Opinion ID: 2343191
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: allegedly improper cross-examination (# 36)

Text: Appellant argues that the Commonwealth's cross-examination of three (3) defense witnesses  Dr. Ondrovik, Ernest Smith, and Appellant, himself  contained improper questioning. We find no reversible error. During Appellant's trial counsel's direct examination of Dr. Ondrovik, she testified about the testing she conducted upon Reese in connection with her psychological evaluation of him. On cross-examination, the Commonwealth asked Dr. Ondrovik to identify four (4) questions on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) test, a five hundred and fifty (550) question examination, that she had administered to Reese  e.g. , I wake up fresh and rested most mornings; I wish I could be as happy as others seem to be; I believe I am being plotted against; and I hear strange things when I am alone. During its culpability phase closing argument, the Commonwealth referenced these questions and argued that Dr. Ondrovik's diagnosis was based on some true/false questions which had limited utility for a person in custody. Appellant argues that this questioning and argument was irrelevant, misleading, and highly prejudicial. We disagree. Although the Commonwealth likely focused upon the questions that were least relevant to an incarcerated inmate in order to raise questions about the reliability of the results of Dr. Ondrovik's examination, the Commonwealth's questioning was permissible cross-examination, and Appellant's complaints address themselves only to the weight that should be given to this questioning, not whether the questions themselves were permissible. After uncovering a somewhat minor factual discrepancy between Dr. Ondrovik's trial testimony and the report she had previously prepared as to Reese's competency, the Commonwealth asked her a sarcastic, we all sometimes have memory losses, don't we? question that was clearly not the pinnacle of professionalism. The trial judge is, however, in a much better position to moderate the give-and-take of counsel and witnesses during a trial, and it does not appear from the record that Appellant was prejudiced by the Commonwealth's question. Earnest Smith, a inmate at the Oklahoma State Prison who had formerly worked as a law library clerk, testified that Reese had sought his assistance in obtaining some legal research about accomplice testimony, mentioned that he had killed a man in Kentucky for his pickup, and gave Smith the impression that Appellant and Reese had parted ways pretty soon afterwards after the escape. Appellant argues that the Commonwealth injected a false issue into the case when it asked a series of questions of Smith that implied that Smith may have been intimidated to testify falsely by Appellant's brother, Richard St. Clair, another inmate in the prison. Appellant argues that this questioning was improper because the Commonwealth failed to demonstrate a sufficient foundation for its assertion of intimidation and the Commonwealth's questioning as to whether Smith had use[d] the word `Bad News' in reference to Richard St. Clair when he was interviewed by a KSP Detective permitted impermissible character implications about Appellant and his family. The Commonwealth's questioning was a proper topic for cross-examination, cf. Graves v. Commonwealth, Ky., 17 S.W.3d 858, 865 (2000), and Smith's ultimate denial that the content of [his] testimony [was] motivated at all by any concern about Richard St. Clair eliminated any prejudice to Appellant. Appellant observes correctly that we have held that a witness should not be required to characterize the testimony of another witness as a lie. See Moss v. Commonwealth, Ky., 949 S.W.2d 579, 583 (1997); Tamme, 973 S.W.2d at 28. And, although the Commonwealth's cross-examination of Appellant included some questioning that was impermissible under Moss, we find no reversible error in the form of the Commonwealth's questioning of Appellant because we conclude that the totality of the circumstances are persuasive that exclusion of the proper inquires would not have resulted in [a] different verdict[ ] in this case. Caudill, 120 S.W.3d at 662.