Opinion ID: 835782
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Petitioner's Case

Text: Petitioner sought to prove that the state's case was implausible because the state's witnesses were untrustworthy and because petitioner had not owned a gun matching the victim's description on the day of the incident.
Petitioner called Berardinelli, who knew both petitioner and Klingforth. Apparently, trial counsel had intended to cast doubt on Klingforth's credibility by having Berardinelli describe the breakup between petitioner and the victim, and the bad blood it had created between petitioner and Klingforth. However, trial counsel was unable to elicit any substantive testimony from Berardinelli because the trial court ruled that counsel's questions, in the form that counsel put them, would have elicited only irrelevant evidence. [7]
Petitioner then called Larson, the client who had come to petitioner's house on the day of the incident. Larson testified that, when she had arrived, the victim had been sitting in the victim's car in petitioner's driveway, and petitioner had been talking to her. She said that neither the victim nor petitioner had appeared upset and that the victim had driven away normally. On the state's cross-examination, however, Larson testified that she had not seen the victim's face; she simply recognized the victim's car and saw that someone, whom she assumed to be the victim, was in it.
Petitioner next called Taylor, his private investigator. Trial counsel began questioning Taylor regarding his interview with Dobbins, and the state objected on hearsay grounds. The trial court excused the jury and directed trial counsel to submit an offer of proof. Rather than questioning the witness, trial counsel attempted to describe what Taylor's testimony would be; the trial court admonished him repeatedly that, because the jury had left the courtroom, trial counsel should make his offer of proof by questioning the witness directly. Trial counsel complied. In response to counsel's questions, Taylor testified that Dobbins, who was then petitioner's roommate, had told him that petitioner kept no guns in the house. Taylor also testified that he had interviewed the victim and that he found her very cold, very calculating    [like] one of those Sharon Stone movies. The trial court excluded the testimony regarding Dobbins as hearsay and the testimony regarding the victim as overly prejudicial. [8]
Petitioner's mother testified that petitioner had owned two guns, both with blue-black barrels. She testified that neither gun broke in half for loading.
Finally, petitioner testified that he had owned two guns, neither of which broke in half for loading. He said that he had sold both guns to a friend, Pedersen, in December 1995, but that he had lost the sales receipt. Petitioner testified that Pedersen had moved to Idaho and that neither he nor his investigator had been able to find him. Petitioner claimed that he had not harmed the victim on the night of the incident, but that he had called her a whore or prostitute during their discussion and that she had slapped him. Petitioner testified that, after the victim left, he had called Klingforth to say that he and the victim had made love but had broke[n] off as friends. Petitioner testified that he also had called the victim to apologize for insulting her. After learning of the victim's charges against him, petitioner had visited her workplace and asked her to drop the charges. Petitioner denied telling Siemens or Dobbins that he had assaulted the victim. However, he testified that he and Siemens had been drinking heavily during the time of his alleged confession. On cross-examination, the prosecutor then confronted petitioner with the evidence that petitioner had told the police that he had sold the guns, not to Pedersen, but to an unknown person. The prosecutor also suggested that petitioner may have destroyed the receipt identifying the date and the buyer of the gun. After the defense rested, the state brought one rebuttal witness, a police officer who testified that petitioner had told him that he had sold the two guns to an unknown person.