State v. Hepple

These two criminal causes, consolidated both in the Court of Special Appeals and in this Court, involve the common issue whether certain testimonial evidence presented by the State after it had rested and after the defense had fully presented its case was properly admitted, either as appropriate rebuttal evidence or in the exercise of the trial court’s discretion to allow evidence at the rebuttal stage which should have been adduced during the prosecution’s case in chief. Because we conclude that the testimony in question in both cases was not rebuttal evidence, and because we find no…