Opinion ID: 186375
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: New Trial Arguments

Text: 19 On appeal, appellant argues that the District Court erred when it permitted the Government to introduce a copy of his no-permit conviction to counter the defense's suggestions that appellant did not run a stop sign and that the alleged traffic stop was pretextual. According to appellant, the copy of the no-permit citation was irrelevant, because proof that he was prosecuted for driving without a permit had no logical tendency to establish that the police issued him a citation for failing to obey a stop sign. Appellant argues that the court exacerbated this erroneous evidentiary ruling by refusing to give a missing-evidence instruction based upon the Government's failure to produce the stop sign citation. According to appellant, the errors, taken together, were not harmless. Appellant points out that the Government's case rested entirely on the officers' testimony, so the erroneous admission of the no-permit citation, together with the denial of the missing-evidence instruction, badly weakened defense attempts to undermine the officers' credibility. 20 With respect to the admission of the copy of the no-permit citation, appellant gave away any argument he may have had when he conceded in his brief before this court that the no-permit conviction actually reinforced trial counsel's suggested inference that the police officers lied about the basis for the traffic stop. See Br. for Appellant at 26. And appellant cannot prevail on his claim regarding the missing-evidence instruction, because trial counsel clearly failed to establish the requisite foundation for giving the disputed instruction. 21
22 Rule 401 of the Federal Rules of Evidence defines relevant evidence as evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence. Fed. R. Evid. 401. When a relevance objection is made at trial, admission of the referenced evidence is reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. Smith, 232 F.3d 236, 241 (D.C.Cir.2000); United States v. Askew, 88 F.3d 1065, 1074 (D.C.Cir.1996). Here we need not decide whether the trial court's admission of the copy of the no-permit conviction was error, because, on this record, any possible error was clearly harmless. 23 The District Court ruled that the certified copy of the no-permit conviction corroborated Officer Chumbley's testimony that he issued the no-permit citation at the same time that he issued the stop sign citation and that the conviction thus tended to demonstrate that a stop sign citation was issued. Assuming, as appellant argues, that this reasoning was entirely without logic and that admission of the document was thus an abuse of discretion, the error was, by appellant's own concession, harmless. As appellant points out in his brief, evidence of the no-permit conviction, combined with Chumbley's testimony that he was unable to locate any record of the failure to stop citation, had the ... tendency ... to reinforce the inference raised on cross-examination that the police never issued a stop sign citation to West and that the officers lied about that and about the basis for the traffic stop itself. Br. for Appellant at 26. 24 Even absent this concession, given trial counsel's failure to object to the testimonial evidence regarding the no-permit citation and conviction, Trial Tr. at 276, 278, 280-81, there is nothing to indicate that the admission of the paper record added to any prejudice already caused by the uncontested preceding testimony. In light of that testimony, and after reviewing all that was presented to the jury, without stripping the presumed erroneous admission of the record from the whole, we can say with fair assurance that the jury's judgment was not substantially swayed by the necessarily cumulative effect of seeing a copy of the record of appellant's no-permit conviction. See Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764-65, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). 25
26 A trial court's decision to refuse a request for a missing-evidence instruction is also reviewed for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Tarantino, 846 F.2d 1384, 1404 (D.C.Cir.1988) (describing the standard of review when the analogous missing-witness instruction is denied). A missing-evidence instruction is appropriate if it is peculiarly within the power of one party to produce the evidence and the evidence would elucidate a disputed transaction. See United States v. Williams, 113 F.3d 243, 245 (D.C.Cir.1997) (describing the necessary foundation for an analogous missing-witness instruction); United States v. Glenn, 64 F.3d 706, 709 (D.C.Cir.1995) (same). When these two requirements are met, jurors may be instructed that the controlling party's failure to produce the evidence permits them to draw the inference that the evidence would have been unfavorable to that party. See id. 27 In this case, the District Court correctly ruled that the instruction was not appropriate, because the record did not support the conclusion that the citation was peculiarly available to the Government. Appellant asserts that, because the Government failed to establish that the ticket was lost, the District Court's ruling was mistaken. Br. for Appellant at 28. But this argument is off the mark. As the proponent of the instruction, it was appellant's burden to show that the citation was peculiarly within the control of the Government. As the prosecutor pointed out during trial, there is no reason why [appellant] if he wanted to have a copy of that ticket ... couldn't just go to the bureau of Traffic Adjudication or to the Superior Court ... and get a record of that citation. Trial Tr. at 381. Defense counsel offered no rejoinder to the prosecutor's assertion. He never indicated, for instance, that he had sought or subpoenaed a copy of the citation from Traffic Adjudication, Superior Court, or the Corporation Counsel and that someone from those offices claimed that it was lost or otherwise unavailable. Nor did he argue that there was some rule or policy preventing him from seeking or subpoenaing the record from the proper authorities. 28 Appellant offers nothing more convincing before this court. He asserts only that it is unlikely that West would have received copies of the traffic citations after his altercation with the officers in which he was temporarily blinded and then forcibly arrested. Br. for Appellant at 28. While this may suggest that appellant did not personally possess a copy of the citation, it does not establish that the ticket was within the control of the Government and thus not available to the defense.