Court Opinion

ID: 9768972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:00:20.410863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:51.534051
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Judge,
concurring in result.
The principal opinion is helpful in outlining methods available to counsel in making *193an offer of proof in order to demonstrate, both to the trial court and to the appellate court, that evidence which has been offered and rejected is relevant and material. Unless the courts have some understanding of the rejected evidence it is absolutely impossible to determine whether the rejection was prejudicial.
I do not believe, however, that the present case is appropriately decided on the basis of the inadequacy of the offer of proof. Here the victim gave testimony supporting the charges of assault and armed criminal action. The defendant sought to impeach the victim’s testimony on the basis of a prior and allegedly inconsistent statement. Counsel began, as required, by asking the victim whether she had made a prior statement characterizing the incident as an accident. After some sparring, counsel asked the victim if she recalled “describing it as some type of incident or another.” The witness answered “no.” This provided a minimal foundation for making other proof of the supposedly inconsistent statement. The other proof consisted not of the testimony of witnesses, but of the victim’s statements summarized in the records of her hospitalization following her injury.
The defendant then sought to produce the medical librarian from Barnes Hospital as a witness to authenticate the hospital records. The librarian had the records with her. She knew nothing about what the victim had said and could only testify that the documents she brought with her were records in her custody made in the usual course of business of the hospital.
The records were not marked as an exhibit but were produced in court. They of course should have been marked for positive identification. The trial judge, however, seemed to be perfectly aware of what the records said and said that the statements of the victim as described in the hospital records, were “purely speculative.”
An examination of the records shows that the ruling was well within the trial judge’s discretion. The records did not purport to record the witness’s actual words. They contained notes made by the social worker regarding the condition of the witness. At one point the notes state “Verbal about past accident and impact on children.” Statements such as this are not inconsistent with the victim’s trial testimony. It is not necessary to decide the additional question as to whether the summarized statements could withstand a hearsay objection.
Counsel could have made the work of the trial and appellate courts easier, first, by having the hospital records marked for identification and, second, by reading into the record or providing an extract of the precise portions which were alleged to contain impeaching material. It seems to me, however, that the trial judge made it clear that he knew what counsel wanted to offer and concluded that the evidence would serve no useful purpose in the trial. Perceiving no error in his holding, I would affirm on the merits.