Court Opinion

ID: 9657409
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:25:11.644253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:44.839409
License: Public Domain

Hannon, Judge,
dissenting.
I find I must dissent from that portion of my colleagues’ opinion that holds the trial court committed prejudicial error by not sustaining the defense counsel’s objection to Detective Overman’s improper answer to his question. The answer was nonresponsive, and therefore I agree the objection should have been sustained, and upon request the jury should have been instructed to disregard the answer. See Cardenas v. Peterson Bean Co., 180 Neb. 605, 144 N.W.2d 154 (1966). However, in my view, the defense opened up the matter. By asking a question which implied the defendant had asserted his innocence upon his initial contact with the police, defense counsel waived his client’s right to prevent the State from proving that he asserted his right to remain silent. The trial judge should have sustained the objection, and then upon request the State should have been allowed to ask what the defendant really said at that time. The same evidence would have been before the jury by either route. Therefore, the improper shortcut was not prejudicial to the defendant, particularly when the prosecutor never sought to use the police officer’s statement in his questions or arguments.
I base my position on a line of cases that are based upon a footnote found at the end of the majority opinion in Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S. Ct. 2240, 49 L. Ed. 2d 91 (1976). That footnote states:
It goes almost without saying that the fact of post-arrest silence could be used by the prosecution to contradict a defendant who testifies to an exculpatory version of events and claims to have told the police the same version upon arrest. In that situation the fact of earlier silence would not be used to impeach the exculpatory story, but rather to challenge the defendant’s testimony as to his behavior following arrest. Cf. United States v. Fairchild, *439505 F.2d 1378, 1383 (CA5 1975).
426 U.S. at 619-20 n.11.
What happens when the defense seeks to avoid the effect of the Fairchild exception by the defendant’s attorney asserting on cross-examination of a police officer that the defendant protested his or her innocence? In the case State v. Hjerstrom, 287 N.W.2d 625, 628 (Minn. 1979), the opinion states: “The prosecutor sought and obtained permission to elicit [certain] testimony only after defense counsel, in cross-examining the arresting officer, asked a series of questions for the purpose of showing that the arresting officer had not questioned the defendant in any detail about what he had been doing.” The prosecutor elicited testimony from a different officer that he had attempted to get a complete story from the defendant, and cross- and recross-examination showed that the defendant had remained silent after being given Miranda warnings.
In that case, the Minnesota court approved the examination, stating:
Here defense counsel tried to create the impression on cross-examination of the arresting officer that the police were not interested in letting defendant give his full and complete version of what had happened on the evening in question, so it was proper for the state to rebut this by showing that the police had tried but were unable to obtain a complete statement from defendant.
287 N.W.2d at 628.
In a similar case, State v. Bell, 446 So. 2d 1191 (La. 1984), the Louisiana court approved cross-examination which elicited the invocation of Miranda silence and in so doing, stated: “In Fairchild, a defendant’s post-arrest silence was admissible to rebut a contention of active cooperation with the police when in fact the defendant had invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.” 446 So. 2d at 1193. The Louisiana court stated that the “defendant invited the state’s inquiry into what happened in the early stages of the investigation.” Id. at 1193-94. In my opinion, the defendant’s attorney invited Overman’s nonresponsive answer. I would affirm the conviction and sentence.