Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-99-03027/USCOURTS-caDC-99-03027-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Walter J. Bowie
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 18, 1999 Decided December 21, 1999

No. 98-3146

United States of America,

Appellee

v.

Walter J. Bowie,

Appellant

Consolidated with

No. 99-3027

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(98cr00008-01)

Paul L. Knight, appointed by the court, argued the cause

and filed the briefs for appellant.

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Barbara A. Grewe, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Wilma A.

Lewis, U.S. Attorney, and John R. Fisher and Elizabeth

Trosman, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Mary-Patrice Brown,

Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance.

Before: Sentelle and Randolph, Circuit Judges, and

Buckley, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Randolph.

Randolph, Circuit Judge: As the rules governing criminal

trials multiply, even the simplest prosecution can generate a

host of legal errors. We have before us a three-witness case,

charging unlawful possession of a firearm and assault on two

police officers. Yet there are problems with the indictment,

with the government's failure to disclose evidence to the

accused, with the standard used to assess the effect of this,

and with the sentence. The case must be remanded, at least

for resentencing, as the government now acknowledges.

Among the open questions is whether there must also be a

new trial.

I

Walter J. Bowie went to trial in March 1998 on a three

count indictment. The first count charged that, as a convicted felon, he unlawfully possessed a firearm. See 18 U.S.C.

s 922(g)(1). The other counts charged him with assaulting,

resisting, opposing, impeding and interfering with a police

officer "while armed with a deadly or dangerous weapon," in

violation of local law. Each of these two counts closed with

the same parenthetical: "(Assaulting, Resisting, or Interfering with a Police Officer While Armed With a Dangerous

Weapon, in violation of Title 22, District of Columbia Code,

Sections 505(b) and 3202(a)(1))".

The prosecution and defense stipulated to Bowie's status as

a convicted felon. The district court denied a motion to

suppress and trial commenced. The prosecution called Lonnie Moses and Paul Riggins, both police officers, and an

expert witness. The defense called no one. Officer Moses

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testified that he saw Bowie on the street receiving money

from an unidentified man and handing the man something in

return. He told officer Riggins what he had witnessed. The

officers approached the men, Moses wearing a vest with the

word "Police" across the front, Riggins in full uniform. The

unidentified man walked away. When Moses called out,

Bowie came toward the officers. As Moses reached for

Bowie's arm, Bowie knocked the officer's hand away and then

shoved him in the chest. A struggle ensued. According to

Moses, as he and Riggins were wrestling Bowie to the

ground, trying to handcuff him, Bowie kept reaching into his

waist area. When they finally subdued him, and stood him

up, Moses pulled up the front of Bowie's shirt and a loaded

.357 magnum--a large pistol--fell out, hitting Moses on the

shin. Officer Riggins's version of the events tallied with that

of Moses, except that Riggins testified the pistol fell out while

they were still struggling to get Bowie to the ground. The

government's expert testified that the pistol had been manufactured in Connecticut. The jury returned a verdict of

guilty on all counts.

About a month later, the prosecutor sent a letter to defense

counsel disclosing that Moses was under investigation by the

United States Attorney's Office regarding his testimony in an

unrelated case and that the investigation had begun before

Bowie's trial. This information had not been revealed before

trial although Bowie's attorney had requested the government to provide all material and information covered by

Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). Bowie's attorney

responded to the letter with a motion for a new trial. During

the hearing on the motion, more details emerged about the

investigation of officer Moses.

On January 14, 1998--the date will become important--

Moses testified in a suppression hearing before the Honorable A. Franklin Burgess of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, the local trial court. The case bore the title

United States v. Davon Williams. When the hearing ended

after two days of testimony, Judge Burgess suppressed the

evidence, finding the defense witnesses more credible than

Moses.

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As the chief prosecutor in the local and the federal courts,

the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia

maintains a computerized list of police officers who are under

investigation--the "Lewis list," after Lewis v. United States,

408 A.2d 303, 306 (D.C. 1979). Moses became the subject of

an investigation into the truthfulness of his testimony in the

Williams case on February 27, 1998. His name was added to

the Lewis list, when exactly is unknown, but the government

concedes it was before the start of Bowie's trial on March 10,

1998. The prosecutor explained that when she checked the

Lewis list sometime before Bowie's trial, she did not find

Moses's name and that she became aware of his listing only

when Moses called her three days after Bowie's conviction

saying "You may have a problem, you know, I just learned I

have been placed on the Lewis list."

At the hearing on Bowie's motion, the prosecutor and the

defense attorney treated the issue, not in terms of the

prosecutor's disclosure duty under Brady, but in terms of

newly-discovered evidence. The district court did the same,

denying the new trial motion because "(1) it is unlikely that

the newly discovered evidence upon which Mr. Bowie grounds

his motion--Officer Moses' testimony in and the surrounding

circumstances of the Devon Williams case--would be admissible at a new trial; (2) the new evidence is merely impeaching;

(3) the evidence is not of such a nature that in a new trial it

would probably produce an acquittal." United States v.

Bowie, No. 98-Cr-0008 (D.D.C. Nov. 5, 1998) (order denying

motion for a new trial).

II

Now that the case is on appeal, neither the government nor

the defense argues about whether the undisclosed information

constitutes newly discovered evidence. Both sides acknowledge that Brady and the cases following it provide the

governing legal principles. These legal principles are as

follows. The Due Process Clause requires a prosecutor to

disclose, upon request, information favorable to the accused

"that is material to either guilt or to punishment." Brady,

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373 U.S. at 87. Evidence affecting the credibility of government witnesses is a category of exculpatory information potentially within Brady's disclosure obligation. See Giglio v.

United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154 (1972). If the government

failed to disclose exculpatory evidence, a defendant is not

entitled to have his conviction overturned unless the evidence

was "material." United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 674-

78 (1985); United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 112 (1976).

Evidence is "material" only if " 'there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the

result of the proceeding would have been different.' " Kyles

v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 433-34 (1995) (quoting Bagley, 473

U.S. at 682 (opinion of Blackmun, J.)). A "reasonable probability" means the chances are high enough to undermine

confidence in the outcome. See Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434;

Strickler v. Greene, 119 S. Ct. 1936, 1952 (1999).

It is worth pausing here to examine this standard--"reasonable probability," a standard first suggested by Justice

Blackmun in his opinion for himself and Justice O'Connor in

Bagley, endorsed by three other Justices in Bagley (see 473

U.S. at 685 (White, J., concurring in part)), explained by

Justice Souter in his opinion for the Court in Kyles, reaffirmed last term in Strickler, and criticized by Justice Souter in

his separate opinion in Strickler, see 119 S. Ct. at 1956

(Souter, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). What

is a "reasonable probability"? Probability is often expressed

in terms of percentages, with 100% representing certainty.

We know, because the Supreme Court has told us, that a

"reasonable probability" can be less than 50.01%. In other

words, to reverse a conviction for a Brady violation, it does

not have to be more likely than not that the defendant would

have been acquitted had the evidence been disclosed. See

Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434. We are also sure that a "reasonable

probability" is somewhat greater than 1%. How much greater? Enough, the Supreme Court says, to "undermine confidence in the verdict," id. at 435, which may lead us in a circle:

one cannot be confident of the outcome when there is a

"reasonable" probability that it may be wrong, and a "reasonable" probability is one high enough to undermine confidence

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in the outcome. Fortunately, we do not need to face the

quandary this poses. Our confidence in Bowie's conviction is

not shaken by the government's post-trial revelation.

The government's nonfeasance is clear enough. The prosecution had a duty, under Brady, to provide defense counsel

with the evidence about Moses before trial and it failed to

carry out its duty. This much the government admits. Its

defense of Bowie's conviction proceeds on another ground--

that the undisclosed evidence would not have been admissible,

and hence could not possibly be "material." The government

is right about the admissibility of the evidence. Bowie's

counsel could not have introduced evidence from the Davon

Williams suppression hearing, whether in the form of live

witnesses or a transcript. Moses was only under investigation; he had not been convicted of perjury. Rule 608(b) of

the Federal Rules of Evidence states: "Specific instances of

the conduct of a witness, for the purpose of attacking or

supporting the witness' credibility, other than conviction of a

crime as provided in rule 609, may not be proven by extrinsic

evidence." See 28 Charles A. Wright & Victor J. Gold,

Federal Practice and Procedure s 6117, at 80 (1993).

Admissibility of extrinsic evidence is one thing, crossexamination of the witness another. Our opinion in United

States v. Cuffie, 80 F.3d 514, 517 (D.C. Cir. 1996), recognizes

as much. Thus, to refute Bowie's contention that the undisclosed information was "material" in the Brady sense, it is not

enough to show that the transcript of the Davon Williams

hearing would be inadmissible. The Brady information potentially would have opened up a line of cross-examination

going to Moses's credibility. To this, the government responds that there is no guarantee that such questioning would

be allowed; a trial judge has considerable discretion under

Rule 403 of the evidence rules. But certainty is not necessary and we believe that, at a minimum, the judge would have

permitted the defense to question Moses about his knowledge

of the United States Attorney's investigation. See United

States v. Abel, 469 U.S. 45, 51 (1984). Even if Moses said he

did not know, the trial judge might also have allowed questioning about whether Moses feared that an investigation was

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in the offing, as well he might have in light of the Davon

Williams proceedings. Even so, the requisite "reasonable

probability" of Bowie's acquittal scarcely follows.

Suppose Moses answered affirmatively when asked questions probing his knowledge or fear of an investigation by the

United States Attorney. Would this show the officer's bias?

Bias can manifest itself in hostility to one side, but it can also

take the form of favoring a litigant. See United States v.

Schaffer, 183 F.3d 833, 852 (D.C. Cir. 1999). Bowie's counsel

thinks he could establish bias, because the jury would believe

that the officer shaded his testimony in order to curry favor

with his investigators. That is one possibility, but not the

only one. The jury might think instead that Moses, knowing

he was under investigation in another case, would be careful

not to worsen his predicament, would be punctilious this time

around, would not shade the truth in the slightest respect.

The question remains--how far could cross-examination go

in destroying Moses's credibility? And if it were destroyed,

how high is the probability the jury would have acquitted the

defendant? We think not very, even if the questioning proceeded like this:

Defense counsel: Officer Moses, you testified in the

Superior Court in the Davon Williams case, did you not?

Officer Moses: Yes.

Defense counsel: That was a suppression hearing in

January of this year, a proceeding about a search and

seizure you carried out?

Officer Moses: Yes.

Defense counsel: And you swore to tell the truth, the

whole truth, and nothing but the truth, just as you did

here today?

Officer Moses: Yes.

Defense counsel: Now the Superior Court judge

ruled against the government in the Williams matter?

Officer Moses: True.

Defense counsel: The judge ruled that way because

he did not believe you?

Prosecutor: Objection. [Out of the presence of the

jury.] Defendant has not established that Moses was

untruthful in the prior case. All the judge said on this

score was that he found the defense witnesses more

credible. This officer does not know what was in the

judge's mind. The jury in this case is the sole judge of

the credibility of the witness. What a judge in another,

totally unrelated proceeding thought about this witness

has no bearing on this case. Putting that information

before the jury tends to usurp their fact finding function.

More than that, it will--in the terms of Rule 403 of the

evidence rules--confuse and mislead them.

Defense counsel: Your honor, this is crucial to our

defense. The judge must have found that Moses lied,

otherwise he would have denied the suppression motion.

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Moses wasn't convicted of perjury, to be sure, but the

judge's finding amounts to the same thing.

The Court: Objection sustained. The jury will disregard the question. [See United States v. Lopez, 944 F.2d

33, 38 (1st Cir. 1991) (holding that "the credibility assessment made by the presiding judge at an unrelated trial

would have entailed a grave risk that the jury might

abrogate its exclusive responsibility to determine the

credibility of the testimony given by the officer at appellant's trial"); see also Fed. R. Evid. 608(a) (providing that

opinion evidence attacking the credibility of a witness

must be limited to character for untruthfulness).]

Defense counsel: Now after the Williams matter ended, you were worried that the U.S. Attorney might

investigate you for perjuring yourself in that case?

Officer Moses: No, I wasn't worried at all because I

told the truth then and I'm telling the truth now.

Defense counsel: Well, the fact is that the United

States Attorney is now investigating you for perjury?

Officer Moses: That's news to me. [The prosecutor

in this case told the judge that, in her post-trial conversation with Moses, the officer indicated that he did not

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know about his name being on the Lewis list until after

Bowie's conviction.]

Defense counsel: Let me show you defense exhibit 1,

marked for identification. [A copy of the Lewis list.]

Officer Moses do you know what the Lewis list is?

Prosecutor: Objection. [Out of the presence of the

jury.] You honor, the whole purpose of allowing this line

of cross-examination is to establish that officer Moses

was coloring his testimony for the prosecution, in order

to gain favor with our office so that we would drop our

investigation of him or exonerate him. I don't agree

with the theory, but if he didn't even know of the

investigation, the defense theory collapses anyway. So

defense counsel should not now be allowed to get before

the jury the fact that we are conducting an investigation.

Defense counsel: Judge, I need to probe the truthfulness of this officer's claim that he did not know he was on

the list. He's denied knowing that. I should not have to

accept that response. The only way I can test his candor

is to show him the list and get him to acknowledge that

he's on it. Then the jury can decide for itself whether

he's telling the truth.

The Court: I'll sustain the objection. Those on the

list are not normally told they are being investigated. It

would be highly unusual for an officer to know this. He

said he didn't know. You asked the question and now

you must accept the answer.

We do not suggest that cross-examination could have proceeded in no other way, but only that this hypothetical

transcript is quite plausible. (At oral argument, Bowie's

counsel could offer no other line of questioning.) When the

undisclosed Brady material consists of impeachment evidence, a court seeking to determine the probable impact of

the violation must form some idea about how effectively the

evidence could have been used in cross-examination. Of

course, it is hard to know what effect such questioning would

have had on the jury's assessment of Moses's truthfulness

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edly from Cuffie, in which the government failed to disclose

that its critical witness--a co-defendant who had pled guilty--

had committed perjury in another proceeding. See 80 F.3d at

517-19. Here, the most one can say is that Moses was under

investigation for perjury because another judge found opposing witnesses more credible than him.

If the cross-examination would have led the jury simply to

discredit Moses's testimony, we still are not convinced that

this would give rise to any significant probability of acquittal.

In view of the other evidence against the defendant, the jury

could acquit only if it took the added step of believing that the

truth must be opposite of what Moses had told them. See

United States v. Zeigler, 994 F.2d 845, 848-49 (D.C. Cir.

1993). Only then could a thinking jury entertain a reasonable

doubt of Bowie's guilt. Only then would the jury have before

it two opposite versions of what transpired, one from its

disbelief of Moses (the defendant possessed no pistol and he

did not commit an assault), the other from officer Riggins

(the defendant possessed the pistol and committed the assaults). The point here is not simply that Riggins's testimony, standing alone, would be sufficient to sustain the conviction. It would be, but "the materiality inquiry is not just a

matter of determining whether, after discounting the inculpatory evidence in light of the undisclosed evidence, the remaining evidence is sufficient to support the jury's conclusions."

Strickler, 119 S. Ct. at 1952. Rather, the point is that officer

Riggins--whose credibility was unimpaired--testified to precisely the same events as Moses and, in all important respects, agreed with him. True, Moses and Riggins disagreed

on when the gun fell out of Bowie's pants--during the scuffle,

or after they had handcuffed him--but this is of no particular

help to the defense. Both officers agreed that Bowie possessed the pistol and that he assaulted and impeded them,

which made out Bowie's guilt.

How likely is it that the cross-examination of Moses would

have been devastating? Not very, even if the Perry Mason of

our day were defending Bowie. Federal Rule of Evidence

801 gave the prosecution a ready means of rehabilitating

Moses on redirect: a witness's prior consistent statement is

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not hearsay when it is "offered to rebut an express or implied

charge against the [witness] of recent fabrication or improper

influence or motive...." The Davon Williams hearing,

which led to Moses winding up on the Lewis list, concluded on

January 14, 1998. Yet by then Moses had already testified in

a preliminary hearing in this case, on December 19, 1997, and

before the grand jury on January 6, 1998. His testimony on

both of those occasions did not vary in any meaningful way

from his testimony at Bowie's March 1998 trial. Knowing

this, it is unlikely--too unlikely--that the jury would have

believed that Moses slanted his trial testimony because he

knew of, or feared, an investigation by the U.S. Attorney

regarding his testimony in the Davon Williams case. And

even if the most effective cross-examination had convinced

the jury that Moses was not to be trusted, the unimpeached

testimony of officer Riggins would remain to bolster Moses

and to convince that, whatever happened in the Superior

Court, here the jury could believe beyond any reasonable

doubt that Bowie possessed the pistol and that he attacked

the two officers.

In sum, Bowie has not shown to our satisfaction that if the

evidence wrongfully withheld had been disclosed, there was a

reasonable probability the jury would have acquitted him. In

coming to this conclusion, we have been mindful of our

responsibility to evaluate the impact of the undisclosed evidence not in isolation, but in light of the rest of the trial

record. See Agurs, 427 U.S. at 112.

Thus far we have confined our discussion to the trial phase

of this case. Bowie faintly suggests, in a caption in his reply

brief but not in the body, that we ought to consider as well

whether the suppression hearing might have come out the

other way. (Moses was the government's only witness at the

hearing.) This is too little too late. Too little because it is

hardly clear that the Brady line of Supreme Court cases

applies to suppression hearings. Suppression hearings do not

determine a defendant's guilt or punishment, yet Brady rests

on the idea that due process is violated when the withheld

evidence is "material either to guilt or to punishment," 373

U.S. at 87. Too late because Bowie raised the question for

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the first time in his reply brief and then only obliquely. See

Rollins Environmental Services (NJ) Inc. v. EPA, 937 F.2d

649, 652 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 1991); Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(6). We

therefore will not decide the issue.

III

We mentioned in the opening a problem with the indictment. It is this. The last two counts charged assault on a

police officer while armed with a deadly weapon and cited

D.C. Code ss 22-505(b) and 22-3202(a)(1). Section 22-505(a)

spells out the offense of assaulting or impeding a police

officer, which carries a maximum of five years' imprisonment,

while s 22-505(b) enhances the penalty to a maximum of ten

years if the defendant "uses a deadly or dangerous weapon"

in committing the offense. Bowie had a weapon, but even on

the officer's version of events he did not get around to using

it. The "while armed" language in the indictment comes from

s 22-3202(a)(1), a sentencing enhancement provision. A defendant who commits certain offenses while armed will have

his sentence increased. The government now concedes that

assault on a police officer is not one of the predicate offenses.

Where does this leave us? The government tells us that

the citation to s 22-505(b) was a typographical error, that the

grand jury meant to refer to s 22-505(a), that Bowie clearly

was guilty of two violations of this provision, one relating to

officer Moses, the other to officer Riggins. Furthermore, the

trial judge never instructed the jury that to convict, it must

find that Bowie used his pistol, an instruction s 22-505(b)

demanded. But when it came to sentencing, the judge applied s 22-505(b) and meted out a sentence of 31/2 to 10 years'

imprisonment, a sentence not permissible under s 22-505(a).

Unraveling this tangle yields these consequences. First,

an error in an indictment's citation "shall not" be a ground for

reversal if the error "did not mislead the defendant to the

defendant's prejudice." Fed. R. Crim. P. 7(c)(3). Here, Bowie

suffered no prejudice. His defense, presented through his

counsel's cross examination of the prosecution witnesses, lost

no force on account of the miscitation. And even if the grand

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jury intentionally cited s 22-505(b), even if, that is, this was

no mere typographical error, the offense laid out in

s 22-505(a) was a lesser included offense, for which Bowie

was properly convicted. Assaulting and impeding a police

officer under subsection (a) is necessarily included within

subsection (b). The wording of s 22-505(b) makes this clear:

"Whoever in the commission of any such acts [those described

in subsection (a)] uses a deadly or dangerous weapon shall be

imprisoned not more than 10 years." The federal rule, like

the District of Columbia rule, is that a "defendant may be

found guilty of an offense necessarily included in the offense

charged," Fed. R. Crim. P. 31(c); D.C. Super. Ct. R. Crim. P.

31(c).

We are never bound to accept the government's confession

of error. Young v. United States, 315 U.S. 257, 258 (1941)

(citing Parlton v. United States, 75 F.2d 772 (D.C. Cir. 1935));

United States v. Pryce, 938 F.2d 1343, 1351-52 (D.C. Cir.

1991) (Randolph, J., concurring). We do so here for obvious

reasons. Bowie's sentence on the assault counts will be

vacated and the case remanded for resentencing in accordance with s 22-505(a). In pronouncing a new sentence for

Bowie's local law offenses, the trial judge will not be bound by

federal Sentencing Guidelines. United States v. Cutchin, 956

F.2d 1216, 1219 (D.C. Cir. 1992).

III

All that remains is Bowie's challenge to his sentence of 120

months' imprisonment on the federal charge. This he opposes on the basis that the trial judge erred in granting upward

departures for "possession of a firearm," see U.S.S.G.

s 2K2.1(b)(5), and "official victim," see id. s 3A1.2. As he

sees it, the "official victim" enhancement did not apply because the assault did not "creat[e] a substantial risk of serious

bodily injury." Id. The trial judge found, and the evidence

amply supports the finding, that Bowie was attempting to pull

the pistol from his waistband. His assault therefore certainly

did involve a risk of serious bodily injury. The "official

victim" adjustment raised Bowie's offense level to 27 (Bowie

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had two prior felony convictions for crimes of violence),

resulting in a sentencing range of 120 to 150 months. Because the maximum sentence for felony gun possession is 120

months--the sentence Bowie received--any challenges to additional enhancements are of no moment. Even so, the trial

judge committed no error in making a "possession of a

firearm" adjustment. Bowie contends that he did not possess

the gun "in connection" with the assault because he did not

use the gun during the assault. See id. s 2K2.1. But the

provision refers not simply to use, but to use and possession

of a firearm in connection with another felony offense. See

id. Bowie's possession of the weapon emboldened him, or

appeared to, and his reaching for the weapon showed his

intent to use it to facilitate his felony assault on the officers.

See United States v. Sturtevant, 62 F.3d 33, 34-35 (1st Cir.

1995). The connection between the possession of the weapon

and the assault was thus established.

Affirmed in part and vacated and remanded in part.

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