Opinion ID: 2328667
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admission of Rebuttal Testimony

Text: Rowland next complains that the trial court abused its discretion by permitting the prosecution to present extrinsic evidence in its rebuttal case to impeach Officer Washington and other defense witnesses on collateral matters. Rowland cites the testimony of Sergeant Wagner and others concerning Washington's failure on the night of Hoyle's death to tell the police about her recent suicidal behavior, his offer and refusal to take a lie detector test, and Hoyle's lack of access to the Vice Unit safe. In addition, Rowland cites the testimony of a former girlfriend, Doreatta Garner, that in her presence he had made suicidal gestures of his own (threatening on more than one occasion to shoot himself with his service weapon), and that he had, when he was still seeing her, concealed an intimate relationship he was maintaining with another woman (not Hoyle). Finally, Rowland cites testimony of police witnesses clarifying the informal status of a Vice Unit safety policy that Hoyle had violated, and of Lieutenant Musgrove contradicting an assertion by Rowland's father that the police originally classified Hoyle's death as a suicide. In a criminal trial, [t]he purpose of rebuttal is `to explain, repel, counteract or disprove the evidence' of the accused. Gregory v. United States, 393 A.2d 132, 137 (D.C.1978) (citation omitted). The decision to allow rebuttal evidence is committed to the discretion of the trial judge; we will reverse her decision only for an abuse of discretion. Fitzhugh v. United States, 415 A.2d 548, 551 (D.C. 1980). When we undertake to assess the true import of questionable evidence, we owe considerable deference to the superior vantage point of the judge who oversaw the trial; hence we are disinclined to overturn a trial judge who has determined after watching a case unfoldthat testimony properly rebuts an inference that a party's adversary has sought to make. Hughes v. United States, 633 A.2d 851, 852 (D.C.1993) (internal brackets, quotation marks, and citation omitted). The common law rule to which this jurisdiction still adheres is that a party may not present extrinsic evidence to impeach a witness on collateral issues. Patterson, 580 A.2d at 1322 (citation omitted). If a witness is cross-examined about a matter that is classified as collateral (including, but not limited to, a prior inconsistent statement about a collateral matter), this rule bars the examiner from presenting extrinsic evidence to contradict the witness. This principle is simpler to state than it sometimes is to apply, for there is not always agreement on whether an issue is genuinely collateral. We have stated that a matter is collateral if it would not have been admissible independently for any purposes other than the contradiction in the party's case-in-chief. McClain v. United States, 460 A.2d 562, 569 (D.C. 1983) (citing treatises); accord, Clayborne, 751 A.2d at 972; Hampton v. United States, 318 A.2d 598, 600 (D.C.1974). Thus, [T]he matter is non-collateral and extrinsic evidence consequently admissible if the matter is itself relevant to a fact of consequence on the historical merits of the case. When the fact is logically relevant to the merits of the case as well as the witness's credibility, it is worth[y] of the additional court time entailed in hearing extrinsic evidence. MCCORMICK ON EVIDENCE § 49, at 203 (5th ed.1999). This core sense of the term collateral does not exhaust its scope, however. Some linchpin facts may appear collateral in isolation but yet be so central to a witness's testimony about a material transaction or matter that the probative value of extrinsic impeachment is too great to ignore: [T]he extrinsic evidence is non-collateral and again admissible when it relates to a so-called linchpin fact. Under this prong of the test, for purposes of impeachment a part of the witness's story may be attacked where as a matter of human experience, he could not be mistaken about that fact if the thrust of his testimony on the historical merits was true. Id. Stated a bit more generally, evidence technically classified as collateral may be admitted, in the trial court's discretion, provided it has sufficient bearing on the issues which the trier of fact must resolve. Patterson, 580 A.2d at 1322-23. This is a concededly vague test, and the trial court's discretion in admitting extrinsic evidence to impeach a witness is correspondingly broad. Id. at 1323. [19] We do not agree with Rowland that the trial court abused its broad discretion here. We have already addressed Sergeant Wagner's rebuttal testimony about Officer Washington's offer and refusal to take a lie detector test. Assuming error in the admission of that testimony, we have concluded that the error was harmless. There was no error in admitting extrinsic evidence to impeach Washington on the two other matters Rowland cites. Whether Hoyle had made a suicidal gesture, as Washington testified, was not a collateral matter in this trial, for it bore on whether Hoyle actually did commit suicide in Rowland's apartment as he claimed. The prosecution therefore was entitled to present extrinsic evidence that Washington had made prior inconsistent statements about that matterincluding statements on the night of Hoyle's death that were inconsistent because they omitted any mention of recent suicidal behavior on her part. See Mercer v. United States, 724 A.2d 1176, 1196 (D.C.1999); Moss v. United States, 368 A.2d 1131, 1135 (D.C. 1977); Hampton, 318 A.2d at 600. Extrinsic evidence was also properly admitted to impeach Washington's testimony that Hoyle deposited her service weapon in the Vice Unit safe. As we already have observed, this fairly could be viewed as the sort of linchpin fact which as a matter of human experience [Washington] would not have been mistaken about if [his] story were true. Patterson, 580 A.2d at 1323 (citation omitted). Ms. Garner's testimony that Rowland himself had made suicidal gestures with his service weapon similar to the gestures he attributed to Hoyle does not strike us as collateral either. Rather, the trial court reasonably could deem such evidence to be independently admissible on the question whether Rowland was drawing on his own experience to fabricate his claims about Hoyle. Similarly, the status of the Vice Unit safety policy was not collateral either; it was independently relevant (even if only marginally so) to the issue of whether Hoyle's violation of the policy was serious enough to contribute to her supposed despondency. On the other hand, we think that Garner's testimony about Rowland's dishonesty in his relationship with her (not Hoyle) was collateral. The government argues that whether or not the point was collateral, the trial court had discretion to allow the government to rebut Rowland's assertion that he had been open and candid in his various relationships with both women. Inasmuch as Rowland did not make this broad assertion in his direct testimony, see footnote 19, supra, but only in response to cross-examination, we find this argument less than compelling though if pressed, perhaps we still might suppress our doubts and defer to the trial court's considered judgment that, under all the circumstances, the matter had sufficient bearing on the issues to justify introduction of the rebuttal testimony. Patterson, 580 A.2d at 1322. We need not decide that question, however. Although Garner's testimony was unflattering to Rowland, it was so tangential that we are satisfied he suffered no significant prejudice from it. Given the focus of the trial and the quantity of evidence directly material to the issue of [Rowland's] guilt or innocence, we have difficulty imagining that [Garner's] testimony was of any moment in the jury's deliberations in this case. Clayborne, 751 A.2d at 972. Lastly, we come to the testimony that the police never classified Hoyle's death as a suicide, contrary to what Rowland's father said. While this matter too was collateral in our view, it apparently was a distracting side issue that deserved to be put to rest, and the trial court certainly did not abuse its discretion by permitting the government to do that. The testimony did not prejudice Rowland in the slightest.