Court Opinion

ID: 9565022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:13:16.491135+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:19.529156
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, Justice:
(concurring in the result).
While I agree that defendant’s conviction should be affirmed, I disagree with the analysis used by the majority in deciding the evidentiary issue presented by this case. I believe the majority has erred by ignoring the “open door” doctrine and by applying Utah Rule of Evidence 608 in an inappropriate context.
Defendant, while testifying under oath, painted a picture of himself as a good father who had adopted his wife’s children by a previous marriage and had supported them with money and gifts, even while his wife was seeking a divorce, but whose wife had “turned the two boys against [him],” causing him so much anguish and grief that he wanted only to commit suicide when he went to his wife’s home with a shotgun on February 13. Defendant denied knowledge of a protective order that prevented him from going near his wife and testified that he thought he was welcome in the family home and was concerned about the children’s welfare because his wife stayed out late, did not care well for the children, and had allowed his fifteen-year-old son to become involved with an older woman. The majority assumes that the prosecution seized upon a casual remark by defendant (his assertion that his wife had turned the children against him) and used it as an excuse for attacking his credibility with specific instances of misconduct. I think defendant’s testimony was of much greater significance. Defendant presented testimony concerning his wife's alleged interference in his relationship with his sons and his general treatment of the children with two purposes: he intended to present his wife as a bad mother who was alienating his sons and/or he attempted to raise a good character defense, centering around an assertion that he was a kind, loving father *193who intended to kill himself because his relationship with his children had become intolerable.
Assuming that defendant made the statements simply in order to interject an irrelevant attack on his wife’s character in an attempt to prejudice her in the eyes of the jury, the trial judge was well within his discretion in allowing otherwise inadmissible evidence to blunt the effect of the irrelevant but prejudicial evidence. A framework for determining when further irrelevant evidence should be admitted is set forth in McCormick on Evidence:
(1) If the incompetent evidence sought to be answered is immaterial and not prejudice-arousing, the judge, to save time and to avoid distraction of attention from the issues, should refuse to hear answering evidence; but if he does hear it, under the prevailing view, the parly opening the door has no standing to complain.
(2) If the evidence, though inadmissible, is relevant to the issues and hence probably damaging to the adversary’s case, or though irrelevant is prejudice-arousing to a material degree, and if the adversary has seasonably objected or moved to strike, then the adversary should be entitled to give answering evidence as of right. By objecting he has done his best to save the court from mistake, but his remedy by assigning error to the ruling is not an adequate one. He needs a fair opportunity to win his case at the trial by refuting the damaging evidence....
(3) If again the first incompetent evidence is relevant, or though irrelevant is prejudice-arousing, but the adversary has failed to object or to move to strike out, where such an objection might apparently have avoided the harm, then the allowance of answering evidence should rest in the judge’s discretion. He should weigh the probable influence of the first evidence, the time and distraction incident to answering it, and the possibility and effectiveness of an instruction to the jury to disregard it. However, here various courts have indicated that introduction of the answering evidence is a matter of right.
(4)In any event, if the incompetent evidence, or even the inquiry eliciting it, is so prejudice-arousing that an objection or motion to strike cannot have erased the harm, then it seems that the adversary should be entitled to answer it as of right.
C. McCormick, McCormick on Evidence § 57, at 147-48 (E. Cleary 3d ed. 1984) (footnotes omitted).
I think that this case falls under the third category (irrelevance and prejudice-arousing) and that the trial judge was well within his discretion in allowing the children to testify.1
Further, assuming that defendant entered the evidence in an attempt to prove that he has a generally good character, but was so depressed by his wife’s turning the children against him that he was motivated by a desire to commit suicide when he entered his wife’s home, the admissibility of the rebuttal testimony should be analyzed not under Utah Rule of Evidence 608(b), which deals with using specific instances of conduct to rebut or support credibility, but under Utah Rules of Evidence 404 and 405.
Rule 404 provides:
(a) Character evidence generally. Evidence of a person’s character or a trait of his character is not admissible for the purpose of proving that he acted in conformity therewith on a particular occasion, except:
(1) Character of accused. Evidence of a pertinent trait of his character offered by an accused, or by the prosecution to rebut the same;
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(b) Other crimes, wrongs, or acts. Evidence of other crimes, wrongs or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted *194in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive....
Use may be made of specific acts of conduct when “a trait of character of a person is an essential element of a ... defense.” Utah R.Evid. 405(b). I think defendant made his character an essential element of his defense when he argued his motive in going to his wife’s home on the fateful day; in doing so, he allowed the prosecution to use specific acts to demonstrate that defendant was a vicious bully who had alienated his children, rather than a loving father distraught over the disintegration of his family. I find no error in the admission of the children’s testimony.

. Defendant’s counsel, in closing argument, adopted the view that defendant himself had opened the door. Defendant’s counsel stated: "He started it. He denied that he was cruel to the children, and so then this opens the door for an opportunity to rebut that_”