Court Opinion

ID: 9559922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:38:04.754127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:51.221164
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, J. Pro Tern.,
dissenting.
In this case a child complained that her stepfather repeatedly abused her sexually over a number of years. She was taken to the police and was eventually interviewed by a psychiatric nurse, Patricia Baptista, along with various physicians at the CARES Unit at St. Luke’s Hospital. A videotape of the interview and a transcript of the same were provided to defense counsel. At the trial defense counsel vigorously cross examined the child by using portions of the transcript in an effort to make it appear that the child was not being honest. As typically occurs, defense counsel took various parts of the statement out of context and challenged the child on said segments in an effort to make it appear that her testimony at trial was inconsistent with the statement on the videotape. This is a very common trial practice, and as a general rule, the more statements made by a victim prior to trial, the better it is for defense counsel in that they can extract bits and pieces from the various statements and make them look inconsistent, no matter how consistent they may be when read all together as a whole. This unfortunate practice of manufacturing doubt where none truly exists becomes more acute of course when experienced and skilled defense counsel matches wits with a young child who is sitting in a crowded courtroom full of adults while facing her stepfather who she claims sexually abused her and who told her “If you ever decide to tell somebody, tell me first because I don’t want to go back to prison.” (the defendant had previously spent time in prison for rape).
In an effort to remedy the unfairness of the practice described above, and in an effort to let the jury ascertain for themselves whether or not a witness has made inconsistent statements, we have adopted I.R.E. 106 which provides as follows:
Rule 106. Remainder of or related writings on recorded statements — When a writing or recorded statement or part thereof is introduced by a party, an adverse party may require him at that time to introduce any other part or any other writing a recorded statement which ought in fairness to be considered contemporaneously with it.
The trial judge in this case had the opportunity to watch the lengthy cross-examination of the child concerning the interview transcript and apparently felt that in fairness (which is the guiding light of Rule 106) the jury ought to see the interview in question and then decide for themselves whether or not the child was lying. The trial judge let the jury watch the child testify live and then she let the jury watch the videotape interview of the child. By so doing the trial judge took all the gamesmanship out of the cross-examination of the child and cleared the courtroom of the smoke. The trial judge seized upon the *703perfect opportunity to let some truth sneak into the trial.
The majority takes the position that our decision in State v. Fain, 116 Id. 82, 774 P.2d 252 precludes the “wholesale” admission of the videotape.10 Fain is totally different from the case we are dealing with today. In Fain a police officer related a statement that the Defendant made to him. The Defendant then attempted to have the entire interview transcript (58 pages in length) introduced under Rule 106. Much of the material contained in the 58 page transcript had no relevance whatsoever to the statement made by the officer. The trial judge in Fain considered what the officer testified to and then considered the material in the 58 page transcript and then determined that in fairness the jury should not be provided the irrelevant material. We determined that under those facts the trial judge committed no error. Fain is distinguishable in that a review of the videotape in the case at hand reveals that the entire tape is relevant to demonstrate that the witness did not make a statement at her interview which was inconsistent with her trial testimony. Another distinction of course is that in Fain we accorded the trial judge some discretion with reference to the admission of the evidence in question. The majority is not willing to do so in this case.
If we are to assume for the sake of discussion that portions of the statement were irrelevant, it is my understanding of the law that such irrelevant portions should be examined to determine whether or not their admission resulted in harm to the defendant. I have compared the trial testimony to those portions of the interview that might be argued to be irrelevant and having made such a comparison, I can only conclude that if the trial judge did err, that said error was harmless in nature.
To summarize I believe the trial court properly exercised its discretion in admitting the videotape into evidence under the provisions of I.C.R. 106. If it can be said that the court erred in failing to delete certain irrelevant portions from the videotape, said error was harmless in nature. For these reasons I respectfully dissent.

. It should be noted that the trial judge did not admit the tape "wholesale.” In the tape there was a reference to the Defendant having taken a polygraph. Upon objection this was deleted from the tape.