Opinion ID: 2445150
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Drug Offenses of the Victim

Text: The appellant advances a contention of further abuse of discretion in the trial court's refusal to allow the testimony of a defense witness that the victim injected methamphetamine into his arm the night he was killed and further that he solicited the witness to sell drugs for him. Debbie Bellew testified to the victim's drug use and solicitation to sell before the second witness was proffered by the defense. Since this evidence had been presented to the jury through Bellew's testimony, we reject the argument that the exclusion of a second witness's testimony along the same lines prejudiced the appellant. Moreover, the relevancy of this testimony was highly questionable, as the trial judge aptly pointed out. We have reaffirmed recently that the exclusion of certain testimony cannot be considered prejudicial where the evidence was introduced by another witness. See Richmond v. State, 302 Ark. 498, 791 S.W.2d 691 (1990). Here, the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in disallowing the testimony of the second witness.