Opinion ID: 2623588
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Impeachment by extrinsic evidence

Text: Lobato argues that the district court erroneously excluded extrinsic evidence rebutting Martin's denial that she sought to perpetrate a fraud upon her own sentencing court. More particularly, she asserts that the letters, the expert handwriting opinions and Brenda Self's testimony, although extrinsic, were admissible on the question of Martin's credibility. We agree and reverse Lobato's conviction and remand for a new trial. There are nine basic modes of impeachment. The first four involve attacks upon the competence of a witness to testify, i.e., attacks based upon defects of perception, memory, communication and ability to understand the oath to testify truthfully. The second four modes of impeachment involve the use of evidence of prior convictions, [8] prior inconsistent statements, specific incidents of conduct and ulterior motives for testifying. The ninth mode of impeachment, not pertinent to this appeal, permits attack upon a witness's reputation for truthfulness and necessarily involves the use of extrinsic evidence. Impeachment by use of extrinsic evidence is prohibited when collateral to the proceedings. Collateral facts are by nature outside the controversy, or are not directly connected with the principal matter or issue in dispute. [9] The collateral fact rule, however, has only limited application. For example, extrinsic evidence that is relevant to any of the first four modes of impeachment is never collateral and thus is always admissible for impeachment purposes. [10] Also, use of prior felony convictions and reputation evidence do not implicate the prohibition against collateral extrinsic evidence. And extrinsic evidence relevant to prove a witness's motive to testify in a certain way, i.e., bias, interest, corruption or prejudice, is never collateral to the controversy and not subject to the limitations contained in NRS 50.085(3). [11] However, use of specific instances of conducti.e., an untruthful act not resulting in a convictionand use of prior inconsistent statements, raise issues under the so-called collateral-fact rule when coupled with a specific contradiction. Thus, only two modes of impeachment truly implicate the collateral-fact rule. Accordingly, extrinsic proof of a prior inconsistent statement is inadmissible unless the statement is material to the case at hand. [12] And NRS 50.085(3) limits the admissibility of extrinsic evidence for the purpose of attacking credibility based upon specific instances of conduct attributable to the witness. Unless in some way related to the case and admissible on other grounds, extrinsic prior bad act evidence is always collateral and therefore inadmissible to attack credibility. The State correctly concedes in its arguments before this court that cross-examination of Martin as to whether she wrote the fraudulent letters would have been proper. However, it also correctly argues that the letters, the expert opinions and Self's proposed testimony contradicting Martin's denial of authorship were all inadmissible under NRS 50.085(3) as extrinsic evidence of specific instances of untruthfulness; here, her attempts at subornation of perjury in her separate criminal case. [13] Certainly, evidence proving that Martin had attempted to induce another person to lie for her was immaterial in and of itself to the question of whether Lobato committed homicide. We conclude, however, that evidence disproving Martin's denial that she wrote the letters was admissible for another purpose, to wit: to prove Martin's motive, i.e., interest, for testifying for the State. Although district courts have wide discretion to control cross-examination that attacks a witness's general credibility, a trial court's discretion is . . . narrow[ed] where bias [motive] is the object to be shown, and an examiner must be permitted to elicit any facts which might color a witness's testimony. [14] Generally, [t]he only proper restriction should be those inquiries which are repetitive, irrelevant, vague, speculative, or designed merely to harass, annoy or humiliate the witness. [15] The proffered letters and extrinsic evidence relating to them confirmed Martin's desperation to obtain an early release from incarceration and her willingness to adopt a fraudulent course of action to achieve that goal. As Martin testified before the jury, she would have done whatever it took to get out of jail in July and August 2001. While the jury heard evidence regarding Martin's other unsuccessful attempts to gain her own release from custody, the extrinsic evidence from the experts and Brenda Self would have supported a very important inference that Martin's cooperation was simply part of a continuum of deceptions taken to secure her freedom. We conclude that the extrinsic evidence concerning the letters demonstrated her strong interest in assisting the State in Lobato's trial. Thus, the extrinsic evidence in this case was admissible because it was relevant to a mode of impeachment that does not implicate the collateral-fact rulemotivation to give false testimony. We therefore hold that the district court erred by not permitting Lobato to introduce extrinsic evidence to impeach Martin on the issue of her motive to testify. [16] Having held that there was error in the record, we must consider whether that error was harmless. NRS 178.598 directs that any error that does not affect a defendant's substantial rights shall be disregarded. The exclusion of a witness' testimony is prejudicial if there is a reasonable probability that the witness' testimony would have affected the outcome of the trial. [17] A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. [18] Lobato validly characterizes Martin as the State's star witness. The physical evidence, multiple trauma and the evident use of multiple weapons circumstantially supported a number of theories of criminal culpability, i.e., manslaughter, second-degree murder and first-degree murder. But Lobato's purported admissions to Martin suggested that she was not motivated by a need to defend herself against a sexual assault by the victim, that she had conjured up a false defense to the homicide, and that her actions were simply overkill. Martin certainly provided evidence of Lobato's motivations connected to an illicit drug transaction involving a person with whom she was acquainted, that Lobato was the initial aggressor, and contradicted Lobato's statements that an unknown assailant precipitated the attack. In short, Martin's testimony powerfully underscored the State's circumstantially supported theories of malice and premeditation and substantially undermined Lobato's alternate claims of self-defense and lesser culpability. [19] Because of the equivocal and circumstantial nature of the other evidence supporting the State's allegations of first-degree murder, we cannot conclude that the district court's error was harmless. We therefore conclude that the exclusion of evidence of Martin's interest in assisting the State constitutes reversible error. In this we wish to stress that in any criminal case, where issues of guilt are close, the testimony of a jailhouse informant should be regarded with particular scrutiny.