Opinion ID: 1874198
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Improper Cross-Examination of Appellant.

Text: Appellant contends that the Commonwealth's Attorney cross-examined him in an improper manner, requiring him to characterize the testimony of other witnesses as lies. Again, the issue is unpreserved and is reviewed only for palpable error. We begin by mentioning that several questions of which Appellant complains required him to characterize his own prior statements that were inconsistent with his trial testimony. This is clearly permissible impeachment evidence. On several occasions, the Commonwealth's Attorney brought to Appellant's attention the trial testimony of various Commonwealth's witnesses and asked him whether he would characterize those statements as lies. We have held that this method of cross-examination is improper. Moss v. Commonwealth, 949 S.W.2d 579, 583 (Ky.1997) (A witness should not be required to characterize the testimony of another witness, particularly a well-respected police officer, as lying. Such a characterization places the witness in such an unflattering light as to potentially undermine his entire testimony.). However, after a review of the record as a whole, we are not persuaded that the result would have been different had these questions been withheld. Compare Caudill, 120 S.W.3d at 662; Tamme, 973 S.W.2d at 28; Moss, 949 S.W.2d at 583. While the questions were improper, they did not result in manifest injustice, thus did not amount to palpable error.