State v. Ross

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Schreiber, J.

The primary issue in this case is whether a trial court at the request of the prosecution may call certain individuals as court witnesses to enable the prosecution to introduce into evidence as substantive proof of the crime oral and written statements previously made by those witnesses, thereby avoiding the limitation of Evict. B. 63(1) (a). We hold that it may not. Furthermore, we find that the trial error was compounded by the trial court’s directions and instructions to the jury concerning the veracity of these witnesses and its…