Opinion ID: 2721747
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: Identifying the Applicable Rules of Evidence Maryland Rule 5-802 provides generally that “[e]xcept as otherwise provided by these rules or permitted by applicable constitutional provisions or statutes, hearsay is not admissible.” (emphasis added.) For our purposes, the key phrase is the introductory clause 16 that allows the introduction of hearsay pursuant to other rules of evidence. The prosecutor, and to some extent the trial court, focused on Rule 5-802.1, which permits some hearsay statements to be admitted for substantive purposes. Both were correct in their assessment that Deputy Faby’s police report was not admissible under that rule.6 But Rule 5-802.1 is not the only rule that allows for introduction of a prior inconsistent statement into evidence. As Mr. Brooks’ counsel argued, Rules 5-616 and 5-613 independently allow for the introduction of evidence of prior inconsistent statements for the purpose of impeachment. Before us, both the State and Mr. Brooks agree that the decision whether to admit Deputy Faby’s report turned on the proper application of those rules. 6 In its opinion in this case, the Court of Special Appeals concisely and correctly analyzed the issue of admissibility under that rule: ... Maryland Rule 5-802.1 provides for the admission of: “A statement that is inconsistent with the declarant’s testimony, if the statement was (1) given under oath ...; (2) reduced to writing and was signed by the declarant; or (3) recorded in substantially verbatim fashion by stenographic or electronic means contemporaneously with the making of the statement.” Rule 5- 802.1(a). Here, Deputy Faby’s report ... was not a statement given by Laura B. under oath, was not adopted or signed by Laura B., and was not recorded contemporaneously with the making of the statement. The report, therefore, was not admissible as substantive evidence under rule 5-802.1. 17 Application of Rules 5-613 and 5-616 Rule 5-616 permits extrinsic evidence of a prior inconsistent statement to be used for the purpose of impeachment, in accordance with Rule 5-613(b).7 In this case, the prior allegedly inconsistent statement is an oral statement by Laura B. that was summarized in the police report of Deputy Faby. There were potentially two forms of extrinsic evidence available to defense counsel with respect to that oral statement that might be introduced to impeach Laura B.’s testimony on direct examination: (1) testimony by Deputy Faby about what Laura B. told him during the interview, and (2) Deputy Faby’s written report summarizing that interview. Defense counsel chose to attempt to introduce only the latter form of extrinsic evidence. The threshold question is whether introduction of Deputy Faby’s written report would satisfy the requirements of Rule 5-613. That rule reads as follows: 7 Rule 5-616 provides, in pertinent part: Rule 5-616. Impeachment and rehabilitation – Generally. (a) Impeachment by inquiry of the witness. The credibility of a witness may be attacked through questions asked of the witness, including questions that are directed at: (1) Proving under Rule 5-613 that the witness has made statements that are inconsistent with the witness’s present testimony; ... (b) Extrinsic impeaching evidence. Extrinsic evidence of prior inconsistent statements may be admitted as provided in Rule 5-613(b). ... 18 Rule 5-613. Prior statements of witnesses. (a) Examining witness concerning prior statement. A party examining a witness about a prior written or oral statement made by the witness need not show it to the witness or disclose its contents at that time, provided that at the end of the examination (1) the statement, if written, is disclosed to the witness and the parties, or if the statement is oral, the contents of the statement and the circumstances under which it was made, including the persons to whom it was made, are disclosed to the witness and (2) the witness is given an opportunity to explain or deny it. (b) Extrinsic evidence of prior inconsistent statement of witness. Unless the interests of justice otherwise require, extrinsic evidence of a prior inconsistent statement by a witness is not admissible under this Rule (1) until the requirements of section (a) have been met and the witness has failed to admit having made the statement and (2) unless the statement concerns a non-collateral matter. Parsing this rule to determine the basic conditions that must be satisfied in order for a party to offer extrinsic evidence of a prior allegedly inconsistent oral statement of a witness, we derive the following checklist: 1. The content of the statement and the circumstances under which it was made, including the person(s) to whom it was made, must be disclosed to the witness who is being impeached before the end of that witness’s examination. Rule 5-613(a)(1), (b)(1). Here, defense counsel asked Laura B. about the allegedly inconsistent oral statement during his cross-examination of her, disclosing both the circumstances of the statement (her interview with Deputy Faby), and the person to whom it was made (Deputy Faby). This requirement of the rule was satisfied. 19 2. The witness to be impeached must be given an opportunity to explain or deny the allegedly inconsistent statement. Rule 5-613(a)(2), (b)(1). During the cross-examination of Laura B., she was given the opportunity to explain or deny the statement. She denied that she told Deputy Faby that she “had” Mr. Brooks over to her house at 7:30 p.m. that evening. This requirement of the rule was satisfied. 3. The witness must have “failed to admit having made the statement.” Rule 5- 613(b)(1). During cross-examination, Laura B. denied having made the allegedly inconsistent portion of the statement. This requirement of the rule was satisfied. 4. The statement must concern “a non-collateral matter” – in other words, the content of the statement must not be “collateral” to the issues at trial. Rule 5-613(b)(2). The defense contended that the sexual encounter between Mr. Brooks and Laura B. was consensual and not a rape. The alleged inconsistency in the prior oral statement summarized in Deputy Faby’s report concerned whether Mr. Brooks was in Laura B.’s house that evening at her invitation and not as an intruder, as she had testified. Although the alleged prior oral statement was not directly inconsistent with the allegation of rape, it was not collateral to the issues at trial. This requirement of the rule was satisfied. Thus, the foundational requirements under Rule 5-613(b) for the introduction of extrinsic evidence of the prior allegedly inconsistent statement of Laura B. were met. But there remains the question of the appropriate form of that extrinsic evidence. 20 Form of Extrinsic Evidence under Maryland Common Law Had defense counsel offered Deputy Faby’s testimony as extrinsic evidence of Laura B.’s prior allegedly inconsistent statement, our analysis would be brief. Deputy Faby’s testimony would have been admissible under Rule 5-613(b). See, e.g., Hardison v. State, 118 Md. App. 225, 702 A.2d 444 (1997) (officer’s testimony regarding an eyewitness’s statement to him was admissible as extrinsic evidence of the witness’s prior inconsistent statement). Instead of eliciting the statement as part of Deputy Faby’s testimony, however, the defense elected to offer the police report as extrinsic evidence of Laura B.’s prior allegedly inconsistent oral statement.8 Prior to the adoption of the Maryland Rules of Evidence, it was well established that a witness could be impeached by extrinsic written evidence of a prior allegedly inconsistent oral statement if the written evidence was a verbatim transcription of the witness’s oral statement or if the witness had adopted or approved the written version. This principle was discussed in two 1990 cases involving discovery of police interview notes or reports for the purpose of impeachment of prosecution witnesses. See Collins v. State, 318 Md. 269, 289, 8 As a matter of trial tactics, this choice is perfectly understandable. The written version of the statement was already known and, although it did not completely support the defense version of events, was at least compatible with part of the defense. Attempting to prove the prior oral statement through cross-examination of Deputy Faby would be subject to the usual vagaries of live testimony, including the potential qualification or interpretation by Deputy Faby of the written version in a way that might turn out to be completely incompatible with the defense theory. 21 568 A.2d 1, cert. denied, 497 U.S. 1032 (1990); Bruce v. State, 318 Md. 706, 569 A.2d 1254 (1990), appeal after remand, 328 Md. 594, 616 A.2d 392, cert. denied, 508 U.S. 963 (1993). In Collins, the defendant, who was convicted of murder in a jury trial, argued that the trial court had erred in ruling that the defense was not entitled to obtain written notes of a statement made by a State witness and recorded by a detective, prior to the cross-examination of the witness. This Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling that the witness’s statement “paraphrased in the police report” was not discoverable, stating, “[The witness] neither signed, adopted [n]or approved of the facts contained in the summary. The detective drafted the report subsequent to the actual interview…. If the witness has not expressly approved of the statements, it would be unfair for the evidence to be used for impeachment purposes.” 318 Md. at 289. In Bruce, this Court addressed a similar discovery issue, and held that “it is obvious that a witness could not be impeached with the police officer’s notes which were never adopted by or approved by the witness.” 318 Md. at 725. Although the type of police report at issue in Collins and Bruce is now discoverable under the amended Rule 4-263,9 the Court’s discussion of the admissibility of police reports for the purpose of impeaching a witness in those cases remains applicable to our analysis. While both Collins and Bruce were decided prior to the adoption of Title 5 of the Maryland 9 Rule 4-263 governs discovery in criminal cases in the circuit courts. Rule 4-263(d) requires the State’s Attorney to disclose “[a]ll written and all oral statements of the defendant” as well as “all written statements of the witness that relate to the offense charged.” The definition of “written statement” that was adopted in 2008 includes “a statement in a police or investigative report.” Maryland Rule 4-263(b)(6)(C). 22 Rules, we take into account common law principles on the same subject matter when interpreting the rules of evidence set forth in Title 5. “[A]bsent a clear indication to the contrary, we shall assume that the [new] rule [of evidence] ‘was not intended to amend, nullify, or supersede the common law.’” Holmes v. State, 350 Md. 412, 422, 712 A.2d 554 (1998) (citation omitted). The Court of Special Appeals’ opinion in Hardison further supports the application of the common law principle that a written summary of a witness’s statement must be adopted or ratified by the witness – at some point, although not necessarily at trial – in order for the written version to be admitted into evidence for the purpose of impeaching the witness. In Hardison, a defendant was on trial for assault with intent to murder. The State’s theory was that the defendant had deliberately shot the victim while the defense theory was that the shot had been fired accidentally while the victim and the defendant were struggling to gain control over the gun. An eyewitness to the altercation testified at trial that the defendant had pulled out a gun and shot the victim. Defense counsel attempted to impeach the witness by asking him whether he had told a police officer that the shot accidentally went off during a struggle between the defendant and the victim; the witness denied making the statement. The State called the police officer who had conducted the interview with the eyewitness and had incorporated the witness’s statement into his police report. On crossexamination, in an effort to impeach the witness, defense counsel asked the officer whether the witness had told him that the defendant and the victim were “wrestling when the two 23 shots were fired.” 118 Md. App. at 233. The State objected to the question, and the trial court sustained the objection on the basis that the officer’s answer to the question would be hearsay. At issue on appeal in Hardison was the admissibility of the officer’s testimony regarding what the witness had told him. The Court of Special Appeals held that “[t]he fact that [the witness] did not read, approve, or adopt [the officer’s] written report did not insulate him from being impeached with his own oral statement,” and concluded that, under Rule 5- 613(b), the officer’s testimony as to what the witness told him during the interview was admissible as a prior inconsistent statement for the purpose of impeaching the witness. 118 Md. App. at 241. While the court did not rule on the admissibility of the officer’s written report – the type of extrinsic evidence at issue in this case – the court analyzed the admissibility of such a report: “When a person other than the witness reduces the witness’s spoken words to writing, and the witness ratifies the writing by signing, adopting, or approving it , the writing will be treated as it if had been prepared by the witness himself.... Thus, if [the witness] had ratified [the officer’s] report, it could have been treated as if it had been written by [the witness] and used to impeach him, under Rule 5-613.” 118 Md. App. at 241. Notably, the court cited Collins and Bruce in its analysis. While neither Collins, Bruce nor Hardison offer dispositive authority on the issue in the present case, they strongly suggest that if a written version of a witness’s oral statement is not substantially verbatim, it must have been either 24 adopted or approved by the witness at some time in order to be admitted into evidence for the purpose of impeaching the witness. Case Law under Federal Rule 613 and Analogous Rules Maryland Rule 5-613 is based on Federal Rule of Evidence 613. See A. D. Hornstein, The New Maryland Rules of Evidence: Survey, Analysis and Critique, 54 Md. L. Rev. 1032, 1033 (1995).10 Federal cases applying Rule 613 can be instructive, as can cases from other jurisdictions that have adopted analogous rules.11 In applying the analogous federal rule, federal courts have held that a witness may be impeached with written extrinsic evidence of a prior inconsistent oral statement only if the written evidence is a substantially verbatim version of the oral statement or if the witness 10 In creating Title 5 of the Maryland Rules of Practice and Procedure in 1994 and adopting Maryland Rules of Evidence, the drafters used the Federal Rules of Evidence as a starting point. Hornstein, supra, at 1033. The rules ultimately adopted in Title 5 “differ in a few significant ways from the Federal Rules of Evidence. The differences, however, are less matters of substance than clarifications of what had been intended, though not as artfully expressed, in the Federal Rules.” Id. Professor Hornstein, who was the Special Co-Reporter and Special Consultant to Evidence Subcommittee of the Rules Committee, explained that: “Because so many jurisdictions have adopted evidence rules modeled on the Federal Rules, the body of law available on evidentiary questions that share the federal format has expanded substantially the base of wisdom and experience in evidentiary matters…. Although no jurisdiction is bound by the decisions of others and each jurisdiction may have departed from the precise language of the Federal Rules, the value of such a large body of persuasive authority is impressive.” Id. at 1034. 11 The Maryland rule differs from the federal rule in one respect – under the Maryland rule, the witness to be impeached must be given an opportunity to address the allegedly inconsistent statement. See Hornstein, supra, at 1055 (“Unlike the Federal Rule, under the Maryland Rule extrinsic evidence of the prior inconsistent statement is not admissible until this requirement has been met and the witness has denied the statement”). That requirement is not at issue in this case. 25 previously adopted or ratified the written version. For example, in United States v. Almonte, 956 F.2d 27 (2d Cir. 1992), a defendant was on trial for conspiring to distribute heroin. Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) agents testified that they had questioned the defendant and the co-defendant separately, and that each had given self-incriminating responses. 956 F.2d at 28. The defendant sought to discredit the agents’ testimony about these admissions by introducing notes that an Assistant United States Attorney had made during a debriefing of one of the agents. In the notes at issue, the Assistant United States Attorney recorded one of the DEA agents’ recollection of the defendant’s admission. Specifically, he wrote: [CO-DEFENDANT]- I organized it. I put money together. ½ unit for 50,000 grand. Almonte works for me… [DEFENDANT]- Yeah, that’s right. Id. at 29. Defense counsel argued that the notes, including the notation “Yeah, that’s right,” were a verbatim record of what the defendant told the agent, and that they could therefore be used to impeach the agent’s testimony at trial that the defendant was questioned separately from the co-defendant. The government opposed the introduction of the notes. Outside the presence of the jury, the Assistant United States Attorney testified that the notes were not a verbatim transcript, but rather a shorthand summary of the DEA agent’s statements, and that he wrote the words “yeah, that’s right” as a “shorthand way for [him] to remember that the substance of [the defendant’s] statement was the same as [the co-defendant’s] statement.” Id. The trial court declined to admit the notes as a prior inconsistent statement to impeach the DEA agent. 26 On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed the trial court’s ruling, holding that a “‘third party’s characterization’ of a witness’s statement” does not constitute a prior statement of that witness unless the witness has subscribed to that characterization or it is a verbatim transcript of the witness’s own words. Id. at 29. The court explained the rationale for the rule: “The problem, in essence, is one of relevancy. If a third party’s notes reflect only that note-taker’s summary characterization of a witness’s prior statement, then the notes are irrelevant as an impeaching prior inconsistent statement, and thus inadmissible.” Id. The Eleventh Circuit reached a similar conclusion in United States v. Saget, 991 F.2d 702 (11th Cir.), cert denied, 510 U.S. 950 (1993). In that case, the defendant was on trial for conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine. Defense counsel attempted to impeach a government witness on cross-examination by reading from an FBI report that summarized the witness’s prior allegedly inconsistent oral statement. The trial court refused to allow defense counsel to impeach in that manner, although it did permit the defense to question the agent who had conducted the interview later in the trial concerning the allegedly inconsistent statements. 991 F.2d at 710. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit considered whether a witness could be impeached pursuant to Rule 613 by an attorney reading from an FBI report. 991 F.2d at 710. In affirming the trial court’s application of Rule 613, it relied on the same rationale as our common law evidentiary decisions in Bruce and Collins: “Under the Jencks Act, nonverbatim summaries of a witness’s prior oral statements are excluded from mandatory 27 production because it would be grossly unfair to allow the defense to use statements to impeach a witness which could not fairly be said to be the witness’s own rather than the product of the investigator’s selections, interpretations and interpolations.... For the same reasons, we conclude that a witness may not be impeached with a third party’s characterization or interpretation of a prior oral statement unless the witness has subscribed to or otherwise adopted the statement as his own.” 991 F.2d at 710. Relying on Almonte and Saget, courts have held that a written report summarizing a witness’s prior inconsistent oral statement cannot be admitted into evidence to impeach the witness if the report is not substantially verbatim or has not been approved of or adopted by the witness as accurate. See, e.g., United States v. De La Cruz Suarez, 601 F.3d 1202, 1216 (11th Cir. 2010) (affirming the trial court’s decision not to admit an FBI summary of a witness’s interview on the basis that a witness may not be impeached by a non-verbatim version of a prior oral statement unless it can be fairly said that the version is the witness’s own statement); State v. Graham, 764 N.W.2d 340, 352 (Minn. 2009) (“[I]f the witness has not adopted the statement attributed to him as his own, counsel may not offer extrinsic evidence in the form of reading verbatim from a third-party summary to impeach the witness”); cf. United States v. Barile, 286 F.3d 749, 757-58 (4th Cir. 2002) (holding that FDA documents containing a witness’s prior inconsistent statement may be admitted to impeach a witness but only after the court determines that the witness “has adopted the statements or whether they can be otherwise attributed to her”); United States v. Strother, 49 28 F.3d 869, 875 (2d Cir. 1995) (holding that a memorandum containing a witness’s prior inconsistent statement was admissible to impeach the witness even though the witness did not draft the memorandum herself because the witness “signed it and confirmed that she had discussed the memorandum” and noting that “a third party’s characterization of a witness’s statement can constitute a prior statement of the witness where the witness has ‘subscribed to that characterization.’”).12 At least one state court has adopted a rule to that effect. See Ohio Criminal Rule 16(B)(6) (requiring that prosecution provide defendant with reports by law enforcement officers with the proviso that “a document prepared by a person other than the witness testifying will not be considered to be the witness’s prior statement for purposes of cross-examination of that particular witness ... unless explicitly adopted by the witness”). We have found two contrary decisions by courts in other states construing rules similar to Rule 5-613. In State v. Reid, 164 S.W.3d 296 (Tenn. 2005), the Supreme Court of Tennessee considered whether a trial court had properly excluded the written summaries 12 Similarly, many courts have prohibited counsel from impeaching a witness by reading from a report summarizing or paraphrasing the witness’s prior inconsistent statement. See, e.g., United States v. Adames, 56 F.3d 737, 744-45 (7th Cir. 1995) (trial court properly refused to allow counsel to impeach a witness by reading from an agent’s report summarizing the witness’s prior inconsistent statement because the witness “testified he did not adopt the statement, did not write and could not say that what was in it was everything he had told the agents”); State v. Linder, 2002 WL 31123855 at  (Oh. Ct. App. 2002) (“A summary of a witness’s oral conversation becomes a witness’s statement only if she has reviewed and signed, or otherwise adopted it, or if it is a nearly verbatim account as opposed to being merely the investigator’s own selections ....”); People v. Hood, 593 N.E.2d 805, 812 (Il. Ct. App. 1992) (“A witness cannot be impeached by a statement that is not in her own words or substantially verbatim”). 29 of a police officer as extrinsic evidence for impeachment of two witnesses under Tennessee Rule of Evidence 613, which, like Rule 5-613, is based on the like-numbered Federal Rule of Evidence. In that case, the defendant was convicted of, among other things, the murder and aggravated robbery of two ice cream store employees. At trial, one witness testified that she saw a car similar to the defendant’s car near the store, and another witness testified that he saw a car similar to the defendant’s car near the park where the bodies of the employees were found. Defense counsel sought to impeach the witnesses’ testimony by calling the officer who interviewed them and sought to introduce into evidence the police reports summarizing his interviews with the witnesses. The trial court denied defense counsel’s motion to admit the reports. On appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that the trial court erred in excluding the summaries. It held that “the ‘only requirement’ for the use of extrinsic evidence is that the witness must be ‘afforded an opportunity to explain or deny.’ The extrinsic evidence may be the written or recorded content of the prior statement itself or the testimony of another witness as to the content of the prior written or oral statement.” 164 S.W. 3d at 313-14.13 The court noted that Tennessee Rule 613 “does not expressly limit the impeaching party to 13 The court in Reid quoted and relied on commentary provided by the Advisory Commission on the Tennessee rules that the rule stated the “only requirement” for the use of extrinsic evidence for impeachment of a witness with a prior inconsistent statement. 164 S.W.3d at 313-14. Neither the federal rule nor our rule was accompanied by similar commentary. 30 one form of extrinsic evidence, nor does it require an impeaching party to choose between two available forms of extrinsic evidence.” Id. at 314. Similarly, in State v. Arrington, 738 So.2d 1087 (La. Ct. App. 1999), the intermediate appellate court in Louisiana held that a police report summarizing an officer’s interview with the victim’s daughter was admissible as extrinsic evidence of a prior oral statement of the daughter inconsistent with her trial testimony. In that case, the defendant was on trial for aggravated battery of his wife. His daughter testified that the defendant was armed with a knife, which he used to stab his wife. After the daughter testified, defense counsel sought to have the jury review a police report stating that the daughter had indicated that the defendant was armed with a screwdriver. The court held that because the foundation requirement had been met, the trial court should have admitted the report into evidence. Id. at 1093.