State v. Malik Garcia, 19-398

Defendant Malik Garcia and complaining witness Lucely Garcia Vargas were in a domestic, cohabiting relationship; incident occurred October 10, 2016.
Lucely testified defendant struck her, grabbed her hair, and she fled the apartment with only keys; police observed a red mark on her face and retrieved her phone; Lucely initially hesitated to report because of defendant’s immigration status.
Defendant testified he did not strike Lucely, described a verbal/physical altercation in which he pushed her after she tried to hit him, and said officers later arrested him.
At the bench trial the trial justice sustained ~14 objections to defense cross-examination of Lucely and several objections to defense direct of defendant, limiting inquiry into prior lawsuits in Colombia, prior alleged assaults, and whether Lucely asked her daughter Tatiana to corroborate.
Defendant was convicted of domestic simple assault and refusal to relinquish telephone; he appealed asserting Sixth Amendment and state-constitutional violations based on restrictions of cross-examination.
Supreme Court reviewed whether the trial justice abused discretion in limiting cross-examination and affirmed the convictions.

Issue	State's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether trial justice impermissibly limited defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront witness	Trial justice afforded reasonable latitude; limits were proper to exclude irrelevant, speculative, or nonprobative lines	Limits prevented probing witness credibility/bias and thus violated confrontation rights	No constitutional error; trial justice acted within discretion and sufficient cross-examination was permitted
Admissibility of evidence about Lucely’s prior lawsuits in Colombia	Lawsuits were irrelevant to bias without proof of falsity; documents were uncertified and untranslated; trial justice offered leave to proffer documentation	Lawsuits would show a pattern of fraudulent accusations and motive to fabricate	Exclusion was proper; defendant failed to establish relevance or provide admissible documentation
Inquiry into prior alleged assaults and threats by defendant	Some questioning was allowed; further detail was cumulative or beyond scope and could be limited	Needed specifics to show pattern and impeach credibility	No abuse of discretion; trial justice allowed reasonable inquiry but could limit scope
Question whether Tatiana refused to corroborate Lucely’s account	Tatiana’s silence is speculative and not probative, especially as she was not present at the incident	Tatiana’s refusal to provide a statement would undermine Lucely’s credibility	Exclusion proper; speculative inference lacked probative value

State v. Scholl, 661 A.2d 55 (R.I. 1995) (Confrontation Clause applies to states)
State v. Clark, 974 A.2d 558 (R.I. 2009) (trial justice must give reasonable latitude to show witness bias; may limit misleading or irrelevant inquiry)
State v. Storey, 102 A.3d 641 (R.I. 2014) (scope of cross-examination subject to trial-justice discretion to exclude irrelevant or cumulative matters)
State v. Tiernan, 941 A.2d 129 (R.I. 2008) (motive to fabricate or bias is relevant impeachment material)
State v. Wright, 817 A.2d 600 (R.I. 2003) (cross-examination limits justified for questions that are misleading, irrelevant, or beyond scope)
State v. Brown, 709 A.2d 465 (R.I. 1998) (questions of relevancy and the permissible scope of cross-examination rest in trial-justice discretion)