Opinion ID: 2418557
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admissibility of Appellant's Prior Bad Act Through a Rebuttal Witness

Text: Appellant's third point concerns whether the trial court erred in allowing Isbell to testify on rebuttal about appellant's violence toward her. At trial, appellant called Urella Johnson as a character witness in her defense. Johnson not only testified that appellant was a nonviolent person, but also that she knew of no occasion in which appellant had been violent toward Pam Isbell. The State then offered Isbell as a rebuttal witness. Isbell testified that appellant had on one occasion attempted to cut her with a knife, and that appellant had been the initial aggressor in several fights between the two of them. Isbell testified that she had filed charges against appellant after she had tried to cut her. Appellant contends that the trial court erred in allowing the State to present this testimony concerning specific instances of violence because only character evidence of reputation or opinion may be used for rebuttal. As a general rule, proof of other crimes or bad acts is never admissible when it is only relevant to show that the accused is a bad person. Spohn v. State, 310 Ark. 500, 837 S.W.2d 873 (1992). However, when the accused raises the issue of her pertinent character trait, then the State is permitted to introduce rebuttal evidence on the trait, and evidence that is otherwise inadmissible may become admissible. Ark. R. Evid. 404(a)(1); see also Landrum v. State, 320 Ark. 81, 894 S.W.2d 933 (1995); Wilburn, 289 Ark. at 228, 711 S.W.2d at 762. We considered a similar question in Spohn where the appellant raised the issue of his character by testifying on direct examination that his relationship with the victim was not violent and that he had never had thoughts of harming her. Spohn, 310 Ark. at 503, 837 S.W.2d at 874. The appellant further testified that he had never been charged with an act of violence. Id. On cross-examination, the State inquired whether the appellant had ever held a woman in Sedona, Arizona, against her will. The appellant responded that he had experienced a blackout in Sedona. Id. We ruled that the trial court did not err in permitting the State to respond to this testimony because the appellant had opened the door by testifying about his peaceful character. We found the following language instructive: Ordinarily, if the defendant chooses to inject his character into the trial in this sense, he does so by producing witnesses who testify to his good character. By relating a personal history supportive of good character, however, the defendant may achieve the same result. Whatever the method, once the defendant gives evidence of pertinent character traits to show that he is not guilty, his claim of possession of these traitsbut only these traits is open to rebuttal by cross-examination or direct testimony of prosecution witnesses. Id. at 503, 837 S.W.2d at 874-75 (citing 1 John W. Strong, McCormick on Evidence §§ 190 & 186 (4th ed.1992)). Appellant argues that Kellensworth v. State, 275 Ark. 252, 631 S.W.2d 1 (1982), requires reversal of the trial court's decision. We disagree. In McFadden v. State, 290 Ark. 177, 717 S.W.2d 812 (1986), we examined Kellensworth and carefully distinguished two types of situations that may arise in cases such as this. We pointed out that in such cases as we cited under Point II above, we have held that a party opens the door to rebuttal testimony showing bad character by giving direct evidence of good character. Id. We differentiated this situation from that involved in Kellensworth , where we held that evidence of good character may not be rebutted with evidence of bad acts. We stated that Rule 404(b) does not preclude introduction of evidence of a pertinent character trait if the evidence is relevant to the main issue of the guilt or innocence of the accused and does not merely show the accused bad's character or action in conformity. Id. In the case at bar, appellant raised the character issue. Appellant's counsel procured Johnson's statement on direct examination that appellant was not a violent person and that she had no knowledge of any instances where appellant had ever been violent towards Pam Isbell. By raising this issue regarding the pertinent character trait of appellant's nonviolent nature, appellant opened the door for the State to call Isbell to rebut Johnson's testimony. Admissibility of rebuttal evidence is discretionary with the trial court, and we will not reverse absent a showing of abuse of that discretion. Schalski v. State, 322 Ark. 63, 907 S.W.2d 693 (1995). We conclude that the trial court's ruling on this issue did not constitute an abuse of discretion, and we affirm on this point.