Opinion ID: 2324603
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Beverly Vanasse's DCYF Contacts

Text: Beverly, a state's witness, testified that prior to leaving the apartment to go to play bingo with Julie on the night of November 2, Cassandra was in good health and had no marks or bruises on her body. After returning from the bingo game, Beverly testified that she found Cassandra on the parlor couch, limp, barely breathing, cold to the touch, and blue in the face. On cross-examination, defense counsel attempted to explore Beverly's contacts with DCYF concerning her own children. The state's prosecutor objected to that line of inquiry. Defense counsel contended that this line of cross-examination went directly to Beverly's ability to observe the condition of Cassandra. Defense counsel also asserted that Beverly's demeanor while testifying, punctuated by strong emotion, could have also been triggered by Beverly's own recollections of her prior dealing with DCYF and her loss of custody of her own child to that agency. The state's objection asserted that Beverly's contacts with DCYF had occurred some six years prior to Cassandra's death and were too remote in time to be relevant. Further, the prosecutor argued that Beverly had only been questioned on direct examination about her observations of Cassandra's condition on November 2, 1986. Accordingly, the state argued that Beverly's DCYF contacts concerning her care of her own children some six years earlier had no relevancy to her testimony regarding what she was able to observe on November 2, 1986, in the apartment. The trial justice sustained the state's objection. On appeal Wilding asserts that the trial justice erred in restricting his counsel's cross-examination of Beverly on the subject of her DCYF contacts. After reviewing the trial record, we conclude that the trial justice did not err in restricting the cross-examination. We agree that [a] criminal defendant is constitutionally guaranteed the right to an effective cross-examination of the prosecution's witnesses. State v. Bettencourt, 723 A.2d 1101, 1109 (R.I.1999) (quoting State v. Brown, 709 A.2d 465, 473 (R.I.1998)). However, we also recognize that `the scope of cross-examination is subject to reasonable limitation by the trial justice's exercise of his or her sound discretion.' Id. The trial justice may exercise discretion to narrow the cross-examination as long as he or she does not unduly restrict a defendant's right to cross-examination. Id. at 1109-10. Here the trial justice did not abuse his discretion by excluding defense counsel's cross-examination of Beverly regarding her own childcare history with DCYF. It was her powers of observation on November 2, 1986, that were the legitimate subject for cross-examination by defense counsel. Beverly's own prior experiences with DCYF simply had little to do with her ability to have observed Cassandra's physical condition on November 2, 1986. We conclude that the trial justice's ruling, limiting the scope of defense counsel's cross-examination of Beverly, fell clearly within his broad discretion to limit and control questioning on such an extreme collateral matter, and that discretion, we conclude, was not abused.