Opinion ID: 2320585
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Trial: Introduction of Choi's identification and appellant's corroborating statement

Text: At trial, the prosecutor acknowledged in his opening statement that Choi could not identify his assailants. [14] In the defense's opening statement, counsel told the jury that McGill was one of the lowest characters and would be the only person to identify Chatmon as a participant in the robbery. [15] He emphasized that Choi, who was right there, could not identify appellant and that the jurors would be asked to find appellant guilty solely on McGill's word, the unreliable word of a cooperating felon awaiting sentence. [16] In the government's case-in-chief, the prosecutor abided by the pre-trial agreement and asked Choi to describe the robbers rather than identify them. McGill testified that appellant invited him to participated in the robbery, brought the gun to the store, and fired the weapon. He explained that he had pled guilty to second-degree murder for his role in the robbery and faced a significant sentence as a result. Detective Wheeler testified about the two statements given by appellant. The prosecutor did not elicit any testimony about Choi's identification from the photo array or the statement appellant made to Wheeler about his haircut. Unexpectedly, near the end of the cross-examination of Detective Wheeler, defense counsel asked, Have you tried to have anyone identify either Mr. McGill or Mr. Chatmon as the robbers? Initially, Detective Wheeler responded that he did not recall, but counsel asked him to review his police reports to refresh his memory. The detective then responded that he had, and that Choi, the guy on the scene at the time of the murder, had indeed identified appellant. Shortly thereafter, defense counsel continued, Just one more question area, Mr. Wheeler. You said that Henry Choi made an eyewitness identification, and proceeded to ask the detective about Choi's written statement in Korean in which he had said that Chatmon's photograph looked familiar but that he could not be sure about the identification because the actual robber he had seen had longer hair. The prosecutor, assuming the door had been opened, began to ask Detective Wheeler about Choi's identification of appellant and McGill from the photo array. Defense counsel did not object. Detective Wheeler then testified as follows: He was shown nine photographs of individuals on similaritylooked similarly alike. [17] And he immediately, for some reason I remember this part, he immediately selected Mr. Chatmon and Mr. McGill because I noticed when he selected them he was like shaken. Because we had got their pictures so soon and he immediately picked them out. The only thing I remember him saying about Mr. Chatmon is the guy who came in there seemed to have just a little bit more hair, maybe. Other than that, he says this is the guy. It looks like he has a hair cut or something he mentioned to me. But he was pretty sure. Before the prosecutor could ask Detective Wheeler about appellant's statement regarding his haircut, the trial court sua sponte interrupted the examination and called both attorneys to the bench. The judge labeled the turn of events bizarre. The prosecutor admitted that he was very surprised as well. The court chided the prosecutor for not approaching the bench prior to questioning to clarify that the ground rules for the examination had changed after the defense asked about Choi's identification. When defense counsel then objected to the admission of appellant's statement about the haircut, the trial judge overruled the objection and observed, You opened this all up. . . . We had this all nailed down shut so nobody was going to hear a word about it. [18] The prosecutor proceeded to elicit testimony from Detective Wheeler that Mr. Chatmon told me that he had his hair cut two days ago, which was two days prior to me interviewing him, which would have been about I guess July 10th, the day after the homicide, the day after the shooting. This statement fully explained Choi's hesitation in identifying appellant from the photo array, because the robber had longer hair (before the haircut) than the person in the photograph.