Opinion ID: 1494221
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: Admission of Adultery Evidence During Impeachment

Text: Capano contends that the trial court permitted the State to impeach defense witnesses' testimony with evidence of marital infidelity but did not permit the defense to impeach the testimony of a prosecution witness with evidence of infidelity. For example, Capano argues that the trial court did not permit the defense to cross-examine a prosecution witness about his extramarital affairs as a means to undermine an inference that Capano arranged for the witness to sleep with Deborah MacIntyre. [405] In contrast, the court permitted the defense to cross-examine Gerry Capano about his extramarital affairs to undermine his credibility, [406] and the court permitted the State to cross-examine Tom Capano about incidents involving marital infidelity to rebut Tom's assertion that he was discreet. [407] Decisions on admissibility are reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard. [408] Capano's argument that the trial court ruled inconsistently on these issues fails for two reasons. First, the trial court did not prevent defense counsel from questioning State's witness Keith Brady about extramarital affairs. To the contrary, the court permitted defense counsel to ask Brady whether or not you have been involved in other adulterous relationships and how many in order to impeach Brady's credibility. [409] The court did, however, limit the extent to which the defense could describe the details of these affairs because such details were not relevant to Brady's credibility. [410] Second, although the court limited the cross-examination of Brady by prohibiting the disclosure of the details of his extramarital affairs, this limitation does not conflict with the court's later ruling that the State could cross-examine Capano concerning specific instances of marital infidelity. Applying D.R.E. 404(a)(1), the trial court permitted the State to discuss particular sexual encounters to impeach Capano's direct examination testimony that he was discreet in conducting his extramarital affairs. [411] In exercising his discretion, the trial judge could properly conclude that the impeachment of the credibility of a witness by reference to extramarital affairs does not require disclosure of the details of those affairs, whereas the impeachment of Capano's specific assertion that he was discreet does require the limited disclosure of such details. We therefore conclude that the trial court neither erred nor ruled inconsistently on these issues.