Opinion ID: 751125
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: impeachment by extrinsic evidence

Text: 17 In the government's cross-examination of DeSantis, the prosecution sought to impeach his version of why the bars' liquor licenses were revoked. In that effort, the prosecution marked as an exhibit a certified copy of an Ohio Court of Appeals decision affirming the findings of both the Court of Common Pleas and the Ohio Liquor Control Commission that DeSantis had never relinquished control over CBLP as he was required to do. After the defendant acknowledged that the liquor commission found his continuing involvement with CBLP required revocation of the bars' licenses, DeSantis was directed, over his attorney's objection, to read into evidence the text of the appellate decision affirming the commission's findings. DeSantis was not a party to any of these proceedings, but only a witness. The text of the court of appeals decision read by DeSantis included the following passage: 18 [T]hree volumes of transcript in the record and the various exhibits more than meet the requirement that the revocation orders be supported by reliable, substantial and probative evidence. The evidence shows that ... DeSantis never relinquished financial control over CBLP through his control of the primary checking account for CBLP. In April of 1990, he hired the office manager for CBLP and fired her one year later.... He called the various bars on a regular basis and frequently ordered the transfer of funds from the individual bar checking accounts into the primary CBLP checking account under his control. He participated in monthly meetings to assess the profitability of the various bars. After orchestrating a change of the general partner of CBLP to a person closly [sic] aligned to him.... He collected funds from individual bars and made offers of employment to various management personnel at the bars. He claimed to be the owner and operator of the bars to John Racanelli and offered to retain Mr. Racanelli as an operations manager in April of 1991 after the change of general partners in CBLP. 19 The district court ruled the above admissible for impeachment purposes, because the witness has equivocated about why [the liquor licenses] were revoked. In this vein, the prosecutor during his closing argument told the jury to consider 20 prior convictions when you make your judgment on credibility. Mr. DeSantis claimed distance from CBLP and the bars, litigated it with the Liquor Commission, court of common pleas, court of appeals. Those forums all found otherwise. 21 The prosecutor later repeated this argument in his rebuttal. 22 The evidence relating to the liquor-commission findings was clearly inadmissible. Fed.R.Evid. 608(b) provides: 23 Specific instances of the conduct of a witness, for the purpose of attacking or supporting the witness' credibility, ... may not be proved by extrinsic evidence. They may, however, in the discretion of the court, if probative of truthfulness or untruthfulness, be inquired into on cross-examination of the witness (1) concerning the witness' character for truthfulness or untruthfulness.... 24 (Emphasis added.) The prosecution sought to impeach DeSantis's testimony that he had ceded control of CBLP to Hobbs by proving that he had not. In that effort, DeSantis was required to read into evidence the findings of specific instances in which he exercised control over the CBLP bars. Although the prosecutor could probably have asked the defendant if the Ohio courts had rejected his claim that he did not control operation of the bars, the prosecutor would have been required to take the witness' answer, and could not prove that DeSantis, in fact, ran the bars himself by introducing extrinsic evidence. See 1 M CCORMICK ON E VIDENCE § 49 (John William Strong, ed., 4th ed.1992). 25 The cases cited in the government's brief on this point are inapposite. In United States v. Hurst, 951 F.2d 1490, 1500-01 (6th Cir.1991), the prosecution was allowed to question a defendant regarding the particulars of his prior conviction for obstruction of justice. However, no extrinsic evidence was introduced to prove these facts. Similarly, in United States v. Fulk, 816 F.2d 1202, 1204 (7th Cir.1987), no extrinsic evidence regarding the revocation of the defendant's chiropractic license was allowed, and in fact the trial court sustained an objection to the prosecutor's attempt to impeach the defendant by asking him about the revocation. Although the Seventh Circuit opined that questions regarding the revocation were proper, nowhere does the court indicate that the prosecution could have introduced the lower court's judgment or its findings of fact. Id. at 1206. 26 Here, the actual transcript of the appellate proceedings was not introduced against DeSantis; however, this is irrelevant. The factual findings of a prior adjudication are no less extrinsic, and therefore no less inadmissible, merely because the defendant is required to read them. The prosecutor could have asked DeSantis about the liquor-commission proceedings, but he would be stuck with the answer given by the defendant. See United States v. Frost, 914 F.2d 756, 767 (6th Cir.1990). 27 Although my brothers agree that compelling DeSantis to read from the Court of Appeals opinion was error, they indicate in their concurrence that they would rather rely on Fed.R.Evid. 403 for this holding. However, it seems that the specific provision of Rule 608(b), which directly addresses the point at issue here, is preferable to the more general weighing test of Rule 403. True, the evidence had no probative value for anything other than impeaching DeSantis's version of CBLP's collapse. That is, whether DeSantis did or did not cede control to Hobbs is irrelevant in determining the material issue in the case--whether he intended to mislead investors by representing that Durbin would receive a 10% commission. And, as indicated above, the district court admitted the evidence for the explicit purpose of impeaching the defendant. 28 I concede that the impeachment value of the evidence may have been substantially outweighed by the danger that the jury would place undue confidence in this judicial finding. However, the fact that the relevance of the evidence of specific instances in which DeSantis appears to have been running the bar business was limited to its tendency to impeach his testimony that he had not is precisely the reason it should have been excluded as extrinsic evidence under Rule 608(b). In other words, the only rational purpose for admitting the text of the Court of Appeals opinion was to prove, for the purpose of attacking ... the witness' credibility, specific instances of the conduct of a witness; namely, the instances in which DeSantis continued to control the bars after purportedly giving up control. 29 Consequently, under either Rule 403 or 608(b), it was error to require DeSantis to read the passage from the appellate-court opinion.