Opinion ID: 2260710
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The January 27 and April 29 Incidents

Text: Appellant testified on direct examination that he became a police informant in March 1983 partly because of pending matters that I had at the time. On cross-examination the prosecutor sought to clarify the exact nature of the relationship between appellant and the police. She asked appellant whether, at the time of his arrest in April, there was another criminal charge pending against him because of an incident on January 7 (see note 8, supra ), and he acknowledged that there was such a charge. She also asked about his arrest at Georgetown University on April 29, when he told the campus security officers that he was working under cover as an informant for Sergeant Hawkins (which Hawkins denied when the Georgetown officers called him). [15] The testimony about the January 7 incident was very brief and was unchallenged by defense counsel. As to the April 29 arrest, counsel objected to the prosecutor's going into every little detail about that particular matter, but the court ruled that the nature of appellant's defense made such questioning appropriate, and that he could be cross-examined as to all of the circumstances where he has made assertions akin to the one he is making here. The government argues that this ruling was correct, asserting that appellant put his intent at issue by claiming to have been working for the police at the time of these incidents and thus paved the way for the prosecutor's presentation of this evidence through cross-examination and rebuttal. We agree with the government that the court's ruling was correct. The prosecutor's questions on cross-examination and the government's subsequent rebuttal evidence comprised legitimate exploration of two issues that appellant himself had raised: the nature and duration of his association with the police as an informant. Jones v. United States, 548 A.2d 35, 39 (D.C.1988); see Morris v. United States, 389 A.2d 1346, 1352 (D.C.1978) (the trial court should permit exploration of any matters which tend to contradict, modify, or explain the testimony given by a witness during direct examination (citations and footnote omitted)). Having testified on direct examination that he had a relationship with the police, appellant could not bar the prosecutor from exploring the nature of that relationship, and in particular the date on which it ended ( viz., four days before appellant was arrested between 4:30 and 6:00 a.m. in a dormitory at Georgetown University). But that is not the end of the matter. We must still consider whether the probative value of this evidence outweighed its obvious prejudice to appellant; more importantly, the trial court should have made that determination at the time the evidence was offered. See Bigelow v. United States, supra, 498 A.2d at 214; Campbell v. United States, supra, 450 A.2d at 430; Rindgo v. United States, 411 A.2d 373, 376 (D.C.1980); Light v. United States, supra, 360 A.2d at 480. Since we are reversing appellant's conviction because of the government's misuse of the April 5 incident, we need not decide whether the trial court's failure to engage in the probative/prejudicial balancing process, standing alone, would warrant reversal. On retrial, however, if the matter comes up again, the court should do so and place its reasoning on the record.