Opinion ID: 2303109
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Impermissible Bolstering

Text: The defendant additionally argues on appeal that the trial justice committed reversible error by permitting [Det. Melaragno] to vouch for the credibility of the identification witnesses. On direct examination of Det. Melaragno, the following exchange occurred: [State:] And prior to meeting [defendant], had you during the course of your investigation received dispatches relative to a description of a suspect? [Detective Melaragno:] Yes. [State:] And were you able to compare those descriptions with [defendant] as you saw him? [Detective Melaragno:] Yes. [State:] And what conclusion did you reach? [Defendant's Counsel]: Objection. [Trial Justice]: Overruled. [Detective Melaragno:] I thought he fitI thought he fit the description. [Defendant's Counsel]: Well, I object. I want to be heard. At the sidebar that followed, defendant's counsel elaborated on his objection: My objection is I believe this line of testimony is vouching for the credibility of the identification witnesses. That is my objection. I don't believe a witness can be asked questions to substantiate the credibility of other witnesses as far as a description is concerned. That is the jury's job and no one else's. That is my objection. The state countered that the testimony in question was being offered to establish the probable cause for defendant's arrestan issue which, according to the state, had been opened by defendant. [17] The trial justice agreed that Det. Melaragno should not be vouching for another witness, but ruled that he can say that    the appearance of the defendant was similar to the description he was given in the course of his investigation. The trial justice then explained: That is why I overruled the objection, but I wouldn't let [Det. Melaragno] comment on the actual identification by the other woman. Before this Court, defendant argues that the trial justice erred by allowing Det. Melaragno to state his opinion that [defendant] fit the description provided by the eyewitnesses. The defendant calls [t]he prosecutor's probable cause reasoning viz., that the testimony in question was being offered to establish the probable cause for defendant's arrestnonsense, and contends that [t]his unfair bolstering of the witnesses' believability and shoring up of their identifications clearly invaded the jury's domain. [T]he determination of the truthfulness or credibility of a witness lies within the exclusive province of the jury. State v. Adefusika, 989 A.2d 467, 476 (R.I. 2010) (quoting State v. Haslam, 663 A.2d 902, 905 (R.I. 1995)). Accordingly, bolstering, [18] which occurs when one witness `offer[s] an opinion regarding the truthfulness or accuracy of another witness'[s] testimony,' is not permissible. Id. (quoting State v. Webber, 716 A.2d 738, 742 (R.I. 1998)). We will consider opinion testimony to be impermissible `bolstering'    if `the opinion testimony has the same substantive import as if it squarely addressed and bolstered another witness's credibility.' Id. (quoting State v. Miller, 679 A.2d 867, 872 (R.I. 1996)). In the event that we do deem certain testimony to be impermissible bolstering, we then must determine whether the admission of the testimony constituted prejudicial error with respect to the defendant. Id. The defendant, in support of his argument that Det. Melaragno's testimony constituted impermissible bolstering, again cites to Nicoletti. In Nicoletti, 471 A.2d at 614, the jury found the defendant guilty of having committed robbery and burglary with two other men. A police officer testified at the defendant's trial about the descriptions the complaining witnesses gave of the intruders on the night of the crime. Id. at 617. He testified that the witnesses' original descriptions were fairly close. The only problem would be maybe [the witnesses] may have made [the intruders] a little too tall, but other than that, [the witnesses were] pretty much on the money. Id. We reasoned in Nicoletti that such testimony from the police officer concern[ed] his opinion of the description given by the complaining witnesses and was based on facts that the jurors could easily and independently have analyzed, after which they could have drawn their own conclusions. Id. We held in that case that the defendant was unduly prejudiced by the police officer's testimony because the sole issue    was one of identification. Id. Detective Melaragno's testimony differs from the police officer's testimony in Nicoletti in that, here, Det. Melaragno was not commenting on the accuracy of Ms. Lovett's or Ms. Matthews's identifications of the defendant, but rather on his own assessment of the defendant relative to the police-radio dispatches he received of his description. This vital distinction militates against a finding of bolstering because, rather than giving his opinion on the ability of another witness to describe the defendant accurately, he was asked to compare independently the physical description given in the dispatches with the actual appearance of the defendant, a task that is common to his responsibilities as a police officer. Accordingly, we hold that Det. Melaragno's testimony did not constitute impermissible bolstering.