Opinion ID: 2175548
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Impeachment procedure and impeachment witnesses.

Text: Of the various kinds of attacks on the credibility of a witness, impeachment by a prior inconsistent statement is probably the most effective and the most frequently employed. E. CLEARY, MCCORMICK ON EVIDENCE § 33, at 72 (3d ed. 1984). This is classic impeachment. An impeachment witness, by definition, includes one who will testify that the adversary's witness has made a prior inconsistent statement, and is therefore less worthy of belief than if she had testified consistently. Impeachment takes place in two stages. Quoting from Queen Caroline's Case, 2 Brod. & Bing. 284, 313, 129 Eng.Rep. 976, ___ (1820), Professor McCormick has written that [i]f it be intended to bring the credit of a witness into question by proof of anything he may have said or declared touching the cause, the witness is first asked, upon cross examination, whether or not he has said or declared that which is intended to be proved. McCORMICK, supra, § 37, at 78-79. The purposes of this traditional requirement, according to Professor McCormick, are to avoid unfair surprise to the adversary, to save time (in that an admission by the witness that he or she made an inconsistent statement may make extrinsic proof unnecessary), and to give the witness an opportunity to explain the discrepancy. Id. at 79. Professor McCormick continues as follows: To satisfy the requirement in jurisdictions in which it is enforced, the cross-examiner will ask the witness whether the witness made the alleged statement, giving its substance, and naming the time, the place and the person to whom made. The purpose of this particularity is, of course, to refresh the memory of the witness as to the supposed statement by reminding the witness of the accompanying circumstances. If the witness denies the making of the statement, or fails to admit it, but says I don't know or I don't remember then the requirement of laying the foundation is satisfied and the cross-examiner, at the next stage of giving evidence, may prove the making of the alleged statement. Id. The procedure envisaged by Professor McCormick was precisely that which counsel for R. & G. attempted to follow in this case. In the District of Columbia, a prior inconsistent statement may not be used as substantive evidence of the truth of the matter asserted; it is admissible only to assist the jury in evaluating the credibility of the witness. Gordon v. United States, 466 A.2d 1226, 1231 (D.C.1983). Under these circumstances, Dr. Berman was the quintessential impeachment witness; he was to testify to an allegedly prior inconsistent statement by Dr. Schultz which would be used to impeach her. Under the trial judge's written procedures, R. & G. was not obligated to include Dr. Berman's name on the witness list at the pretrial conference. He was an impeachment witness, not a substantive one. [10] In sustaining Howard's objection, the trial judge evidently took the position that Dr. Berman was not a proper impeachment witness because R. & G.'s counsel was previously aware that Dr. Schultz would give testimony which Dr. Berman would be able to impeach. Apparently, the trial judge thought that a party is not entitled to present impeachment testimony unless that party has been surprised at trial. We know of no authority for that proposition, and none has been cited to us. We agree with R. & G. that if surprise were a precondition for the exercise of the right to present impeachment testimony, then few if any litigants would have an opportunity to learn of prior inconsistent statements, or to secure the attendance of witnesses to testify about them. [11] Ms. Brown contends that R. & G.'s counsel attempted to create the need to have [Dr.] Berman testify as an impeachment witness. She points out that Dr. Schultz's testimony that she did not recollect what she told Dr. Berman was brought out by R. & G., not by her. She claims that the [d]efendant was thus trying to create the need to impeach someone by their [sic] own questioning. This contention falls wide of the mark. Dr. Schultz having testified during the presentation of the plaintiff's case that the use of plastizote was essential and that she was devastated when R. & G. used a different material, R. & G. had the right to try to discredit that direct testimony by showing that, on a prior occasion, Dr. Schultz had made a statement to the contrary. The testimony R. & G. was attempting to impeach was not Dr. Schultz's lack of recollection (adduced by R. & G.) but her affirmative testimony, damaging to R. & G., which had been adduced by Ms. Brown as part of her own case. Ms. Brown relies on Morgan v. Commercial Union Assurance Co., 606 F.2d 554 (5th Cir.1979) and Grant v. Brandt, 796 F.2d 351 (10th Cir.1986), but neither case is in point. Morgan stands for the proposition that a defense witness whose purpose is to contradict an expected and anticipated portion of the plaintiff's case in chief can never be considered a rebuttal witness, or anything analogous to one, and must therefore be identified on the proponent's witness list. Morgan, supra, 606 F.2d at 556. Grant holds that a trial judge may exclude the rebuttal testimony of an unlisted witness when the testimony sought to be rebutted was elicited by the party seeking to contradict it. 796 F.2d at 356. In neither case was the witness in question an impeachment witness, and neither court addressed the question presented here.