Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-93-03059/USCOURTS-caDC-93-03059-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Horace L. Davis
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Filed July 13, 1999

No. 93-3059

United States of America,

Appellee

v.

Horace L. Davis,

Appellant

On Appellant's Petition for Rehearing

A.J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender, and Neil H. Jaffe,

Assistant Federal Public Defender, were on the supplemental

brief of appellant.

Wilma A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney, John R. Fisher and Elizabeth Trosman, Assistant U.S. Attorneys, were on the supplemental brief of appellee.

Before: Randolph, Rogers, and Tatel, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed Per Curiam.

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Per Curiam: In United States v. Crowder, 141 F.3d 1202

(D.C. Cir. 1998) (Crowder II), the court, sitting en banc,

affirmed Davis's conviction.1 Davis now seeks rehearing on

three grounds. The en banc court referred Davis's petition

to the panel. For the following reasons, we deny the petition.

Davis first contends that Officer Farmer's testimony at

trial and his testimony at the suppression hearing were in

conflict and that the district court therefore should have

permitted Davis to introduce the suppression hearing transcript into evidence.

At the suppression hearing, when asked where he filled out

the buy report, Farmer stated that he filled it out at the

police station:

Defense counsel: "That's something [the buy report] you

filled out back at the station, right?"

Farmer: "Yes."

Defense counsel never asked Farmer whether he filled out

every section of the buy report at the station. Later at trial,

Farmer gave more specific answers, testifying that he filled

out most of the report at the station but filled out the clothing

description at the scene before the police arrested Davis.

Also at trial, Farmer explained on redirect that he filled out

the clothing description on the scene so that "if the arrest

team asked me again what was the clothing description, I

have it written down so I can remember it better and I

wouldn't make a mistake in the clothing description."

Davis stresses Farmer's failure to state at the suppression

hearing where and when he filled out the clothing description

portion of the buy report. There are three answers to this

line of argument. First, it may not have been entirely clear

to the district court that Farmer's response at the suppression hearing--in light of the broad question defense counsel

asked him--gave rise to a testimonial inconsistency. See

United States v. Hale, 422 U.S. 171, 176 (1975); United

__________

1 Because Crowder II recounts the facts of this case, we do not

repeat them here.

States v. Strother, 49 F.3d 869, 874 (2d Cir. 1995). Second, in

view of the facts that defense counsel read Farmer's suppression hearing testimony to him during cross-examination, and

that Farmer did not deny giving that testimony, the district

court may have believed that admitting the transcript would

merely have been cumulative. See Rule 403, Fed. R. Evid.

Third, even assuming that Farmer's suppression hearing

response and trial testimony conflicted and that the district

court abused its discretion by not permitting Davis to introduce the transcript into evidence, any such error was harmless. As we have said, during the cross-examination of

Farmer the jury heard word-for-word what he had said at the

suppression hearing. See Appellant's Appendix 192. See

United States v. Roger, 465 F.2d 996, 997 (5th Cir. 1972).

Given the freedom defense counsel enjoyed to use the suppression hearing transcript, the district court's refusal to

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admit the transcript into evidence in no way prejudiced Davis

or impaired his defense. See United States v. Bogle, 114 F.3d

1271, 1275-76 (D.C. Cir. 1997); Williams v. United States,

403 F.2d 176, 179 (D.C. Cir. 1968).

As to the second ground for rehearing, the district court

also did not abuse its discretion in admitting Officer Farmer's

redacted "buy" report. Even if the buy report was inadmissible as a public record under Fed. R. Evid. 803(8)(B), it was

admissible under Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(C) as a statement of

identification made after perceiving Davis. The facts here

are similar to those in United States v. Coleman, 631 F.2d

908, 914 (D.C. Cir. 1980), and United States v. Clarke, 24 F.3d

257, 267 (D.C. Cir. 1994), which affirmed the admission of

similar police notes and tapes that contained witness identifications of the defendants under this rule. (Even though the

district court did not admit the buy report under Fed. R.

Evid. 801(d)(1)(C), this court can affirm on that ground. See

United States v. Jacoby, 955 F.2d 1527, 1535 (11th Cir. 1992);

United States v. Walsh, 928 F.2d 7, 10 n.10 (1st Cir. 1991).)

In challenging the buy report's admissibility, Davis relies

on United States v. Oates, 560 F.2d 45, 83-84 (2d Cir. 1977),

which holds that Fed. R. Evid. 803(8)(B) bars the admission of

records like the buy report. Oates is of questionable preceUSCA Case #93-3059 Document #448727 Filed: 07/13/1999 Page 3 of 6
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dential value--other circuits disagree with its sweeping language, see United States v. Hayes, 861 F.2d 1225, 1229-30

(10th Cir. 1988); United States v. Picciandra, 788 F.2d 39, 44

(1st Cir. 1986); United States v. Metzger, 778 F.2d 1195,

1201-02 (6th Cir. 1985)--and, in any event, the decision is

inapposite. The court's holding in Oates derived from an

express concern about preserving the defendant's right to

confront his accusers. See Oates, 560 F.2d at 83-84; Hayes,

861 F.2d at 1230. That is not an issue here. Farmer

testified at trial and was subject to cross-examination. Another case relied on by Davis, United States v. Smith, 521

F.2d 957, 965-66 n.20 (D.C. Cir. 1975), is also otiose. Like

Oates, Smith concerned Confrontation Clause issues--which,

again, are not at issue here because defense counsel crossexamined Farmer. See Coleman, 631 F.2d at 914 ("[t]he

concern in Smith that the government might submit its entire

case by means of unchallenged documentary evidence is not

present here").

Even if the district court erred in admitting the redacted

buy report and permitting the government to refer to it

during closing, any such error was harmless and did not

prejudice Davis. See Clarke, 24 F.3d at 267. The evidence

against Davis was strong. Officer Farmer testified that he

was "without a doubt" that Davis was the man from whom he

bought a rock of crack cocaine on February 27, 1991. Other

officers positively identified Davis as one of the men arrested

one to two minutes after Officer Farmer's "lookout." And

Officer Vines testified to Farmer's identification of Davis at

the scene. See United States v. Dyke, 901 F.2d 285, 287 (2d

Cir. 1990). Because the clothing description in the buy

report simply mirrors the direct identification of Davis, any

erroneous admission of such cumulative evidence is therefore

harmless. See United States v. Lampkin, 159 F.3d 607, 614-

15 (D.C. Cir. 1998); Clarke, 24 F.3d at 267.

The third issue Davis raises relates to the district court's

determination to admit evidence of Davis's bad acts. See

Fed. R. Evid. 403. It is clear that the district court took its

responsibility under Rule 403 seriously. The district court

explicitly "weigh[ed]" and analyzed the probative value of

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admitting evidence of Davis's prior bad acts. And the district

court took account of and sought to limit any potential

prejudice to Davis by, among other things, excluding mention

of the prior bad acts until the end of the government's case in

chief and barring reference to them in the government's

opening and closing statements.

Whether the district court included in the Rule 403 balancing Davis's proposed stipulation is not clear. On the one

hand, the district court stated that it would follow United

States v. Hudson, 884 F.2d 1016 (7th Cir. 1989), which

adopted a per se rule making a defendant's proposed stipulation irrelevant to the 403 balancing test in specific intent

cases. On the other hand, the district court assessed the

probative value of admitting the evidence and "weigh[ed]" it,

presumably against any potential prejudicial effect (what else

would be on the other side of the scale?); the district court

mentioned the proposed stipulation during this on-the-record

Rule 403 balancing; and the district court stated that the

proposed stipulation "should not control" the balancing, implying that, in contrast to Hudson, the court found the

stipulation relevant to the 403 determination. Thus the district court may have considered on the record the stipulation

during its Rule 403 balancing, but as we have said, this is not

certain.

At all events, if the district court failed to weigh the

proposed stipulation in the balance, a remand would nevertheless be unwarranted. The factors germane to the Rule 403

determination are readily apparent and an on-the-record consideration of the proposed stipulation would not have changed

the district court's ruling. See United States v. Graham, 83

F.3d 1466, 1473-74 (D.C. Cir. 1996); United States v. Manner, 887 F.2d 317, 322-23 (D.C. Cir. 1989).

In Old Chief v. United States, the Supreme Court reiterated that as a general rule, district courts may--indeed

should--permit the government to introduce relevant evidence of bad acts to prove elements of guilt (excluding felony

status) and to establish all the circumstances surrounding the

offense. See 519 U.S. 172, 186-89, 191-92 (1997). Here, the

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government sought to use the evidence to prove intent and

knowledge elements. On the other hand, we determined in

Crowder II that Davis's proposed stipulation was "of uncertain and doubtful significance." 141 F.3d at 1208. "It mentioned only some hypothetical drug dealer, some 'person.'

Yet the prosecution's evidence of Davis's prior crack cocaine

sales--sales close in time and place to those charged in the

indictment--was not meant to show that someone had intent

and knowledge. The evidence was introduced to prove that

Davis had the intent to distribute the crack and that Davis

knew what he was possessing. Davis's proposed stipulation

could not possibly have substituted for such proof. It did not

even mention him by name." Id. At the end of the Crowder

II opinion, in the discussion of Rule 403, we added the

following: "Here the proposed stipulations were ambiguous,

conditional and tentative. Neither mentioned the defendant

directly. At no point in their trials did either defendant

propose a jury instruction requiring the jury to find the

conceded element of intent.... The judges who presided at

their trials could not possibly have anticipated the model jury

instruction that later developed ... and their failure to do so

was neither 'plain' nor 'error.' " Id. at 1210. This last point

is particularly telling. Davis's proposed stipulation needed to

be backed up by a jury instruction. Without one, with just

the naked and ambiguous stipulation Davis tendered, the

district court's assessment under Rule 403 could not possibly

have been affected. We reverse a district court's decision to

admit evidence under Rule 403 only for a grave abuse of

discretion. See United States v. Neville, 82 F.3d 1101, 1107

(D.C. Cir. 1996). Nothing of the sort occurred here.

The petition for rehearing is denied.

So ordered.

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