State ex rel. Wise v. Chand
Decision Date | 25 February 1970 |
Docket Number | No. 69-175,69-175 |
Citation | 21 Ohio St.2d 113,256 N.E.2d 613,50 O.O.2d 322 |
Parties | , 50 O.O.2d 322 The STATE ex rel. WISE, Appellee, v. CHAND, Appellant. |
Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. Prosecutions of complaints under Sections 3111.01 to 3111.24, inclusive, Revised Code, relating to bastardy, are, unless specified otherwise therein, governed by the procedure provided for the trial of civil cases. (Paragraph one of the syllabus of Taylor v. Scott, 168 Ohio St. 391, 155 N.E.2d 884, followed.)
2. The complainant in a bastardy action may, pursuant to the provisions of Section 2317.07, Revised Code, call the defendant as if under cross-examination.
3. In a trial before a jury, the court's participation by questioning or comment must be scrupulously limited, lest the court, consciously or unconsciously, indicate to the jury its opinion on the evidence or on the credibility of a witness.
4. In a jury trial, where the intensity, tenor, range and persistence of the court's interrogation of a witness can reasonably indicate to the jury the court's opinion as to the credibility of the witness or the weight to be given to his testimony, the interrogation is prejudicially erroneous.
These proceedings were instituted in the Juvenile Court of Summit County by the filing of a complaint charging defendant with being the father of complainant's bastard child. After trial, the jury found the defendant guilty of being the father of that child.
Upon appeal, the judgment of the Court of Appeals affirmed the order of the Juvenile Court entered in accordance with that verdict.
The cause is now before this court upon appeal from that judgment of the Court of Appeals, both as an appeal involving a constitutional question and pursuant to the allowance of a motion to certify the record.
Monte E. Mack, Akron, for appellee.
Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs and Charles F. Scanlon, Akron, for appellant.
As part of her case, complainant called defendant as if under cross-examination. Defendant being an adverse party, complainant's calling of defendant was proper if the proceeding was a civil action. Section 2317.07, Revised Code. (This section, a portion of the Code of Civil Procedure, provides that 'at the instance of the adverse party, a party may be examined as if under cross-examination * * *.')
In our unanimous decision in Taylor v. Scott, 168 Ohio St. 391, 155 N.E.2d 884, the question whether the Code of Civil Procedure is applicable to bastardy proceedings was settled. Paragraph one of the syllabus in that case reads:
'Prosecutions of complaints under Sections 3111.01 to 3111.24, inclusive, Revised Code, relating to bastardy, are, unless specified otherwise therein, governed by the procedure provided for the trial of civil cases * * *.'
No contention is made that anything in the Revised Code sections relating to bastardy specifies that the procedure provided for the trial of civil cases by Section 2317.07, Revised Code, should not apply in prosecutions of complaints relating to bastardy.
Hence, we conclude that the complainant in a bastardy action may, pursuant to the provisions of Section 2317.07, Revised Code, call the defendant as if under cross-examination.
Defendant's Proposition of Law No. 2 is presented as follows:
It is an abuse of the trial judge's discretion to cross-examine an expert witness called by the accused in a bastardy proceeding where the effect, tone, and scope of such examination indicate to the jury the trial judge's opinion as to the weight that should be given the expert's testimony.
In his brief, defendant states that this witness, an expert in genetics, was offered for the purpose of showing 'the probable coloring (skin and eyes)' that a child of complainant and defendant would have. The record discloses that the baby in the instant case had a sallow skin and blue eyes. As the interrogation indicates, the purpose of offering this witness was to provide evidence that a child of the defendant would probably not have blue eyes.
The witness was qualified as an expert in genetics, with a Ph.D. degree in that general field.
After some preliminary questions about genetics were asked on direct examination of this expert witness, he was asked and answered, without objection being taken, the following hypothetical question:
'Assume further that this alleged father has intercourse with a woman of white skin, black hair and hazel eyes, and assume further that her mother is white skin, dark hair, dark brown hair and hazel eyes, and that the father of this alleged mother or assumed mother has dark brown hair and hazel eyes, or nonblue eyes.
'Assume further, Doctor, that this alleged mother has one brother who has reddish-brown hair, nonblue eyes; could you as an expert in the field of genetics determine with any degree of probability the genetic mechanism as to the offspring of such sexual intercourse?
These questions and answers then followed on direct:
At this point in the trial several questions were asked on cross-examination which did not tend in any manner to change the expert's opinion that 'we would anticipate that the children of such a mating would be brown eyed.' And this was regardless of what the other parent's eye color would be. Counsel for the complainant then stated that he had no further questions.
Whereupon the court took up the interrogation of the witness with these questions and answers:
'The Witness: Well, under those circumstances, your Honor, I would say the child should be some place in between the two individuals with reference to pigmentation.
'The Court: You have said that.
'The Witness: Yes, and I would say that the eye pigmentation, for example, would in high probability be brown in view of the fact that both (sic) of them are brown.
'The Court: My question was-
'Mr. Glick: I object.
'The Court: Overruled.
'The Witness: I think if you have a situation where you know a given female is the mother of the child-
'The Court: Assume this woman is the mother of the child.
'The Court: In other words, matter of exclusion only.
'The Witness: Yes, I think that would probably be a justified statement.'
At this point, counsel for the defendant pursued some redirect examination of the expert witness, followed by one question on recross-examination, and then the court continued its inquiry of the witness in a series of a...
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...line from helpful clarification to unwarranted intervention, that did not happen here. See, generally, State ex rel. Wise v. Chand (1970), 21 Ohio St.2d 113, 50 O.O.2d 322, 256 N.E.2d 613, paragraphs three and four of the syllabus; State v. Prokos (1993), 91 Ohio App.3d 39, 44, 631 N.E.2d 6......
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