Baker v. State
Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
371 A.2d 699 (Md. App. 1977)
Baker (defendant), charged with murder and robbery, sought to elicit testimony from Officer Bolton about a witness confrontation in which a victim reportedly identified Baker as not being one of his attackers; Bolton could not recall the confrontation, so Baker tried to use a police report describing it to refresh Bolton's memory, but the report had been written by a different officer, not Bolton himself. The trial court refused to allow use of the report on that basis, and after Baker was convicted, she appealed.
Whether a witness's memory may be refreshed using a document that the witness did not personally write, so long as the witness once had firsthand knowledge of the events described.