Opinion ID: 2159195
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Prejudicial Evidence of Defendant's Past Conduct During Cross-Examination of Expert and Character Witnesses, Combined with Trial Court's Failure to Give a Limiting Instruction, Deprived Defendant of a Capital Sentencing Hearing.

Text: At the commencement of the penalty phase of the case, the trial court granted the State's motion to admit as evidence in the penalty phase all of the State's testimony and evidence admitted during the guilt phase. The State called no other witnesses and offered no other evidence. Thus, the penalty phase of the trial, aside from the opening and closing arguments of counsel, was devoted exclusively to the direct testimony and cross-examination of expert and lay witnesses produced by the defendant. Defendant contends that in the course of the State's cross-examination of its witnesses, evidence of defendant's past conduct was improperly elicited by the prosecutor. Defendant asserts that in some instances the cross-examination went far beyond the scope of direct testimony; in other instances the cross-examination is challenged as violative of Evidence Rule 47; in still other instances defendant's contention is that the questions posed by the prosecutor unfairly or inaccurately characterized past events or improperly referred to events not otherwise proved by evidence in the record. Some of defendant's contentions in this regard also pertain to the charge of prosecutorial misconduct. Infra at 513-519. Complementary to these contentions is defendant's argument that the admission of the evidence of defendant's past conduct in the penalty phase obligated the trial court to give the jury a limiting instruction, Evid.R. 6, so that the jury would not consider this evidence as supplementing the aggravating factors proved by the State. Infra at 503-509. Without such a limiting instruction, defendant argues, the jury's verdict in the penalty phase may have been influenced by its misunderstanding of the limited relevance of the evidence of defendant's past conduct. Before discussing the applicable legal principles, we summarize those portions of the testimony of the expert and character witnesses challenged by defendant.