Opinion ID: 2629770
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Amanda Valentine

Text: First, Cordeiro maintains that the circuit court erred in sustaining the prosecution's objection to defense counsel's cross-examination of Amanda Valentine regarding a statement that she made to the police on August 15, 1994. Only moments before, defense counsel had asked Valentine whether she remembered stating to the police, on August 12, 1994, that she had observed Freitas and Blaisdell together in Freitas's truck at around 5:15 p.m. on August 11, 1994, and Valentine had answered that she did not; [27] the prosecution objected to the question on the ground that it had already been asked and answered, and the circuit court sustained the objection. Our review of the transcript reveals that, although defense counsel had asked Valentine whether she remembered telling [the police] on at least two different occasions, including August 12, 1994, that she had observed Blaisdell and Freitas together at around 5:15 p.m., defense counsel had not specifically asked Valentine whether she remembered stating to the police on August 15, 1994 that she had seen the two together at around 5:15 p.m. Accordingly, we agree with Cordeiro that the circuit court erred in sustaining the prosecution's objection. Nevertheless, we believe that the circuit court's error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. As noted above, defense counsel was permitted to impeach Valentine on the basis of both her August 12, 1994 statement to the police and the allusion to a similar statement made to the police on another occasion. Thus, given the totality of defense counsel's cross-examination, we believe that Cordeiro's substantial rights were not affected. Moreover, Valentine's testimony was not crucial to the prosecution's case. Freitas's testimony that, on August 11, 1994, he picked Blaisdell up sometime after 5:15 p.m. and arrived at skid row sometime after 5:45 p.m., was corroborated by Arthur Delima, Jr., who testified that he observed Freitas and Blaisdell driving together on the Kula Highway at approximately 5:30 p.m. (which, according to Freitas, was shortly after Valentine observed him with Blaisdell). In any event, the jury's determination that Cordeiro murdered Blaisdell could not have turned on Valentine's testimony, because the precise timing of events on August 11, 1994 was not particularly significant. This was not a case in which the defendant had a hole in his alibi; the jury simply did not find Cordeiro's numerous alibi witnesses, who testified that he never left his house on the evening of August 11, 1994, to be credible. Thus, assuming that the damaging potential of the cross-examination were fully realized, we hold that there is no reasonable possibility that it would have changed the outcome of Cordeiro's trial.