Opinion ID: 2156350
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Plummer's objection to a question proposed by a juror and posed by the judge to Investigator Abdalla.

Text: Upon the suggestion of a juror, the judge asked Investigator Abdalla why he approached and stopped Plummer in the park on December 1, 1999. Predictably, given the circumstances, Abdalla testified that after viewing the videotape of [the] sale, I stopped Mr. Plummer ... and identified him as the seller. Abdalla added that he positively identified the seller on the videotape as Plummer. Plummer invites our attention to the judge's ruling at the first trial that defense witnesses would not be permitted to testify whether they believed the seller in the videotape to be Plummer, and he argues that the juror's question to Abdalla permitted the presentation of evidence supporting the prosecution when the introduction of similar evidence by the defense had been proscribed. In our view, the evidence elicited by the juror's question was admissible to explain why the police stopped Plummer. The defense requested a cautionary instruction. After consulting with counsel, the judge instructed the jurors that although they had heard Abdalla express an opinion on the subject, you should understand that it's ultimately your determination as the fact-finders as to whether or not the person on the tape is Mr. Plummer. [7] Moreover, on cross-examination the defense subsequently elicited from another officer  James Shieder  that he too was tasked with watching the videotape of the transaction and with subsequently making an identification. There is, in our view, a significant difference between permitting Abdalla to testify that his viewing of the videotape enabled him to identify and stop Plummer  an explanation of his actions as a police officer  and allowing defense witnesses to testify simply that they have examined the videotapes and that in their opinion Plummer is not the seller shown on them. Cf. Sanders v. United States, 809 A.2d 584, 596 (D.C.2002); cert. denied, 538 U.S. 937, 123 S.Ct. 1602, 155 L.Ed.2d 340 (2003) (approving, under some circumstances, the admission of such testimony). But even assuming, arguendo, that the two situations are legally indistinguishable, the defense never asked the judge, after Abdalla had been permitted to testify as described above, to reconsider her ruling at the first trial, in which she had excluded proposed defense witness testimony that Plummer was not the seller who appeared in the videotapes. Cf. Thorne v. United States, 582 A.2d 964, 965-66 (D.C.1990). Moreover, the testimony that the two defense witnesses were permitted to present regarding Plummer's hairstyle, clothing, and other features made it plain that, in the opinion of these witnesses, the seller in the videotapes could not have been Plummer. The predictable and actual effect of the judge's rulings was to permit the jury to hear a police officer's view as to the identity of the man in the December 1, 1999 videotape, but to exclude the testimony of defense witnesses on this subject. It might therefore have been a wiser exercise of discretion to decline to pose the juror's proposed question to Abdalla. Nevertheless, we discern no abuse of discretion (or basis for reversal) in the judge's ruling on this point.