Opinion ID: 200112
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Redundancy

Text: 24 Dolinger maintains that no redundancy would have resulted had the trial court admitted his excluded proffer along with the other impeachment evidence. He contends that (i) Doe's motive to frame him, by way of revenge, was not strongly established by the other evidence admitted in the trial court — i.e., that Dolinger had confronted Doe in early 1994 regarding the kissing incident — since Doe testified that he could not remember what Dolinger had said to him during that confrontation, and the jury therefore could infer no concrete motive for Doe's revenge; and (ii) evidence that Doe previously had told his counselor that Dolinger raped him every day, instead of on the eleven occasions charged in the indictment, merely demonstrated Doe's predisposition to exaggerate facts, rather than a predisposition to fabricate events (i.e., the rapes) out of whole cloth. On the other hand, however, given the level of prejudice threatened by the Dolinger proffer, it was not unreasonable for the state courts to determine that Dolinger had been accorded an adequate opportunity to challenge Doe's bias and truthfulness in other meaningful ways. 25 First, whether or not the kissing incident constituted the motive for Doe's alleged revenge is largely immaterial. The jury was presented with evidence that Dolinger had confronted Doe angrily a few days before Doe made the rape accusations, and in fact had made Doe cry. We think that this evidence, if accepted by the jury, was itself sufficient to support the defense theory that Doe had framed Dolinger out of revenge. See, e.g., Stephens, 13 F.3d at 1002 (noting that the defendant adduced evidence that he said something to [his victim] that angered her and caused her to fabricate the attempted rape charge, but trial court properly excluded further lurid details of the victim's past sexual conduct to avoid embarrassing her and subjecting her to possible public denigration). 26 Second, as concerns the prior inconsistent statement by Doe, in the present context we perceive no significant distinction between Doe's predispositions to exaggerate and to lie, since each strongly suggests his tendency to speak untruthfully: whether regarding the occurrence of the rapes or their frequency. Thus, we conclude that it was not beyond the realm of reason for the Commonwealth courts to determine that the `Dolinger proffer was largely cumulative. 6 27 Under section 2254(d)(1), it is immaterial whether we would assess the Olden factors as the Commonwealth courts have done in the instant case had we been directly presented with these issues in a non-habeas context. Of necessity, a balancing test normally occasions an exercise of the trial court's informed discretion. See Domaingue v. MacDonald, 978 F.Supp. 53, 58 (D.Mass.1997) (upholding discretionary exclusion of evidence of incest victim's alleged prior sexual promiscuity, given that trial court otherwise afforded defendant a reasonable opportunity to question the witness' veracity and motivation, and to present a reasonably complete picture of the witness's bias) (citing United States v. Laboy-Delgado, 84 F.3d 22, 28 (1st Cir.1996)). Thus, it is sufficient that we are able to conclude that the Commonwealth courts identifie[d] the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court's decisions [ viz., the Olden factors], appl[ied] that principle to the facts of the ... case, and reasonably balanced the competing factors. Williams, 529 U.S. at 412-13, 120 S.Ct. 1495. 28 AFFIRMED.