Opinion ID: 1699278
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The trial court failed to redact portions of defendant's videotaped statement which exposed the jury to inadmissible other crimes evidence.

Text: Defendant claims the trial court erred when it failed to order the State to redact certain portions of his videotaped statement. Initially, defendant claims the trial court should not have allowed the jury to be exposed to that portion of the videotaped statement in which Major Myrick asked him about J.R.'s gang affiliation and defendant responded that J.R. was a Crip. As a result, defendant claims jurors could have inferred he was a member of a gang and the evidence thus constituted prohibited other crimes evidence. However, even assuming defendant's statement that his alleged accomplice belonged to a gang somehow suggested his involvement in other crimes, [16] he did not object to its admission and thus waived any claim based on it. LA.CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 841. [17] Defendant also contends the trial court should have prohibited the jury from viewing the portion of the videotape in which Major Myrick indicated he did not believe certain aspects of his statement. In defendant's view, the officer's comments about the veracity of his statement constituted impermissible opinion evidence that would not have been permitted at trial and thus should have been excised from the videotape. See State v. Brunet, 521 So.2d 594, 596-97 (La.App. 1 Cir.1988) (trial court's refusal to delete prosecutor's comments concerning defendant's credibility from statement of defendant in which defendant claimed that victim's shooting was an accident was reversible error). From the outset, we again note defendant did not object to the admission of that portion of the videotaped statement and thus waived any claim based on it. LA.CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 841. Nevertheless, we find Brunet distinguishable. In Brunet the court of appeal reversed the defendant's conviction because the prosecutor who commented on the defendant's credibility in the tape-recorded statement did not testify at trial and thus defendant could not confront the witness. To the contrary, in the present case, because Officer Myrick testified for the State, defendant was afforded the opportunity to cross-examine him concerning his statements during defendant's interview that he did not find portions of his story credible. Accordingly, defendant was not denied the right to confront the witness. This argument lacks merit.