Opinion ID: 2319967
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Direct Evidence of Charged Crime

Text: In addition to being admissible under Drew (subject to proper limitations) to prove identity, some evidence of the North Carolina armed robbery was admissible because it was relevant to the charged murder to establish appellant's possession of the instrumentality used in committing the crime, in this case, the .45. Here, this ground overlaps with use of the evidence to show identity under Drew, but under our cases it rests on a separate analysis. See Johnson, 683 A.2d at 1098 ( Drew does not apply where such evidence ... is direct and substantial proof of the charged crime....). We have generally required the government to show that the defendant possessed the instrumentality prior to the commission of the crime, or relatively soon thereafter. See, e.g., Thomas v. United States, 978 A.2d 1211, 1240 (D.C. 2009) (upholding the admission of evidence that the defendant possessed the firearm four days after the shooting); [6] Busey, 747 A.2d at 1165 (An accused person's prior possession of the physical means of committing the crime is some evidence of the probability of his guilt, and is therefore admissible. (quoting Coleman v. United States, 379 A.2d 710, 712 (D.C.1977))). [7] Our rationale for allowing the admission of such evidence lies in the reasonableness of the inference that a defendant who had access to the weapon soon before or after the crime is likely to have had access to it at the time of the crime. See Thomas, 978 A.2d at 1240; Busey, 747 A.2d at 1165. For example, in Busey, the government presented evidence that the defendant had possessed a .38 caliber gunthe same caliber weapon used in the charged crime two days before the murder. Id. We explained that the evidence established only a reasonable probability, and not a certainty that the defendant possessed the gun at the time of the murder, and that the lack of certainty only affected the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility. Id. Here, expert testimony established that the weapon used in the armed robbery and shooting in North Carolina matched the one used in the murder in the District of Columbia. Even though testimony that the same gun was used both times increased the gun's probative value, the important inference was that the same person had the gun at both times. The strength of that inference was diminished by the fact that the gun could be linked to appellant only one of those times, at the site of an unrelated crime that took place in a different state, thirty days later. Notwithstanding the time and geographical distance between the two crimes, even if one assumes evidence that appellant had the murder weapon in North Carolina showed a reasonable probability that appellant had access to the same gun in the District of Columbia thirty days earlier, Busey, 747 A.2d at 1165, the probative force of that inference was not dependent on showing that appellant had used the gun during the subsequent armed robbery to shoot a security guard. As Busey makes clear, the trial court must carefully weigh the probative value of the evidence against its prejudicial danger, and excise the inflammatory and indirect contextual details of the defendant's prior or subsequent possession of the firearm. Id. at 1165-66. Only if the defense opens the door by challenging the substance of the evidence that the defendant possessed the weapon used in the charged crime at a another proximate time and place may the government present the context of the other possession to rehabilitate the evidence's probative potential. Id. But, here, the court did not restrict in the first instance the government's evidence to the fact of appellant's subsequent possession of the murder weapon. Indeed, without any challenge to admission of evidence of appellant's subsequent possession of the murder weapon (which defense counsel acknowledged was admissible), the court allowed the government to introduce, without limitation, substantial details beyond appellant's possession of the gun, including the use of the weapon in an armed robbery and shooting of a security guard, through testimony and a video. All of this evidence was allowed during the government's case-in-chief and before the defense had risked opening the door to inflammatory contextual details about the armed robbery and shooting. In light of the potential for prejudice to the defendant, the trial court should have better regulated the scope and manner of the evidence of an unrelated crime in light of its specific, legitimate purpose. As should be clear, evidence of the North Carolina armed robbery and shooting was not admissible under Johnson as direct evidence because it was neither closely intertwined with the Valentine murder nor necessary to place the charged crime in context. Johnson, 683 A.2d at 1098. In Johnson, evidence of the gruesome murder of two boys in Maryland was admitted in the prosecution for a murder in the District because [t]he same gun was used in both, they occurred close to one another in timethe second occurring in part arguably as a consequence of the firstand they tend to prove one another, for the cogent reason (among others) that the perpetrators of each were known to the two Maryland victims, and for that reason killed them. Id. Here, on the other hand, there was no connection established between the District of Columbia murder and the North Carolina armed robbery and shooting, except for the identity of the perpetrators and one of the weapons used. Unlike in Johnson, the two crimes were separated by a month in time and a couple hundred miles in distance, and one did not provide the motive for the other. Cf. id. at 1098 n. 11 (We note that the evidence of the Maryland murders bears an immediate relationship to the charged offenses, both temporally and causally, that is especially strong. . . .This circumstance weighs heavily in the balance against prejudice.). The only relevance of the North Carolina armed robbery and shooting to the prosecution's case in the District murder was to argue that appellant was the assailant here because a month later he had the same gun in North Carolina. With such a tenuous connection between the two crimes, the evidence of the North Carolina armed robbery and shooting is not, as in Johnson, direct and substantial proof of the District murder. See id. at 1095 n. 8 (noting that a variety of matters must be assessed in weighing the probative value of other crimes evidence against its prejudicial danger, including the strength of the evidence as to the commission of the other crime, the similarities between the crimes, the interval of time that has elapsed between the crimes, the need for the evidence, the efficacy of alternative proof, and the degree to which the evidence will rouse the jury to overmastering hostility. (quoting John Strong, McCORMICK ON EVIDENCE § 190 (4th ed.1992))).