Galan

A trial is a search for the truth. Cross-examination and impeachment of witnesses go to the truth-seeking function of the trial. The courts should be ever vigilant to allow both sides access to evidentiary material that will enable them to search for the truth. In an appropriate case, these principles allow a criminal defendant, by way of a Pitchess motion, to “fish” in a police officer’s personnel records to see if the officer has a penchant to commit some type of misconduct that would aid in the search for truth. (Pitchess v. Superior Court (1974) 11 Cal.3d 531 [ 113 Cal.Rptr. 897 , 522 P.2d 305 ]; Evid. Code, § 1043.) As this case shows, there are limits to these rules.

Where, as here, a defendant’s undisputed extrajudicial statements are reasonably consistent with the officer’s description of the crime, discovery of any complaint of prior fabrication is foreclosed. Why? Because, notwithstanding defense counsel’s declaration to the contrary, his client has impliedly acknowledged that the officer has been truthful in his report of the circumstances of the crime. Were we to rule otherwise, imaginative defense counsel could ignore his client’s extrajudicial statements…