North Carolina Reports
STATE v. PARKER, 119 N.C. App. 328 (1995)
459 S.E.2d 9
 

Page 342
 

[14] Finally, defendant contends that the trial court erred in allowing the state to impeach one of its own witnesses. John Rogers testified he saw defendant and several of his codefendants walking around the trailer park at approximately 2:00 a.m. When Rogers testified that he did not remember what the people were wearing, the prosecutor asked Rogers if Rogers remembered what he told him in the presence of Detective Harper at 1:00 p.m. that afternoon in the prosecutor's office. Defendant answered, "I said the girls were wearing white shirts and nothing on underneath them, and that's all that I remember." When the prosecutor asked what the other people in the crowd were wearing, Rogers answered, "the girls were wearing white shirts and men were wearing dark clothes." Defendant contends that the State was allowed to improperly impeach its witness with a prior inconsistent statement.

A witness may be cross-examined by confronting him with prior statements inconsistent with any part of his testimony, but where such questions concern matters collateral to the issues, the witness's answers on cross-examination are conclusive, and the party who draws out such answers will not be permitted to contradict them by other testimony.

State v. Williams, 322 N.C. 452, 455, 368 S.E.2d 624, 626 (1988) (quoting State v. Green, 296 N.C. 183, 192, 250 S.E.2d 197, 203 (1978)). The State did not attempt to offer extrinsic evidence, such as Detective Harper's additional testimony, to challenge the truthfulness of Rogers's memory.
 

Date Printed: July 6, 1999

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