P. v. Kennedy CA4/1
Defendant Lawrence Edward Kennedy challenges his murder conviction on a single ground. He contends that a limitation imposed during his cross-examination of a particular witness violated his rights to confront adverse witnesses and to due process. But the solitary line of questioning upon which Kennedy's appeal rests invited a potentially lengthy, convoluted detour that simply could not be justified by the scant relevance contemplated. On these facts, we cannot conclude the trial court abused its discretion in excluding that narrow type of questioning. Likewise, no meritorious constitutional claim arises from this permissible application of our ordinary state evidentiary rules. And even if we were to find state law evidentiary error here, we would deem it harmless. We accordingly affirm.
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