this principle. 134 Minn. 165, 168-69, 158 N.W. 920, 921 (1916). In Hyde, we upheld a district court ruling which precluded the use of an affidavit for impeachment. Evidence in the case suggested that the witness being questioned did not speak English, and no foundation had been laid which indicated the witness understood the contents of the affidavit she allegedly signed. Id. Because the party seeking to use the affidavit to impeach the witness could not establish that the witness had made or adopted the statement, we affirmed the district court's decision to bar the use of the affidavit to impeach the witness. Id. Federal courts, applying an identical rule of evidence, have also prohibited attorneys from impeaching by reading verbatim from a third-party summary. For example, in United States v. Saget the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals dealt with the admissibility of witness statements contained in a police summary. 991 F.2d 702, 710 (11th Cir.1993). The court held it was grossly unfair to allow defense counsel to read verbatim from an FBI summary to impeach the witness whose statements it purported to contain unless the witness has subscribed to or otherwise adopted the statement as his own. Id.; see also United States v. Adames, 56 F.3d 737, 744-45 (7th Cir. 1995); United States v. Strother, 49 F.3d 869, 876 (2nd Cir.1995). These cases are also consistent with our holding in State v. Stofflet, 281 N.W.2d 494 (Minn.1979). In Stofflet, the State, without objection, cross-examined a witness using the content of a police summary. Id. at 496. In concluding that the prosecutor was perfectly justified in cross-examining [the witness] about the[ ] statements, we said that: [I]t is the first part of [Rule 613] which, by providing for disclosure to counsel, protect(s) against unwarranted insinuations that a statement has been made when the fact is to the contrary. In this case, the prosecutor was able to produce extrinsic evidence to back up his questions on cross-examination, although he did not; and such evidence had been disclosed to defense counsel. Id. at 497. Although we upheld the State's use of the contents of the summary to question the witness, in Stofflet we assumed the State would have to call the officer who made the summary to the stand in order to introduce extrinsic evidence of the witness's statement. Id. Here, as in Stofflet, defense counsel could, and did, ask questions about the contents of the summaries. But unlike Stofflet, defense counsel attempted to read verbatim from the summary, and therefore to introduce extrinsic evidence of the summary during its cross-examination of Roderick M. The State objected only when defense counsel's language indicated that counsel was reading from the summary. Defense counsel's use of the summary as extrinsic evidence of statements attributed to Roderick was improper. See Kloos, 134 Minn. at 168-69, 158 N.W. at 921; see also Saget, 991 F.2d at 710. The extrinsic evidence of the prior statements had to be obtained from the author of the summary who had heard the oral statements. E.g., Stofflet, 281 N.W.2d at 497. This in fact was done when defense counsel asked Adams, who authored the summary, about the statements. We conclude that the district court did not err in sustaining the State's objection to defense counsel's attempt to read the statement into evidence during the cross-examination of Roderick M. Further, because there was no error in the court's ruling, we conclude that the State's mistake as to the existence of a transcript or tape was harmless.