Opinion ID: 781039
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Objection to Eze's Supervision

Text: 91 Peter Nichols, an attorney for the Erie County Department of Social Services, testified for the prosecution about the court order appointing Eze to supervise Okongwu's visitation of Chendo and Nnedi. In the course of his brief testimony, Nichols mentioned, without elaboration, that [t]here had been an objection to Mr. Eze. Defense counsel neither objected to this testimony nor cross-examined Nichols as to the nature of the objection. In actuality, the objection was unrelated to Eze's character or credibility. Nichols testified before the grand jury that he objected, on behalf of the Department of Social Services, to Eze's appointment solely on the basis of Eze's gender, preferring instead that a woman supervise the girls. The jury, however, never learned that gender was the reason for the objection to Eze's supervision. 92 It appears that counsel should have raised an objection to this testimony or clarified matters through cross examination. Nichols testimony was damaging to Eze because it called his credibility and character into question. Considering that Eze was on trial for sexual abuse, a mention that there was an objection to his supervision, without any further explanation, could very well have set off alarms in the minds of the jurors questioning his credibility and character. The jury could have inferred that the objection to his supervision was material and, coupled with the prosecution's other attempts to impeach Eze's character and credibility, the testimony may have led the jury to suspect that Eze was a person not to be trusted. At the same time, however, the mention of the Department of Social Service's objection was extremely brief and was not stressed at all by the prosecution at any point of the trial. Therefore, defense counsel may very well have decided that it was better to leave that issue untouched rather than bring attention to it. 93