Opinion ID: 853322
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hearsay Cloaked as Impeachment

Text: In pretrial proceedings, the court granted use immunity to William Dulin, Patricia Griffin's former boyfriend. It also granted a defense request to treat Dulin as a hostile witness if he is called. (R. at 198.) Dulin took the stand and in response to defense questioning denied having confessed to Griffin's former attorney, Lorinda Youngcourt, that he committed the carjacking. Griffin then called Youngcourt and sought to elicit her testimony that Dulin had confessed to the crime. [8] The prosecutor objected on grounds of hearsay and the court sustained the objection. Griffin argues that the court should have permitted the question under Ind. Evidence Rule 607, [9] which allows a party to attack his or her own witness's credibility, and Rule 613(b), [10] which allows evidence of a prior inconsistent statement made by a witness (with certain restrictions). [11] Because the purpose of his question was to impeach Dulin with his prior inconsistent statement, Griffin says, the trial court erred in sustaining the prosecutor's objection. We recently held, however, that under Rule 607 a party is forbidden from placing a witness on the stand when the party's sole purpose in doing so is to present otherwise inadmissible evidence cloaked as impeachment. Appleton v. State, 740 N.E.2d 122, 125 (Ind.2001) (citations omitted)(Because [the witness] owned the home where the events began and observed the three assailants attack the victims, it is reasonable that the State wanted him to testify for purposes other than impeachment.). The Court of Appeals had earlier recited a similar proposition: We agree . . . that [T]he rule allowing a party to impeach his own witness may not be used as an artifice by which inadmissible matter may be revealed to the jury through the device of offering a witness whose testimony is or should be known to be adverse in order, under the name of impeachment, to get before the jury a favorable extrajudicial statement previously made by the prior witness. The Pelican, Inc. v. Downey, 567 N.E.2d 847, 850 (Ind.Ct.App.1991) (quoting State v. Keithley, 227 Neb. 402, 406-07, 418 N.W.2d 212, 215 (1988)). Dulin did not witness any of the relevant events here. [12] The defense attorney's requests that Dulin be immunized and to question him as a hostile witness, with Youngcourt waiting in the wings, make it clear that he expected Dulin to deny having confessed to the carjacking and that the purpose of the exercise was to generate testimony pointing the finger at Dulin. [13] The question in Appleton was whether the State called a witness solely to create the opportunity to impeach him with his pretrial statement. Appleton, 740 N.E.2d at 125. Here, the defense called Dulin solely to create an opportunity to impeach him with Youngcourt's otherwise inadmissible hearsay testimony. The trial court properly declined to permit it.