Court Opinion

ID: 9628297
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:16:10.483131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:03.163707
License: Public Domain

Wright, J.
(dissenting) — I dissent. The facts are correctly stated by the majority. However, a few additional facts will assist in better understanding the matter.
On December 10, 1976, the apartment occupied by Edward O'Shea was burglarized. On March 3, 1977, defendant Huelett was charged by information with burglary. After a jury trial he was found guilty April 26, 1977.
Three witnesses testified at the burglary trial. The testimony of each was essential to Huelett's conviction. O'Shea testified that his apartment was burglarized, that he does not know Huelett and that he did not give him permission to enter the apartment. Marsha Jackson testified she is a qualified fingerprint expert and that Huelett's prints match *971those found in the apartment. The fingerprints identified as Huelett's by Ms. Jackson were found in the apartment by Larry Allen, a police officer at the time of the burglary, but not at trial time. Without Allen's testimony, the chain of evidence was broken — there was not proof that the prints identified as Huelett's came from the O'Shea apartment.
Allen was called as a witness. With the police report in front of him, he testified about his burglary investigation. The cross-examination of Allen by Huelett's trial counsel follows:
Q. You are using something to refresh your memory?
A. Yes, sir, I am.
Q. Do you have an independent recollection of this investigation?
A. No, I don't.
Q. So beyond what you have in front of you, you have no recollection of this?
A. That's correct.
It is also significant that when Allen was asked about the fingerprint on the "money bowl" mentioned in his report and was asked what he meant by "money bowl" he replied: "Don't recall."
Allen did not read verbatim from the report, nor was it offered into evidence. The State elected to rely solely upon testimony from supposed refreshed recollection.
During oral argument, counsel for the State made several concessions. At one point he referred to Allen as "a witness who comes in who is no longer with the police department who gives answers on direct which indicate he doesn’t know and doesn't care much about the case; and who gives answers on cross-examination that indicate he has no independent recollection beyond what is in the report." Later in oral argument, counsel stated: "In my opinion it is certain that he had no independent recollection with the writing or without the writing." It must be remembered that the deputy prosecuting attorney who made these concessions in oral argument was trial counsel.
*972The majority concludes on the basis of the first two questions and Allen's responses set out above that this is "a classic instance of a recollection refreshed." I disagree. The questions were not asked during direct examination in order to lay a foundation for the testimony. If they had been, the majority's position might approach plausibility. Instead the questions were asked after officer Allen already had testified on direct by using the report. And it was after reviewing the report and testifying on direct that he stated on cross-examination that he did not have any independent recollection. Surely Allen should have had a present independent recollection at this point. The cases clearly state that after the review an independent recollection must exist.
Here Allen testified unequivocally on cross-examination that there was not an independent recollection. In Preston v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 198 Wash. 157, 87 P.2d 475 (1939), the witness also acknowledged she had no independent recollection. There, as here, there was no attempt to introduce the memorandum — stenographic notes — as an accurate record. Rejecting her testimony as inadmissible, this court concluded "the trial court ruled correctly in refusing to permit the witness to appear to be giving evidence from refreshed recollection when she had no recollection." Preston, at 164.
The witness must actually recall the occurrence, event, or matter in his own mind.
In State v. Coffey, 8 Wn.2d 504, 112 P.2d 989 (1941), we said at page 508:
The general rule is that entries in diaries are inadmissible as evidence, although they may be used to refresh the memory of a witness if after such use he can testify from an independent recollection of the matter. Stated another way: A contemporaneous memorandum made by a witness may be used to refresh his memory; that is, a witness may be allowed to refresh his memory by looking at a printed or written paper or memorandum and, if he thereby recollects a fact or circumstance, he may testify to it. It is not the memorandum which is evidence but *973the recollection. Schmidt v. Van Woerden, 181 Wash. 39, 42 P. (2d) 3; State v. Jensen, 194 Wash. 515, 78 P. (2d) 600.
(Italics mine.)
In McCoy v. Courtney, 30 Wn.2d 125, 128, 190 P.2d 732 (1948), we said in part:
The witness testified from personal knowledge and independent recollection, although he had refreshed his memory by checking some of the records of the Kerr Motor Company. To do as he did was entirely proper. Schmidt v. Van Woerden, 181 Wash. 39, 42 P. (2d) 3; State v. Paschall, 182 Wash. 304, 47 P. (2d) 15.
Courts in other states as well as text writers often have stated or indicated that after reviewing the memorandum, the witness must testify from an independent recollection. 5 C. Chamberlayne, The Modern Law of Evidence § 3507, at 4818 n.1 (1916); 2 E. Conrad, Modern Trial Evidence § 1176, at 336 (1956); 2 B. Elliott, The Law of Evidence § 872, at 153-54 (1904); J. McKelvey, Handbook of the Law of Evidence § 250, at 461 (3d ed. 1924); Annot., Refreshment of Recollection by Use of Memoranda or Other Writings, 82 A.L.R.2d 473, 497 (1962); 10 Am. Jur. Proof of Facts, Refreshing Recollection Proof 1, at 258 (1961); 81 Am. Jur. 2d Witnesses § 445, at 453-54 (1976); 98 C.J.S. Witnesses § 358, at 85 (1957); Moncrief v. Detroit, 398 Mich. 181,187-90, 247 N.W.2d 783 (1976); Otinger v. State, 53 Ala. App. 287, 291, 299 So. 2d 333, 336-37 (1974); State v. Crow, 486 S.W.2d 248, 257 (Mo. 1972); Great Atlantic & Pac. Tea Co. v. Nobles, 202 So. 2d 603, 605 (Fla. Ct. App. 1967); State v. Scott, 199 Kan. 203, 206, 428 P.2d 458, 460 (1967); State v. Adams, 181 Neb. 75, 82, 147 N.W.2d 144, 151 (1966); People v. Griswold, 405 Ill. 533, 541-42, 92 N.E.2d 91, 95 (1950); State v. Perelli, 128 Conn. 172, 175, 21 A.2d 389, 390-91 (1941).
In Bank of Poneto v. Kimmel, 91 Ind. App. 325, 168 N.E. 604 (1929), it was held that where cross-examination develops that the witness has no independent recollection, even after seeing the book and entries therein, it is proper *974to strike the testimony. In People v. Jenkins, 10 Ill. App. 3d 166, 171, 294 N.E.2d 24, 29 (1973), it was held that "a witness may refresh his memory by the use of any instrument, büt must then testify from his own independent memory."
The primary dispute between this dissent and the majority is over whether the answers of the witness indicate a present recollection. It is difficult and involves an extreme stretching of the imagination to conceive how the majority could reach the result it did. Without repeating the brief cross-examination it seems the only reasonable construction to be given to the witness' testimony is that he recalls nothing, including the events that he is reading about. That does not satisfy the requirements of the rule on refreshed recollection.
It is true the use of memoranda is within the discretion of the trial court. State v. Little, 57 Wn.2d 516, 358 P.2d 120 (1961). That, however, does not and cannot change this rule: Before a witness may testify by using a writing to refresh his recollection, the witness must be able to state, after examining the writing, that he now recalls the facts therein on the basis of his own present — although refreshed — memory. Harper, Drake & Assocs., Inc. v. Jewett & Sherman Co., 49 Wis. 2d 330, 342, 182 N.W.2d 551, 558 (1971).
In the instant case the trial court clearly erred by refusing to strike Allen's testimony. Likewise, the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court. Because the testimony was improper in the posture in which it was offered — as refreshed recollection — it should not have been admitted.
For the reasons stated, I dissent and would reverse the trial court and the Court of Appeals.
Utter, C.J., and Horowitz and Hicks, JJ., concur with Wright, J.