Court Opinion

ID: 9711367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:30:20.728282+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:04.178291
License: Public Domain

SILVER, J.,
concurring.
[¶ 15] I concur in the Court’s decision, but I am writing separately to address McNally’s argument that the trial court improperly diverged from its role as an impartial arbiter when it alerted the State to a possible avenue of impeachment of McNally’s credibility, and allowed the State’s motion to reopen its rebuttal case to tender the evidence.
[¶ 16] The morning following the close of evidence, the trial court called counsel into chambers to discuss a discrepancy the court observed between McNally’s testimony and his indigency affidavit:
I called to the attention of both lawyers the fact that after hearing yesterday’s testimony, particularly with regard to whether Mr. McNally was owed money by Mr. Brackett and having previously been informed that Mr. Sylvester was court appointed, the wheels began to turn in my brain as to how one might qualify for court-appointed counsel if in fact somebody else owed them $10,000, which is what I understand the general substance of that testimony to be.
In fact, McNally did testify that he lent Brackett money, but he also testified that he did not expect to be reimbursed because Brackett said he would never repay McNally. Brackett corroborated this by testifying at trial that he had no intention of ever repaying his debt to McNally.
[¶ 17] The State subsequently requested to reopen its rebuttal case in order to use the information on the affidavit for impeachment purposes.2 The trial court granted the motion over McNally’s objections.
[¶ 18] A trial court should not highlight discrepancies or supply trial strategy to any party. McNally’s indigency status was not relevant to the ongoing trial proceedings. To avoid the appearance of impropriety, the court should have waited until the conclusion of the trial to address with counsel McNally’s indigency status. The practical result of the court’s action was to highlight the evidence that was then used to impeach McNally’s credibility before the jury.
[¶ 19] Although the court’s concern with McNally’s indigency status was appropriate in a general sense, the court’s alerting of the State to this possible avenue of impeachment in the final stage of the trial created a substantial implication that the court was assisting the State. In my view, this creates an issue of fundamental fair*484ness of a magnitude that I would vacate upon this basis alone.

. The State always had access to the court file containing the documents at issue, but noted that it generally does not choose to review materials related to court-appointed counsel.