State v. Rodriguez, 371 N.C. 295 (May. 5, 2018)

In this capital case, the trial court did not err by allowing the State to elicit testimony that defense counsel had previously hired the State’s expert to testify on behalf of another client. The defendant argued that this allowed the State to improperly vouch for its expert’s credibility. The State’s expert testified that he disagreed with a defense expert’s opinion that the defendant suffers from mild intellectual disability. In light of the differences between the experts’ opinions it was proper to elicit testimony regarding potential witness bias or lack thereof. The court noted:

Although the trial court might have been better advised to have exercised its discretionary authority pursuant to . . . Rule 403, to limit the scope of the prosecutor’s inquiry to whether [the State’s expert] had previously worked for counsel representing criminal defendants in general rather than specifically identifying one of defendant’s trial counsel as an attorney to whom [the expert] had provided expert assistance, we are unable to say, given the record before us in this case, that the challenged testimony constituted impermissible prosecutorial vouching for [the expert]’s credibility or that the trial court erred by refusing to preclude the admission of the challenged testimony.