Opinion ID: 151405
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Witness Shanahan

Text: Caracappa called as a defense witness his former NYPD partner Detective Leslie Shanahan to testify to their official duties stretching into the day Lino was shot and killed, apparently to permit the jury to infer that Caracappa, who had gone off duty at approximately 11:30 that morning in Manhattan, could not have been one of the men who shot and killed Lino in Brooklyn at approximately 7:00 that evening. On cross-examination, the government asked Shanahan numerous questions as to police procedures, his knowledge of Caracappa's personal life, and various driving times and distances. Caracappa complains that no effort was made to confine the examination to the form appropriate for a direct examination. (Caracappa brief on appeal at 30.) While the cross-examination of Shanahan was somewhat more far-ranging than the direct examination, the trial court is `accorded broad discretion in controlling the scope and extent of cross-examination.' United States v. Wilkerson, 361 F.3d 717, 734 (2d Cir.) (quoting United States v. Fabian, 312 F.3d 550, 558 (2d Cir.2002)), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 908, 125 S.Ct. 225, 160 L.Ed.2d 185 (2004). Although [c]ross-examination should be limited to the subject matter of the direct examination and matters affecting the credibility of the witness, Fed.R.Evid. 611(b), [t]he court may, in the exercise of discretion, permit inquiry into additional matters as if on direct examination, id. It is, of course, unrealistic to expect that direct examination and cross-examination will be perfectly congruent .... The latter need only be reasonably related to the former, and matching the two requires the district court to make a series of judgment calls. Macaulay v. Anas, 321 F.3d 45, 53 (1st Cir.2003). Most of the questioning on cross-examination was reasonably related to the questions put to Shanahan on direct, and we cannot conclude that the leeway granted by the trial court overall was an abuse of discretion.