Court Opinion

ID: 9586924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:16:30.109821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:56.263887
License: Public Domain

Justice EXUM
dissenting in part.
I dissent from that portion of the majority’s decision which holds that it was not error to permit the state to put before the jury on cross-examination of the witness Waller that defendant was “on parole for sale of the controlled substance heroin and two counts of possession of the controlled substance heroin.” The majority correctly notes that ordinarily this evidence would have been inadmissible but holds that defendant “opened the door” to its admission by eliciting other testimony from Waller that defendant was in fact on parole. I do not agree that this “opened the door” to the challenged testimony.
I do agree with the majority’s statement of the principle to be applied, ie., that when a criminal defendant offers evidence which if left unexplained or unrebutted would create a favorable inference for his case, the state may offer such evidence as it has in explanation or rebuttal, even if such evidence might otherwise be inadmissible.
I disagree with the majority’s application of this principle to the facts before us. That defendant was on parole gave rise to no inference favorable to defendant. The majority’s assertion that the jury might draw an inference that inasmuch as defendant’s *574parole at the time of trial had not been revoked he had “walked the straight and narrow” is strained, to say the least. Defendant offered no evidence that he had been a particularly “good” parolee. Even if one assumes arguendo that Waller’s testimony was designed to or did have this effect on the jury, a proposition I find difficult to accept, it is clear that the nature of the crime for which defendant was initially convicted, imprisoned, and later paroled, in no way explains or rebuts whatever the evidence tends to show about his good conduct while on parole. For this reason, admissibility of the evidence cannot be justified under the principle that defendant had opened the door.
Believing too that the evidence unfairly prejudiced the case against defendant and that there is “a reasonable possibility . . . that a different result would have been reached” at trial had the evidence not been admitted, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1443(a), I vote for a new trial because of its admission.
Justice Frye joins in this dissenting opinion.