Opinion ID: 2514440
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 16

Heading: Prosecution's questioning of Dr. Bittker

Text: Valdez argues that the State committed flagrant prosecutorial misconduct. The district court prohibited any suggestion that the defense prevented the State's expert witness, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Bittker, from interviewing Valdez. Valdez argues that the prosecutor disregarded this ruling. An attorney should not flagrantly disobey a district court's ruling. [56] In McGuire v. State , the district court ruled that the prosecutor could not refer to the defendant's prior felony convictions. [57] The prosecutor improperly commented to the jury, at least twice, that it should consider the defendant's prior convictions to decide whether the defendant was guilty. [58] This court concluded that the prosecutor's flagrant violation was simply intolerable. [59] During direct examination of Dr. Bittker, the prosecutor asked him to inform the jury about his packet of information on Valdez. In his answer, Dr. Bittker stated that he was not permitted access to Valdez. The defense objected and moved to strike the answer. The district court sustained the objection and instructed the jury to disregard the comment. During cross-examination of Dr. Bittker, defense counsel elicited testimony that while Dr. Bittker preferred to interview people before making a final assessment, he had not interviewed Valdez, which meant that the defense's expert witness, who had interviewed Valdez, had more information when he made his diagnosis. During redirect examination of Dr. Bittker, the prosecutor inquired, You asked to do an interview with [Valdez], didn't you? The defense objected, and the prosecutor argued that the defense brought up the issue on cross-examination. The district court sustained the objection and reminded the jury not to make any adverse inference. We conclude that the prosecutor violated the district court's ruling, and thereby committed misconduct. This misconduct was nonconstitutional in nature but necessitated two limiting instructions from the district court, which highlighted the inference that Valdez denied Dr. Bittker an interview. Applying the proper harmless-error analysis, we conclude that this violation alone would not warrant reversal. But in conjunction with the multiple errors in this case, cumulative error warrants reversal as discussed below.