Court Opinion

ID: 9532265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:19:42.899808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:43.055267
License: Public Domain

LANSING, Judge,
concurring in the result.
I join in the foregoing opinion except the conclusion as to the admissibility of Detective Miller’s testimony that in his opinion Patty Brown was an untruthful person. The foundation for this opinion consisted solely of testimony that in about 1980 to 1982, Ms. Brown had been a student at a junior high school where Detective Miller was the school resource officer, and that he later had a single contact with her when she went to the police station to see Detective Miller two or three years prior to the trial in this case. Neither the duration or subject matter of this later visit was described. It is apparent that Detective Miller’s opinion as to Brown’s veracity was based primarily or exclusively upon his contact with her as a school resource officer when Brown would have been a child of twelve to fifteen years of age. I cannot subscribe to the view that childhood fibs may be used to brand the adult a liar. In my view, knowledge of childhood prevarications is hardly a valid foundation upon which to predicate an opinion of the grown person’s character and truthfulness. Ironically, the majority opinion, after finding Detective Miller’s opinion testimony admissible, goes on to conclude that his testimony as to Brown’s reputation, if based upon her-reputation in junior high, is predicated on information too remote to be relevant. Surely a parity of reasoning leads to a conclusion that Detective Miller’s opinion of Brown’s veracity was likewise based upon information too remote in time and different in circumstance to be probative.
I nonetheless concur in the majority’s conclusion that reversal of Carsner’s conviction is unnecessary. Detective Anderson’s properly admitted opinion testimony about Brown’s lack of veracity, and other admissible evidence that impeached her testimony, render harmless any error in the admission of Detective Miller’s opinion.