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State v. Christian3/9/2004
, 2001. Specifically, the defendant asked her if she recalled having had a conversation with her attorney, who had represented her in both the driving under the influence proceeding and the divorce and child custody proceedings, while they were in a small vestibule of the Enfield courthouse following the pretrial conference in the driving under the influence proceeding. Joan Christian testified that she did not remember that particular conversation. The defendant then asked her if she recalled discussing with her attorney the affect that the defendant's conviction in the present case might have on the divorce and child custody proceedings, and she testified that she did not.
After the close of the state's case-in-chief, the defendant attempted to have Bobryk testify. In making this proffer, he explained that Bobryk, a former legal intern for the defendant's attorney in the present case, had gone to the Enfield courthouse, at the attorney's direction, to observe Joan Christian in her driving under the influence proceeding. Specifically, the defendant's attorney had told Bobryk "to make a note of" whether Joan Christian was driving a car when she left the proceeding, because "these were things that were deemed to be relevant in the divorce litigation." After the proceeding, Bobryk waited in the small vestibule of the courthouse to attempt to see if Joan Christian left the courthouse driving a vehicle. At this point, Joan Christian purportedly entered the vestibule with her attorney and discussed with him the impact that the defendant's conviction in the present case would have on the divorce proceeding. In particular, it was acknowledged that, if the defendant was convicted in the present case, "there would be no further question about him . . . getting custody of their child." Joan Christian's attorney purportedly asked her about the status of the defendant's criminal proceeding, and she told him that she did not know. She and her attorney then went to the clerk's office to check on the status.
The state objected to the admission of Bobryk's testimony on grounds that its admission would violate the evidentiary rule against impeaching a witness based on extrinsic evidence concerning a collateral matter, and because Joan Christian's communications with her attorney were protected by the attorney-client privilege. The defendant argued, in response, that Bobryk's testimony was not extrinsic evidence of a collateral matter, because Joan Christian's "efforts to use [the present case] to bolster her [child] custody and divorce litigation" were relevant to her credibility as a witness in the present case.
The trial court sustained the state's objection and excluded the proffered testimony "for two essential reasons. One is I believe it is collateral. I don't think there's any way you could characterize the evidence that . . . Bobryk would offer here as material to, or even relevant, to any of the issues raised by this case. Secondly ... Ibelieve [that]... under the peculiar circumstances of this encounter as set forth in the defendant's offer of proof, it would appear to me to be a really egregious eavesdropping on the part of an agent of the defense attorney here.... And, I think it would be just absolutely violative of any kind of policy that we can hope to have which keeps attorney-client privileges--attorney-client confidentiality sacrosanct."
Before addressing the merits of the defendant's claim, we briefly set forth the standard of review. "The trial court has wide discretion to determine the relevancy of evidence and the scope of cross-examination. Every reasonable presumption should be made in favor of the correctness of the court's ruling in determining whether there ha
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