Court Opinion

ID: 9458606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:56:39.751689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:49.550762
License: Public Domain

ROBB, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
In Wilson v. United States, 232 U.S. 563, 34 S.Ct. 347, 58 L.Ed. 728 (1914) the court held that it was proper to ask a witness whether she was addicted to the use of morphine, and to develop that she had last used it before coming into the courtroom that morning “to show that she was so much addicted to the use of the drug that the question whether, at the moment of testifying, she was under the influence, or had recovered from the effects of its last administration, had a material bearing upon her reliability as a witness.” (232 U.S. 568, 34 S.Ct. 349) In United States v. Kearney, 136 U.S.App.D.C. 328, 331, 420 F.2d 170, 173 (1969) the court said “in general it is undeniable that it may be proper to develop the matter of drug addiction in an effort to attack a witness’s competency and capacity to observe, remember and recall.”
Here the circumstances of the witness Dorsey’s separation from the Police Department were grounds for at least a strong suspicion that the witness was addicted to narcotics. This being so I think counsel was entitled to explore the matter on cross examination. That examination would not have been a shot in the dark but would have followed a lead reasonably suggested by the facts. *669Given that lead, counsel should not have been required to produce additional evidence to justify his resort to the invaluable probe of cross examination. Accordingly, I concur in the result.