Opinion ID: 2994678
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Questions Concerning Credibility of

Text: Witnesses During Freitag’s cross-examination, counsel for the prosecution asked Freitag several questions regarding whether she was lying and whether other witnesses were lying or telling the truth. Freitag contends that these questions were impermissible and that the resulting prejudice requires that the court grant her a new trial./5 Because credibility questions are for the jury, it is improper to ask one witness to comment on the veracity of the testimony of another witness. See United States v. Cole, 41 F.3d 303, 308 (7th Cir. 1994); United States v. Sullivan, 85 F.3d 743, 749-50 (1st Cir. 1996). While conceding that under this rule it was improper for the AUSA conducting Freitag’s cross-examination to ask her if other witnesses were lying, the government contends that it was not improper to ask Freitag whether she, herself, was lying because it is appropriate to ask a witness whether she is adhering to her oath. The government further asserts that it was not improper to ask Freitag whether other witnesses’ testimony was true. In support of this assertion, the government characterizes questions about whether another witness’s testimony is true as questions about whether the witness’s testimony is accurate. From our review of the record, the government’s cross-examination of Freitag was far from model. In some instances, the government asked questions that called on Freitag to comment essentially on the truthfulness, not the accuracy, of other witnesses’ testimony. The district judge properly sustained a number of objections because that sort of questioning invades the province of the jury; indeed asking if testimony is true implies that if it is not, it is a lie, which is a credibility question for the jury to decide. However, we are not troubled by the prosecutor asking a witness to remark on the truthfulness of her own testimony because the witness’s reaction and response are proper fodder for the jury’s credibility determinations. Assuming arguendo that all the questions Freitag objects to are improper, we find the resulting error to be harmless. The challenged questions constituted only a small portion of the entire cross- examination and there was no significant impact on Freitag’s defense. More importantly, the evidence against Freitag was overwhelming. Freitag’s office employees (Watson and McLaughlin) testified about FAC’s improper billing practices and Freitag even admitted to falsifying records in response to a fraud investigation by Blue Cross, which processed Medicare claims in Illinois. The record also contained testimony from former FAC emergency medical technicians who testified that certain Medicare beneficiaries did not require ambulance transportation. Moreover, Lalumendre testified that Freitag pressured her to write doctor’s letters stating that it was medically necessary to transport certain Medicare beneficiaries by ambulance. Therefore, the improper questions do not warrant a reversal because the government introduced substantial evidence of Freitag’s guilt.