Opinion ID: 1351466
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Attempted Impeachment of Dr. Grunbaum

Text: The prosecution sought to discredit an expert defense witness, Dr. Benjamin Grunbaum, who disputed the methods used by prosecution witnesses in obtaining electrophoretic evidence from blood, saliva and semen stains found on the victim and defendant. Toward the beginning of the cross-examination, the prosecutor asked Dr. Grunbaum if he had testified on the losing side in the trial of Angelo Buono, the so-called Hillside Strangler. Defendant's objection was sustained, although he did not request a curative admonition. The prosecutor then ended that line of inquiry. (9) Defendant now argues that the prosecutor's question was improper and, by undermining a defense expert's credibility, deprived him of a fair trial. He cites People v. McGreen (1980) 107 Cal. App.3d 504, 514-519 [166 Cal. Rptr. 360], in support of this contention. The claim is without merit. The present case is far removed from McGreen, in which the prosecutor persisted in making unfounded attacks on an expert witness's honesty and ethical reliability, despite the court's repeated sustaining of defense objections to that line of questioning. The McGreen court held that continued references to the witness's commission of perjury constituted prejudicial error, in spite of the fact that the trial court admonished the jury to disregard such insinuations. (107 Cal. App.3d at pp. 517-518.) In the present case, the harm to Dr. Grunbaum's reputation from the prosecutor's question, if any, was slight. A reasonable juror would not be likely to interpret the fact that Dr. Grunbaum testified on the highly technical subject of the validity of electrophoretic testing, even on the losing side of a controversial case, as impugning his honesty or competence. Because an admonition would have cured whatever harm resulted from the improper question, failure to request such an admonition waives the issue on appeal. ( People v. Green, supra, 27 Cal.3d at p. 34.)