OPINION
FLANDERS, Justice.
The defendant, Danny L. Brown, appeals from a judgment convicting him on three counts of first-degree sexual assault and three counts of first-degree child molestation sexual assault. The trial justice sentenced him to serve concurrent terms of forty years for each count, with twenty years suspended and twenty years of probation to commence upon his release from incarceration. Because we conclude that none of the Superior Court’s challenged rulings constitute error or entitle the defendant to a new trial, we deny and dismiss this appeal for the reasons discussed below.
Facts and Travel
A grand jury indicted defendant for sexually molesting Emily Doe,1 his stepdaughter (Emily or complainant). The alleged molestation occurred over an approximately two- and-a-half-year period during which Emily was between the ages of eight and ten years old. On November 30, 1994, after a three-day trial in Superior Court, a jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts. Judgment entered on the verdict and in December 1994 the trial justice denied defendant’s motion for a new trial. Sentence was duly imposed on February 14,1995.
The defendant raised six issues on appeal that he claimed warranted reversal of the Superior Court’s judgment. His appeal culminated in a per curiam opinion issued on March 5, 1997, wherein a four-justice panel of this court dismissed defendant’s appeal on two of the issues he raised while also indicating that the panel was evenly divided on the remaining four claims of error. Accordingly, the trial court’s judgment was affirmed. State v. Brown, 690 A.2d 1336 (R.I.1997). The defendant immediately moved to rear-gue his appeal upon the availability of a fifth justice. We granted this request for the limited purpose of reexamining only the four issues that had originally ended in an evenly divided court.
At trial the complainant testified that defendant’s sexually abusive conduct toward her commenced during the summer of 1983, just after defendant moved in with her mother, Judy Doe (mother or Doe), Emily, and her sister at the mother’s home in West Warwick. According to Emily, defendant initially began to abuse her by fondling her breasts and her vaginal area, but this activity soon escalated to oral sex and finally to intercourse. The defendant’s sexual abuse of Emily continued for over two years until November 1985, just before defendant married the complainant’s mother, and it typically occurred when the mother was at work or out shopping or when her sister was outside playing, in her room sleeping, or with her mother. Emily testified that the sexual abuse occurred on a regular basis throughout this period.
Emily made no mention of the alleged abuse at the time of its occurrence. The defendant had told her “not to tell anybody. It was our secret.” However, in 1989, four years after the assaults ceased, Emily and her mother were watching a television talk show (the “Oprah Winfrey Show”) on the subject of the sexual abuse of children. Emily exclaimed to her mother that “that hap[468]*468pened to me” and subsequently ran out of the room, too “seared” to discuss the matter further. She did not name a perpetrator. Emily's mother testified at trial that when she later confronted defendant with Emily’s cryptic exclamation, he deified any knowledge thereof. On cross-examination, however, Emily’s mother admitted that in her written witness statement to police she had asserted that defendant had told her that the child had touched him sexually.
Doe and defendant divorced in March 1989. Their marital dissolution was short-lived, however, and after a reconciliation of sorts the couple remarried in June 1991.2 By the fall of 1991 the Brown family had become regular parishioners of the Living Waters Foursquare Gospel Church in Smithfield. The church’s pastor, Elizabeth Janikuak (pastor or Janikuak), who had also officiated at the Browns’ second marriage ceremony, began noticing that Emily was “manifest[ing] some real angry behavior.” Janikuak called Emily into her office because “she “wanted to help her.” She assured Emily that she was available to talk about any problems she was experiencing and told her to “call me when she was ready to talk * * * because I wasn’t going to force her to talk if she didn’t want to.” Several days later Janikuak received a call from Emily, and they arranged a meeting on October 24, 1991, wherein Emily revealed to Janikuak her history of having been sexually abused by defendant.
After her meeting with Emily, Janikuak attempted to take immediate control of the situation. She contacted defendant and asked him to come to the church to discuss a “very serious matter.” Thereafter, she informed him of Emily’s accusations, and defendant denied them. However, he told her that on one occasion several years earlier Emily had approached him while he was asleep on the living-room couch, reached into his underwear, and fondled his penis. The defendant reiterated this version of events at trial. He explained that at first he believed that it was his wife waking him up but that when he realized it was his stepdaughter’s hand in his pants, he scolded her. According to defendant, he informed Doe of this incident shortly after its alleged occurrence, but nothing more was said about it specifically. The mother’s recollection contrasted starkly with that of defendant; she testified that defendant never related any such incident to her at that time.
Janikuak subsequently suggested that the Browns seek counseling with Richard Tanguay, M.D. (Dr. Tanguay), a Christian psychiatrist and former pastor located in Wilmington, Connecticut, who had greater experience in counseling than she did. Doctor Tanguay testified that Janikuak had previously referred other persons to him for similar purposes. On December 12, 1991, defendant and Doe traveled to Connecticut to meet with Dr. Tanguay, and there they discussed with him defendant’s sexual abuse of Emily. At trial, Dr. Tan-guay testified that defendant’s reaction “was one of admission, yes, something of a sexual nature did occur between himself and [Emily]” but that defendant was “minimizing” what had happened. Doe testified at trial that at that counseling session Dr. Tanguay asked defendant, “Was there, you know, abuse?” and defendant responded affirmatively, “Two to three times in a month.”
Emily still had yet to confide fully in any family member concerning what had happened to her. According to complainant’s mother, it was not until April 7, 1992, in the presence of Janikuak, that Emily finally divulged to her mother the extent to which defendant had abused her. On April 30, 1992, Doe reported the information to the police. Thereafter, in June of 1992 formal criminal proceedings began.
On reargument defendant reasserts the four alleged trial errors over which this court was previously deadlocked. He contends that various rulings by the trial justice, to [469]*469which we now turn, violated his confrontation rights under the United States Constitution 3 and the Rhode Island Constitution.4
Analysis
I
The Denial of Defendant’s Pretrial Motion to Compel the State to Produce the Names and Addresses of Physicians Who May Have Treated or Examined Complainant
The defendant’s first claim of error arises from a pretrial hearing on defendant’s motion to compel the state to produce the names and addresses of “any and all pediatricians or medical doctors from whom [complainant] may have received treatment or been examined from the period May of 1983 through January of 1987.” We believe that the hearing justice was correct in provisionally denying—one year before the trial began—such an overbroad and unripe request for the production of trial witness impeachment material. In any event, because the requested confrontation-clause information was not discoverable as a matter of right before trial, defendant was required to seek this information at the time of trial. However, he neglected to do so, and thereby faded to preserve this issue for review.
A. The Defendant Was Not Entitled to Obtain the Requested Information during the Pretrial Discovery Phase of this Prosecution
The defendant’s counsel told the Superior Court justice presiding at the November 8, 1993 pretrial hearing that his motion to compel was filed under Rule 16 of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure. However, as applied to complainant, Rule 16 does not require the state to produce such information as part of pretrial discovery. Other than prior recorded statements or a summary of the witness’s expected trial testimony, under Rule 16 “the only records the state is required to produce [pertaining to a prospective prosecution witness] are those regarding prior convictions.” State v. Kelly, 554 A.2d 632, 635 (R.I.1989) (holding that Rule 16 does not require the state to produce records of the then Department of Children and Their Families pertaining to a prospective prosecution witness).
Although the court in Kelly went on to hold that the defendant there did have the right to require the state to produce the requested records at trial under the confrontation clauses of the State and the Federal constitutions, it did so not as a matter of pretrial discovery but in the context of what information must be provided to the defendant at trial to enable him to conduct an effective cross-examination of prosecution witnesses. Thus in Kelly we noted that “the right of confrontation is a trial right, raising itself only when a defendant is improperly denied the ability to confront and to effectively cross-examine an adverse witness at trial.” Id. at 635. (Emphasis added.) And it arises only “when the types of questions the defense counsel may ask during cross-examination are improperly restricted.” Id. Here defendant was never improperly denied the ability to confront and to effectively cross-examine any adverse witnesses against him. Nor were the types of questions that he might wish to ask of any witness improperly restricted. Indeed, the trial justice was never made aware of defendant’s desire to obtain the names of all physicians who may have examined complainant for the period requested, and defendant failed to question any witness about such information. Thus, unlike the circumstances in Kelly, this was not a case in which a defendant’s right to cross-examine and to confront the witnesses against him was impermissibly restricted by the trial justice. Rather, because defendant failed to raise this issue at trial, the trial justice was left totally in the dark on this point and had no reason even to suspect that defendant still desired such information, let alone that he would like the court to compel [470]*470the state to produce it for his review and use at trial.
In our opinion defendant’s request to obtain from the state the names of all physicians who may have treated or examined complainant for a four-and-a-haif-year period, coming as it did a year or so before the trial began, was decidedly premature, a fact reflected in the hearing justice’s denial of the motion “at this point.”5 If defendant or his counsel had truly desired such information for use at trial before or during cross-examination, it was incumbent on defendant to raise this issue with the trial justice.6 Although the request, as framed, was improperly overbroad in any event (see below), if defendant had asked the trial justice to require the state to produce any medical records in its possession, custody, or control that would show the results of any vaginal examinations of complainant during the relevant period, the trial justice could have considered whether to require the state to produce any such material so that he could conduct an in-camera inspection for impeachment fodder. See State v. Kholi, 672 A.2d 429, 437 (R.I.1996) (endorsing use of in-camera inspection of a complainant’s psychotherapy records in a sexual-abuse case). Having failed to make any such request of the trial justice, defendant should not now be heard to raise this issue for the first time on appeal.
Even if defendant had properly raised this issue at trial (which he failed to do) and even if the trial justice had prevented defendant from properly confronting the witnesses against him at trial (which did not happen), the proper remedy here would not be to grant a new trial but to remand this case to the trial justice and direct him to ascertain whether there are or were any such vaginal-examination records in existence and, if so, to determine in camera if the “records would create a basis for an attack on [the] witness’s credibility.” Kelly, 554 A.2d at 636; see also Kholi, 672 A.2d at 437. If either one of these questions was answered in the negative, then the alleged error in failing to compel the state to provide this information would be conclusively shown to have been harmless and no new trial would need be granted. Indeed, because defendant made no attempt whatsoever at trial to cross-examine any witness on this issue, to obtain access to the records in question, or to request the trial justice to conduct an in-camera inspection of same, we have no idea that any such records have ever existed, much less that they contain any “basis for an attack on the witness’s credibility.” Kelly, 554 A.2d at 636.
Moreover, although defendant could have utilized Super.R.Crim.P. 17(c)7 well in advance of any trial, he failed to do so. Pursuant to Rule 17(c), defendant could have requested the court to authorize a subpoena to be served upon Emily and/or her mother (or for that matter upon any of the psychiatric personnel identified in the discovery materials produced in response to the court’s order for the state to provide the defense with such information) requiring them to produce for [471]*471the court’s in-camera review (and for defense counsel’s possible later inspection) any documents (such as doctors’ bills, prescriptions, diagnoses, and the like) showing the names of any physicians who might have gynecologi-cally examined or treated Emily during the relevant period. Relying upon an examination of any such records, defendant may have been able to learn the names and addresses of such physicians whose relevant records in turn could have been similarly subpoenaed before trial.
[470]*470"The court may direct that books, papers, documents or objects designated in the subpoena he produced before the court at a time prior to the trial or prior to the time when they are to be offered in evidence and may upon their production permit the books, papers, documents or objects or portions thereof to be inspected by the parties and their attorneys."
[471]*471Finally, although every defense lawyer would prefer to maximize the time available to him or her in advance of trial to obtain, to review, and to analyze relevant factual information for possible later use at trial, it goes too far to state that any such information that is not obtained or obtainable until the trial itself is “useless” to a criminal defendant. In such situations we are confident that trial justices can safeguard the defendant’s constitutional rights by allowing defendants and their attorneys whatever reasonable time and leeway is needed during the trial itself to evaluate any information that was not reasonably obtainable by them before trial. Indeed, this is precisely the protocol this court endorsed in the above-referenced Kholi and Kelly decisions, and we discern no reason why it cannot work equally well in this context. After all, the pertinent medical information at issue here—whether complainant had undergone any gynecological examinations during the relevant period and, if so, the results of any such examinations vis-a-vis any indications of sexual activity or abuse—would not appear to be so arcane or technical as to be useless to a cross-examiner if it is produced at or during the trial itself. And any such difficulties that might arise in evaluating such information for its potential trial use, we believe, can be handled by a reasonable continuance of the proceedings to allow the defendant to make full use of whatever information contained therein might be relevant to the defense.
Further, we do not believe that the prosecution possesses any special affirmative obligation to assist defendant in his investigation of information sought pursuant to his confrontation-clause rights when such information has not been suppressed by the state and when that information is not otherwise in the state’s possession, custody, or control. Cf State v. Wyche, 518 A.2d 907, 909 (R.I.1986) (citing California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984)) (“Nor is the prosecution responsible for delivery of information outside [its] custody and control”); State v. Beaumier, 480 A.2d 1367, 1371 (R.I.1984), abrogated on unrelated grounds, State v. Rios, 702 A.2d 889 (R.I.1997) (no Brady violation emanating from “surprise at trial” because defense failed to use already-provided discovery for its own further investigatory purposes); State v. Pemental, 434 A.2d 932, 936 (R.I.1981) (no due-process violation absent suppression of evidence by the state where defendant’s allegation was that the state failed to pursue a certain mode of investigation).
Thus in our judgment the motion justice was entirely correct in denying “at this point”—a year before trial—defendant’s request for the state to identify all physicians who treated complainant when she was between seven and eleven-and-a-half years old. The request was untimely, was not a proper subject for pretrial discovery, was waived when defendant failed to present it to the trial justice, and was overbroad in any event (see below).
B. The Request Was Overbroad in Regard to the Period Covered and the Type of Information Requested
The core confrontation-clause reason for defendant’s desire to obtain access to complainant’s medical records was to ascertain if she had undergone any vaginal examination by a physician during (or immediately after) the period of the alleged sexual abuse by defendant and, if so, whether any such examination revealed any physical signs of the alleged sexual abuse.
However, the request for the names and addresses of all physicians who examined or treated complainant for anything and everything over a four-and-a-half-year period—including any colds, flus, stomach aches, fevers, whooping cough, measles, or any of the other long litany of childhood afflictions unrelated to sexual abuse—was [472]*472grossly overbroad in regard both to the period covered (a period that included fourteen months after the alleged abuse stopped) and as to the types of medical treatments and examinations requested. Moreover, because the information sought by defendant about complainant was privileged and confidential health-care information,8 the Superior Court would have been entirely justified in strictly limiting defendant to only that medical information concerning complainant that was needed for confrontation-clause purposes. .
Moreover, wholly apart from the privileged and confidential nature of the information sought, a hearing justice should not have to grant a defendant’s informational demands for bushels of chaff if there is any possibility that such a request might turn up a few confrontation-clause kernels at the bottom of the discovery barrel. Nor should the hearing justice have to give defendant a blue pencil, take him by the hand, and then guide him through a redraft of such blunderbuss requests.
Thus even if defendant’s discovery request for the names of complainant’s examining physicians had been ripe, even if it had been allowable discovery under Rule 16, even if it had been limited to a more appropriate period, and even if it had been presented to the trial justice instead of merely to a hearing justice a year before the trial, it should have been denied because of the manifest over-breadth in the medical information requested.9 For all these reasons we conclude that the Superior Court did not err in refusing to grant defendant’s pretrial motion to compel the state to produce as part of its pretrial discovery the names of all examining and treating physicians for one of the prosecution’s witnesses.
C. The Adverse Future Consequences of a Contrary Holding
We also seek to avoid the foreseeable legacy of a contrary ruling on this issue. If we were to reverse and rule that the hearing justice should have granted the motion to compel, such a holding would not stop at endorsing the submission of unjustified, over-broad, and unripe requests for confrontation-clause grist when, as here, they have been improperly propounded one year before trial pursuant to Rule 16 discovery. It would also give other defendants every reason to frame and submit such overbroad requests in the hope that, as here, they will be denied well in advance of trial. If so, these defendants and their counsel could then relax and rest assured that they have thereby preserved a surefire issue for appellate review and eventual reversal if any later verdict comes in against them at trial. The fact that they failed to raise this issue with the trial justice would not be held against them on appeal— or so they would argue—because, after all, [473]*473this court does not require buUdog-like tenacity from defendants.
However, we usually do require something more than potted-plant-like passivity for defendants to preserve alleged trial errors for review. What is even worse, however, is that such a ruling would open the door for the type of potential discovery sandbagging described above, an insidious practice that should not be rewarded in this manner.
II
The Trial Justice’s Limitation of a Prosecution Witness’s Bias Cross-Examination
The defendant’s next claim of error focuses upon the trial justice’s limitation of a prosecution witness’s cross-examination concerning a lawsuit filed against her by one of defendant’s cousins. We conclude that this ruling on the scope of Janikuak’s cross-examination fell within the trial justice’s broad discretion to limit and control the questioning on such a collateral matter, and in any event was harmless if it constituted an error. The mere fact that the pastor and her church had been sued by an alleged cousin of unknown relational proximity or affinity to defendant for moneys allegedly due on a church construction project does not constitutionally compel a bias cross-examination concerning this collateral subject on pain of reversible error if the same is restricted.
We agree that a criminal defendant is constitutionally guaranteed the right to an effective cross-examination of the prosecution’s witnesses. State v. Doctor, 690 A.2d 321, 327 (R.I.1997); State v. Anthony, 422 A.2d 921, 923-24 (R.I.1980). However, the scope of cross-examination is subject to limi-tation by the trial justice’s exercise of his or her sound discretion. State v. Bowden, 473 A.2d 275, 279 (R.I.1984). And a trial justice may exercise this discretion to narrow the questioning as long as he or she does not “unduly restrict” a defendant’s cross-examination right. Anthony, 422 A.2d at 924 (citing Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 1110, 39 L.Ed.2d 347, 353-54 (1974)) (noting that the cross-examiner should be given reasonable latitude, including the chance to establish or to reveal bias as it relates to the particular case being tried). Thus, after there has been sufficient cross-examination to satisfy a defendant’s constitutional confrontation rights, the trial justice possesses the discretion to limit further cross-examination. State v. Brennan, 527 A.2d 654, 657 (R.I.1987). We shall not disturb such a limitation absent a clear abuse of discretion “and then only when such abuse constitutes prejudicial error.” Anthony, 422 A.2d at 924. Here we conclude that the trial justice’s minor restriction on defendant’s bias inquiry was neither a clear abuse of discretion nor a prejudicial error necessitating a new trial altogether.
Our review of defendant’s proposed line-of-bias inquiry and his subsequent offer of proof at trial reveals that the trial justice did not clearly abuse his discretion in restricting defendant’s cross-examination of Janikuak on this point. First, there was no showing whatsoever that the pastor knew that defendant was related to a contractor named Brown or that defendant “was instrumental in putting the people together to build that church.” Indeed, according to Janikuak’s testimony, she did not even know that a man named Brown had been a contractor who helped to build the church.10
[474]*474Second, defendant’s subsequent offer of proof was wholly inadequate to indicate that allowing additional cross-examination would have developed probative evidence of bias. See Doctor, 690 A.2d at 827-28 (no abuse of discretion in limiting bias cross-examination when witness testified to a lack of knowledge about the subject matter of the alleged bias and the defendant failed to indicate what he might develop if he was allowed to continue his cross-examination). Thus we believe that the trial justice did not err because “a fishing expedition on cross-examination may properly be brought to a halt when it becomes obvious that the pond is devoid of fish.” Id. at 328 (quoting Brennan, 527 A.2d at 657). When Janikuak answered defense counsel’s inquiry in the negative about not knowing any man named Brown who had allegedly been involved in building the church, the trial justice was entitled to conclude that “the pond is devoid of fish”—or at least any worth keeping—and defense counsel was obliged “either [to] tell the court where he believed the fish were hiding or to pack up his fishing gear and try elsewhere.” Id. at 328.
The defendant cites to a Connecticut intermediate appellate court case, State v. Privitera, 1 ConnApp. 709, 476 A.2d 605, 607 (1984), for the proposition that the “pendency of civil litigation between a witness and a party against whom he testifies is relevant to bias.” We agree that bias may be inferred in circumstances in which, for example, there is litigation between a prosecution witness and the defendant in that case. However, when as here that litigation is not between a prosecution witness and a defendant but between a prosecution witness and some nonimmediate relation of a defendant involving a matter entirely unrelated to the underlying proceedings, we deem such evidence of alleged bias—especially in light of defense counsel’s limited proffer of evidence on the subject—to be too remote to mandate farther cross-examination on pain of per se reversal if it is restricted.11
[475]*475Even if we were to conclude that the trial justice committed a clear abuse of discretion by violating defendant’s constitutional rights to an effective cross-examination under the Federal and the Rhode Island Constitutions, we believe that there has been no prejudice shown here that would necessitate a new trial. Rather in light of the distinctions between the bias circumstances here and those in Davis, the case at bar would not fit the mold for application of the Davis court’s per se error rule as it was adopted by this court in State v. DeBarros, 441 A.2d 549, 552 (R.I.1982).
Moreover, we conclude that any error here was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt for purposes of the Federal Constitution, see Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 680, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 1436, 89 L.Ed.2d 674, 684 (1986), and of the Rhode Island Constitution, see State v. Squillante, 622 A.2d 474, 480 (R.I.1993), because there was other compelling evidence of defendant’s guilt besides the evidence contributed by the pastor. Most tellingly, defendant admitted at trial that his stepdaughter had touched him sexually. Even more damning were defendant’s admissions to Dr. Tanguay, in the presence of complainant’s mother. At trial the mother testified that defendant told Dr. Tanguay in her presence that he had touched the girl “[t]wo to three times in a month” when Dr. Tanguay pointedly asked him whether there had ever been any sexual abuse. Indeed, defendant conceded on the witness stand that he had been referred to Dr. Tanguay for counseling “because of what happened between me and [Emily].” Moreover, Dr. Tan-guay testified that defendant admitted to him that “something of a sexual nature did occur.” Even though Dr. Tanguay acknowledged that he could not be very specific in the details of his counseling session with the mother and defendant, he also “was very clear in [his] mind that sexual abuse had taken place, and of a more serious nature than [he] had been led to believe in the beginning.” There was no suggestion that Dr. Tanguay had any reason to he, and his testimony was corroborated not only by complainant and complainant’s mother but by Janikuak as well. Unless ah these people were bars and unless defendant himself was lying when he made the admissions about the sexual touching that had occurred, then the trial justice’s minor restriction of Janikuak’s cross-examination—if error it was—was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
In any event, defendant was able to testify about Janikuak’s alleged bias when he stated that she “told me that she hated me, * * * because I introduced her to my cousin, Hollis Brown, and there’s a lot of bickering still going on, and a lot of lawsuits.” He also testified about there being “a lot of feuds coming out between my cousin, A1 Brown, and Pastor Janikuak, and a lot of the contractors.” Thus there was evidence in the record of the pastor’s alleged bias toward defendant and/or defendant’s cousin, and it does not appear to us that he was in any way materially prejudiced by the relatively minor limitation of the cross-examination on this point.
Finally, defendant also.testified to the fact that Janikuak married defendant and his wife some seven or eight months after his cousin’s baekhoe work at the church had been completed and three months or so after the cousin’s notice of intent to claim a hen had been sent to the pastor’s church and to the pastor at her Johnston address. Thus it is hard to fathom the materiality of a proposed cross-examination for the purpose of showing the pastor’s alleged bias toward defendant when he remained actively involved in the pastor’s church and their relationship continued on such apparently good terms that she agreed to and in fact performed his wedding ceremony during the same period in which she was supposed to have been biased against him because a cousin of his was suing the church for nonpayment of a relatively small sum ($3,500) on a church-repair job.
Ill
The Restriction of the Cross-Examination of Complainant’s Mother on her Failure to Notify DCYF of the Abuse Allegations
During cross-examination of complainant’s mother at trial, the trial justice precluded defense counsel’s inquiries into (1) whether and when the mother first notified the De[476]*476partment of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) about her daughter’s April 7, 1992 disclosures of sexual abuse and (2) whether the mother realized that she had a statutory obligation to notify DCYF of this abuse under G.L. 1956 § 40-11-3. Defense counsel’s purported reasoning for this line of inquiry was that the mother’s action (or inaction) with respect to DCYF notification would have reflected adversely on her credibility as a witness. According to defendant, because the mother apparently did not make such a notification, she must not have believed complainant’s allegations to be true or else she would have notified DCYF to protect her two other children from defendant.12 Moreover, in a manner consistent with defendant’s theory that complainant’s allegations were fabrications made at her mother’s instigation because he was divorcing her mother for another woman, defendant further contends (for the first time on appeal) that the mother’s failure to report the alleged abuse to DCYF despite an awareness of her legal obligation to do so would east doubt on her assertion that her daughter’s allegations had been made before defendant had told the mother he wanted a divorce. However, because defendant failed to make this argument to the trial justice, we hold that he cannot now argue it to this court for the first time on appeal.
But even if defendant had made a timely objection on the grounds now proffered, we conclude that the trial court did not violate defendant’s state or federal rights to an effective cross-examination by so limiting defendant’s cross-examination of the mother. A trial justice has broad discretion in determining the scope of cross-examination, and absent abuse of that discretion we shall not disturb the trial court’s ruling. See State v. Brisson, 619 A.2d 1099, 1105 (R.I.1993). Here we conclude that there was no such abuse.
In Brisson, a case in which the defendant was charged with first-degree sexual assault of his young stepson, this court similarly addressed the propriety of cross-examining a witness on the failure to inform authorities of the alleged abuse. Id. at 1105. At trial there, a cousin of the defendant testified that after the abuse allegations were made against the defendant, the stepson told him that he had not been fondled. Id. at 1101. We concluded that the trial judge properly allowed cross-examination of the cousin concerning his failure to report this potentially exculpatory information to law enforcement authorities. Id. at 1105. Even though we found that there was “nothing inherently erroneous” in cross-examining a defense witness concerning his failure to report potentially exculpatory information to law enforcement authorities, we were also quite clear that our ruling was limited. Id. There we emphasized that oúr position was not to be interpreted as a “broad-based invitation to inquire haphazardly of every witness whether he or she reported information to law enforcement authorities” and that the trial justice “must exercise his or her sound discretion to ensure that the jury is not misled by efforts to impeach the credibility of a witness.” Id. Thus, to achieve this end, we acknowledged in Brisson that a trial justice has broad discretion to limit cross-examination based on a witness’s failure to report information to the authorities.
We are of the opinion that the trial justice’s exclusion of defense counsel’s proffered line of questioning in the case at bar did not constitute an abuse of his discretion or impermissibly intrude upon defendant’s right to confront witnesses against him. First, it was consistent with our ruling in Brisson, which governs any situation (as here) in which a witness is questioned about an alleged failure to notify the authorities and not merely those situations involving cross-examination of defense witnesses. Unlike the situation in Brisson, the cross-examiner here sought to put before the jury a [477]*477specific statutory provision, thus implying that the witness was in violation of a specific legal obligation to report. The trial justice in this case correctly concluded that defense counsel’s doing so might mislead the jury, and thus he properly excluded any questions about whether the witness had reported the abuse to DCYF. As the trial justice stated, the mother is “not on trial here. Her credibility is always an issue, but she’s not on trial here.” Moreover, defense counsel here provided no foundation that the mother had any knowledge of a duty to report and that, even if she had such knowledge, she would have notified DCYF of her daughter’s sexual abuse if she had considered her allegations to have been credible.
Such testimony could also have conveyed to the jury that the mother’s failure to report her daughter’s abuse to DCYF indicated that even the mother did not believe the daughter’s testimony. But this construction would constitute the same kind of negative vouching that we condemned in State v. Haslam, 663 A.2d 902, 906-07 (R.I.1995) (testimony by a DCYF investigator that sexual-abuse accusations by the defendant were “unfounded” held to constitute impermissible negative vouching).
We also note the potential existence of significant conflicting considerations that might militate against the mother’s providing DCYF with notice in circumstances such as those present in this case. For example, the mother may have preferred to resolve this situation without involving the authorities, especially if she perceived that notification might jeopardize her relationship with her other children. Because these considerations tend to undercut any inference that could be drawn that the mother’s failure to report necessarily reflects adversely on her credibility or that of her daughter, we believe the trial justice could properly restrict such a line of inquiry to prevent the jury from being misled on this point. Accordingly we affirm the trial court’s exclusionary ruling.
IV
The Admission of Alleged Bolstering Testimony
The defendant’s final claim of error is that the trial justice supposedly permitted a witness to engage in bolstering. But this contention was not preserved for review because no such objection was specifically raised with the trial justice. In any event the witness’s testimony, taken in context, did not constitute impermissible vouching.
A. Defendant Failed to Preserve this Issue for Appeal
According to Rhode Island’s well-settled “raise-or-waive” rule, a trial justice’s claimed errors that are not specifically objected to at trial—that is, by an objection that is “sufficiently focused so as to call the trial justice’s attention to the basis for said objection”—are not preserved for consideration by this court on appeal. State v. Toole, 640 A.2d 965, 972 (R.I.1994) (quoting State v. Warren, 624 A.2d 841, 842 (R.I.1993)). “[All-legations of error committed at trial are considered waived if they were not effectively raised at trial, despite their articulation at the appellate level.” Toole, 640 A.2d at 973. (Emphasis added.) Because defendant here failed to raise an effective bolstering objection before the trial justice, this court may not consider this specification of error on appeal.
On direct examination Janikuak testified concerning her discussions with complainant. After she said that she was “very cautious to make sure' that what [complainant] was telling me was the truth because we’re trained to be sure that just because someone makes an allegation does not mean it’s true,” defense counsel simply stated, “[Objection.” The court immediately overruled the objection. However, no grounds were stated either for the objection or for the court’s overruling. There was no mention made by defendant of bolstering. Indeed there was no motion to strike the testimony, and the objection itself came too late to be of assistance to defendant. The defendant also failed to request a mistrial or to ask that any cautionary instruction be given to the jury. Thus the trial justice was never apprised that defendant considered the pastor’s remarks to constitute bolstering. Accordingly under our established raise-or-waive rule defendant [478]*478should not be allowed to pursue this issue on appeal.
In Toole a defendant who had been convicted on various counts of sexual assault argued on appeal, among other things, that the prosecutor improperly questioned witnesses to vouch for their truthfulness—on several occasions querying a witness about “the real reason” she had performed a certain act. 640 A.2d at 972. He contended that this questioning was improper because it implied that the prosecutor had some special knowledge regarding the facts of the case. Id. The state responded that the defendant did not preserve this issue for appeal because the objection asserted at trial by the defense was a “general rather than a specific” objection. Id. This court agreed and concluded that the defendant’s objection was “not sufficiently specific or focused for us to review this contention in this particular instance.” Id. at 973.
"Defense Counsel: Do you recall the question?
In this case not only was defense counsel’s objection ineffective because it was not specific, but his colloquy with the trial justice led the latter to conclude that defendant’s objection to the pastor’s statement was hearsay based. A close review of the trial transcript reveals that defense counsel’s proffered objections concerning Janikuak’s testimony about her meeting with complainant (wherein complainant first divulged to the pastor that defendant had sexually abused her) were strictly limited to their alleged hearsay status. Indeed the allegedly offending statement itself is sandwiched between bookend hearsay objections.13
[479]*479Although defendant thereby waived any bolstering objection, he also fails to proffer any legitimate exception to the raise-or-waive rule here. A party must satisfy three criteria to qualify for such an exception: “(1) the error complained of must be more than harmless error, (2) the record must be sufficient to permit a determination of the issue, and (3) counsel’s failure to raise the issue at trial must be attributed to a novel rule of law that counsel could not reasonably have known during the trial.” State v. Cassey, 543 A.2d 670, 676 (R.I.1988). Moreover, a defendant’s basic constitutional rights must be at issue. Id. Because the bolstering argument is hardly a novel rule of law, there can be no colorable claim that this stringent three-part test has been satisfied here.
B. Pastor Janikuak’s Testimony Did Not Constitute Impermissible Bolstering
Taking the pastor’s statement in the context of her entire testimony, we also believe it is clear that she was not attempting to bolster complainant’s credibility, nor would a reasonable jury have so construed her testimony. The balance of what the pastor said demonstrates that she had made no judgment at any point concerning the truth or the falsity of what she had been told by complainant, or for that matter by defendant. Rather she was only attempting to mediate between them to help them resolve this family conflict. Thus in context Janik-uak’s testimony shows that she was not either endorsing the complaining witness or discrediting defendant. Indeed at one point she stated, “I still was, you know, couldn’t see, one was saying yes and one was saying no. I suggested that they see a psychologist.”
Hence even if defendant had preserved his bolstering argument for appeal, we are of the opinion that there was no bolstering here because the allegedly offending statement was not an attempt to vouch for the credibility of another witness within the meaning of State v. Haslam, 663 A.2d 902 (R.I.1995), and State v. Miller, 679 A.2d 867 (R.I.1996), especially when it is viewed in the overall context of Janikuak’s testimony. Moreover, the particular circumstances here are distinguishable from the situations recently presented to us in Haslam and Miller, where we reached specific conclusions about what type of testimony constitutes impermissible vouching.
We agree that a witness should not be permitted to offer an opinion concerning the truthfulness of the testimony of another witness, and his or her testimony will be inadmissible if it literally addresses credibility or has the same “substantive import.” Miller, 679 A.2d at 872; Haslam, 663 A.2d at 905. However, in order to determine whether the testimony “would be perceived by the jury as a conclusive opinion” on a complainant’s credibility, Haslam, 663 A.2d at 906, we believe that the reviewing court must consider the offending statements in the context of the witness’s overall testimony before the jury-
In the case at bar the testimony preceding Janikuak’s alleged bolstering statement addressed the pastor’s initial meetings with complainant wherein she first disclosed defendant’s sexual abuse. The statement itself concerned the pastor’s reaction to the witness’s allegations:
“Prosecutor: Upon learning this information, what was your reaction?
What was your response?
“Janikuak: As to what she said to me?
“Prosecutor: Yes, without saying what she said.
“Janikuak: I was very cautious to make sure that what she was telling me was the truth because we’re trained to be sure that just because someone makes an allegation does not mean it’s true.”
[480]*480Although this testimony reveals that the pastor was trying to gauge the truthfulness of complainant’s revelations before proceeding further in her counseling, the substantive import of Janikuak’s testimony—when viewed in its entire context—was not that complainant was being truthful in her allegations. Significantly, a close look at Janik-uak’s overall testimony on this point reveals that the pastor herself could not determine whether complainant (in her allegations) or defendant (in his denials) was being truthful. And it also highlights the fact that the pastor was merely attempting to mediate this family crisis while moving cautiously in light of the serious nature of the allegations.14 Accordingly we conclude that Janikuak’s overall testimony could not have been reasonably perceived by the jury as vouching for the credibility of complainant’s sexual-abuse allegations.
Moreover, this situation is also distinguishable from the testimony we found offensive in Miller and Haslam for other reasons. In Miller the defendant, a college track coach, had been convicted on one count of first-degree sexual assault of one of his student athletes. 679 A.2d at 869. The complainant testified at trial that she had told her mother about the rape. Id. at 872. However, a police detective testified for the defendant that she had spoken to the mother several months later and that the mother never brought this fact to the detective’s attention. Id. On cross-examination the detective was then permitted, over the defendant’s objection, to testify that it was “not at all uncommon” for people to neglect to elucidate details of an incident to an investigating police officer fully. Id. On appeal the defendant contended that this testimony constituted impermissible vouching for the mother because it purported to explain the inconsistencies between the complainant’s trial testimony and the mother’s comments to the investigating officer. The defendant argued that this testimony also suggested to the jury that the mother’s failure to inform the investigating officer should not have cast any shadow on her credibility. Id. We agreed, especially in light of the fact that the evidence was closely balanced and that credibility was therefore of paramount importance. Id. at 873.
Unlike the situation in Miller, Janikuak’s testimony does not purport to explain any testimony that is inconsistent with complainant’s sexual-abuse allegations. In addition, unlike Miller, where the jury heard extensive [481]*481testimony about the lack of evidence to corroborate the sexual-assault charges against the defendant, complainant’s word here was not the only evidence supporting defendant’s conviction. Indeed, defendant himself admitted to two separate witnesses, and at trial, that acts of a sexual nature did occur between him and complainant. Most significantly, defendant admitted to Dr. Tanguay, in the presence of complainant’s mother, that he had sexual activity “two to three times in a month” with complainant. Thus even without Janikuak’s testimony the state had substantial other evidence to prove defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
In Haslam the prosecution—through questioning of a professional sex-abuse-recovery counselor whom the victim had seen periodically for over a two-year period—repeatedly sought to emphasize that the victim had been undergoing therapy with a sexual-abuse counselor as part of her ongoing recovery. 663 A.2d at 904-05. Given that the counselor had no firsthand knowledge of abuse, that she was not a witness to any acts of molestation, and that she obtained her knowledge only via conversations with others, we determined that her repeated references to “sexual abuse recovery” counseling “could only impress upon the jury that [the complainant there] had indeed been sexually abused, just as [the complainant] herself had testified, and that [the counselor] obviously believed that [the complainant] had been sexually abused.” Id. at 906. Our conclusion was further justified by the fact that the recovery sessions had been ongoing for over two years, including at the time of trial. Id.
But here the prosecution did not seek to elicit, nor did the witness offer, testimony that complainant was in counseling with Jan-ikuak as part of some sexual-abuse-recoveiy program, thus implicitly validating the underlying allegations of sexual abuse. Instead Janikuak’s testimony clearly reveals her role as a mere mediator who soon referred the parties on to a psychiatrist (Dr. Tanguay) before whom defendant admitted to his criminal misconduct. Thus, unlike the situation in Haslam, the pastor was not a professionally trained sexual-abuse counselor providing treatment to a victim. In fact Janikuak explicitly disavowed that she was “dealing in sexual abuse,” testifying that her presence at trial was meant only “to make a statement about what was shared with me.”
In Haslam we also found the testimony of another prosecution witness to constitute impermissible vouching. There, a child-protective investigator for DCYF was allowed to testify that a complaint lodged by the defendant stating that the complainant’s brother had sexually abused the child victim was “unfounded.” 663 A.2d at 906-07. We concluded that this declaration had the effect of conveying that witness’s belief that the defendant’s subsequent testimony on the subject was not to be believed. Id. at 907. In contrast, Janikuak’s remarks in the case at bar clearly do not rise to the level of the “unfounded” comment by the DCYF investigator in Haslam.
Just as a reviewing court should not pick out one isolated statement from a slew of jury instructions without considering all the juiy instructions as a whole, State v. Peguero, 652 A.2d 972, 974 (R.I.1995), so too should it not pick one isolated statement in a witness’s testimony out of context from the whole of it. Here, there is nothing in Janik-uak’s testimony taken as a whole that expresses any opinion at all about the credibility of either the complainant or the defendant. Finally, having failed to object on the grounds of bolstering, having failed to move to strike the answer that is now targeted on appeal, and having failed to request any cautionary instruction, much less a mistrial, the defendant has not preserved this alleged error for review.
Conclusion
For these reasons the defendant’s appeal is denied and the judgment appealed from is affirmed.
GOLDBERG, J., did not participate.