Opinion ID: 2461900
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Testimony of Gene Ferrin.

Text: [¶ 13] At the time of the murder, Gene Ferrin was an investigator for the Teton County Sheriff's Office. During the trial, Ferrin testified that he responded to a call to the murder scene in Sublette County, not as an investigator, but as an ambulance attendant. Several days later, however, he learned of an anonymous Crime Stoppers call that had come into the Teton County Sheriff's Office, identifying the appellant as the murderer. Ferrin forwarded that information on to the Wyoming Division of Criminal investigation, the agency in charge of the murder investigation. [¶ 14] Some months later, Ferrin happened to be interviewing T.B. during the investigation of an unrelated crime. Knowing T.B. to be an associate of the appellant, Ferrin asked T.B. if he had made the anonymous telephone call. At trial, Ferrin testified that T.B. responded with that deer in the headlight look[], turned very white, and refused to talk about the call. Defense counsel did not object to this line of questioning. After several other witnesses had testified, however, and the court was about to recess for the day, defense counsel made the following comments during a generalized complaint about the prosecutor's conduct throughout the trial: Furthermore, Officer Ferrin, we had nothing in discovery about that telephone call, nothing whatsoever. There was no indication on the witness list of what he was testifying that he would be testifying to that. It was a major part of this trial. I don't know if I would call it a direct violation of discovery rules, it certainly violates the spirit of this. We're not doing trial by ambush. [¶ 15] Neither party has suggested that the absence of a contemporaneous objection takes this inquiry outside the abuse of discretion standard, presumably because the question is presented as part of the appeal of the denial of the new trial motion. With that in mind, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion based upon this issue. Even if defense counsel was unaware before trial that Ferrin had asked T.B. about the telephone call, we cannot conclude that such affected the outcome of the trial. Information relating to the Crime Stoppers call was contained in another officer's report, which report was received by defense counsel and was used to cross-examine T.B. In his opening statement, defense counsel noted that T.B. claimed to have made the anonymous call. Furthermore, defense counsel cross-examined the former Teton County Sheriff regarding the Sheriff's memory that his office received numerous anonymous calls about the murder, but he did not recall one coming in only a few days after the murder. And finally, during the cross-examination of Ferrin, defense counsel produced a transcript of a recorded 1985 anonymous telephone call received by the Teton County Sheriff's Office, apparently in an attempt to prove that, had the alleged T.B. call been made, it would have been recorded and a transcript would exist. Ferrin testified that some incoming lines were recorded, but the Crime Stoppers line was not. In short, defense counsel knew about the alleged anonymous telephone call, knew that it was allegedly placed by T.B., and knew that it implicated the appellant. In that context, the fact that defense counsel may not have known that Ferrin asked T.B. about the call did not affect the outcome of the case.