Court Opinion

ID: 9548664
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:06:42.114493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:15.398164
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Groves
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent by reason of my belief that pro-judicial error was committed when the court allowed the written, impeaching statement of the defendant’s wife to be admitted into evidence without any advice to the jury as to the limited purpose for its admission. The defendant’s wife was a witness for the People. While on the stand, she denied that she had seen her husband and daughter in bed together. The prosecuting attorney then claimed surprise and over objection was permitted to introduce the wife’s written statement that she had found the two in bed together on several occasions.
Neither side has cited authority on the question of whether a surprised prosecuting attorney can impeach his own witness. There is the familiar rule that when an attorney is surprised by the testimony of his own witness the court may grant the attorney the right of cross-examination as an adverse witness. However, I am not aware of any Colorado decision which permits the attorney to impeach such a witness or which states that surprise is a reason for disregarding the equally well known rule that a party cannot impeach his own witness. There is a vast difference between cross-examination as an adverse witness and impeachment of that witness.
The wife’s statement was admitted over the objection of the defendant. In my view, if a court may admit over objection a prejudicial statement as impeachment by the prosecuting attorney of his own witness, then the court has the duty at that time, as well as in the instructions, to advise the jury of the limited purpose of the exhibit. *122See State v. Smarsh, 117 Kan. 238, 231 P. 52; State v. Shea, 148 Minn. 368, 182 N.W. 445; State v. Gallicchio, 44 N.J. 540, 210 A.2d 409; Wiese v. State, 47 Okla. Crim. 59, 287 P. 1099; and State v. Lapke, 62 S.D. 187, 252 N.W. 38.
The majority opinion apparently gives emphasis to the fact that the defendant did not request a limiting instruction and cites Bishop v. People, 165 Colo. 423, 439 P.2d 342. I do not regard Bishop as governing because it did not involve the impeachment of the prosecution’s own witness, but rather the impeachment by the prosecution of a defense witness. Under the present instructions the jury was entitled to consider the written statement as inculpatory and it may be that their decision would have been different if the jury had been properly instructed. I do not believe that the trial judge must “nursemaid” defense counsel throughout a criminal trial; but I do believe that in this instance, involving alleged repulsive and inflammatory conduct, there was a duty on the part of the court to caution the jury as to the purpose of this prejudicial exhibit.