Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — D2 51946-1-II Published Opinion.pdf

Citation: Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — D2 51946-1-II Published Opinion.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
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Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/D2%2051946-1-II%20Published%20Opinion.pdf ↗

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defendant’s prior interview in question and answer form. Id. at 277-78, 281. The court held that

it was error to refuse the defendant’s request to put on rebuttal testimony where the total effect of

the prosecutor’s cross-examination of the defendant “was to give the jury the impression that the

statements were properly in evidence.” Id. at 282.

3. Analysis

Here, the State called James as a witness and asked him to admit several statements

contained in his guilty plea statement. However, the prosecutor did not read directly from the

plea statement and the statement was not offered into evidence. Instead, she asked questions

based on the statements made in the plea statement in an attempt to have James admit those

statements. Further, James repeatedly denied authoring the statements and repeatedly stated they

were not true. He explained several times that his lawyer had written the statements and that he

signed off on them because he was in a hurry to leave Pierce County and start serving his

sentence.

As a result, the general rule in Thacker applies here. Because James denied authorship of

the prior inconsistent statements in the plea agreement and no extrinsic evidence was introduced,

the trial court had discretion to exclude testimony explaining the prior statement. Thacker, 94

Wn.2d at 280. Conversely, the holding in Thacker – that the trial court abused its discretion by

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No. 51946-1-II

excluding explanatory evidence under the specific facts of that case – is inapplicable here.

Unlike in Thacker, the prosecutor here did not read from the plea statement or give any

indication that the contents of the statement were evidence in the case. Further, James did