Opinion ID: 2265095
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The refusal to admit certain police reports

Text: Phillip Scott maintains that the trial court erred in refusing to admit into evidence several police reports that contained descriptions of his appearance and clothing on the night of the robbery. He asserts that these documents were prior inconsistent statements by Beall and Boswell that were successfully used on cross-examination. We hold that the trial court committed no error because the police reports did not clearly impeach any government witness and because, in any event, the defense failed to lay a proper foundation for their admission. Scott contends, in particular, that the police reports contained information which contradicted testimony by both Beall and Boswell describing his clothing and skin tone. Beall testified that soon after the robbery Officer Minnie Holden interviewed all three victims, and that Beall described the male robber as being darker than the female robber, but not dark-skinned. Beall also said that she told Officer Holden that the male robber was wearing a black leather jacket with an embossed pattern and a black fur collar. Boswell testified that the description she gave to Officer Holden of the male robber's clothing included a black leather coat with a fur collar. Officer Holden later testified and was questioned about certain information on the police reports she had prepared, including a Form PD-251. Holden had written on the PD-251 that the male robber wore a black jacket and that he had a dark skin tone. On cross-examination, however, Holden said that she did not consider Phillip Scott to have dark skin. She described him as light skinned. Phillip Scott's counsel later requested that Officer Holden's reports (the PD-251 and other descriptions of the robbers) be admitted into evidence because they contained prior inconsistent statements impeaching the testimony of two government witnesses, Beall and Boswell. The trial court denied the request, however, on the ground that no impeachment had occurred. We affirm the court's exclusion of the proffered documents on two grounds. First, it is not at all clear that the information contained in Officer Holden's reports actually impeached the testimony of any government witness. See McClain v. United States, 460 A.2d 562, 568 (D.C. 1983) (trial court properly excluded a police report sought to be admitted for impeachment because the report was not necessarily inconsistent with the witness' testimony). The notation in the PD-251 that the male robber wore a black jacket did not contradict the testimony of Beall and Boswell that he wore a black leather jacket. As for the fur collar, Officer Holden testified, I don't recall hearing fur. Likewise, with respect to Scott's skin tone, Officer Holden testified that she would consider him light. Thus it was Officer Holden's testimony, not anything in the PD-251 (or any other report), that contradicted the testimony of Beall and Boswell about the fur collar. There being no impeaching material in the police reports, we find no error in their exclusion. Moreover, Scott did not lay the requisite foundation for the admission of materials used to impeach a witness. A party seeking admission of a witness' prior inconsistent statement must first confront that witness with the prior statement and give her an opportunity to explain it. McClain v. United States, supra, 460 A.2d at 568-569; United States v. Wright, 160 U.S.App.D.C. 57, 63, 489 F.2d 1181, 1187 (1973). Because Scott's counsel failed to confront either Beall or Boswell with the information contained in the police reports, we hold that she failed to lay a foundation for their admission. [8]