Opinion ID: 1478029
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exclusion of the Complainant's Message on Appellant's Answering Machine

Text: Appellant argues that the trial judge improperly excluded an audio-tape recording of a message left by Ms. Hawkins on appellant's answering machine that he sought to introduce to show that Ms. Hawkins was biased against him because she was jealous and for financial reasons. To put the claim in context, some background is necessary. Ms. Hawkins testified at trial that, sometime in 2000, she and appellant were in bed at his apartment when he answered a phone call from an ex-girlfriend. Ms. Hawkins asked appellant to get off the phone, and when appellant responded that he would not, she went outside, picked up a brick from the ground, and threw it at appellant's car, shattering the window. During cross-examination, she denied that her motivation for throwing the brick was jealousy of appellant's relationship with other women. According to Ms. Hawkins, she was angry because, by refusing to hang up the phone upon her request, appellant was disrespecting her. Following the incident, Ms. Hawkins left two messages on appellant's home answering machine. At appellant's request, the trial judge ruled before trial that the first message was admissible to impeach Ms. Hawkins's testimony that she was not jealous of his relationship with other women. [11] In that message, Ms. Hawkins said that she intended to tell another woman, Marian Matthews, [12] about what [appellant does] with his ex-girlfriend. In the second message, Ms. Hawkins again commented about appellant's sexual relationships with other women, and also expressed anger about having to pay to repair the damage she caused to his car. The trial judge excluded the second message, however, on the basis that the tape was not probative of anything, despite appellant's claim that the message was relevant for three different reasons. First, appellant argues that Ms. Hawkins's comment in the second message that appellant think[s] with [his] head in his pants, establishes that she was jealous of his relationship with other women, and, like the first message, impeached Ms. Hawkins's testimony that she was not motivated by jealousy. Assuming that the comment permitted the inference that Ms. Hawkins was jealous, because the first tape established the same point, we conclude that it was within the trial judge's discretion to exclude the tape as cumulative. See District of Columbia v. Bethel, 567 A.2d 1331, 1336 (D.C.1990) (A trial judge has considerable discretion with respect to the admission or exclusion of cumulative evidence.). For the same reason, even if the trial court erred in excluding the second tape, its exclusion did not harm the defense's ability to make the point that the complainant was jealous, an inference the jury could easily draw from the more graphic illustration that she threw a brick at his car when appellant answered a call from a former girlfriend while in complainant's company. See Malloy v. United States, 797 A.2d 687, 690-91 (D.C.2002) (citing Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946)); [13] Watson v. United States, 612 A.2d 179, 184 (D.C.1992) (noting that erroneous exclusion of evidence is generally harmless if other evidence establishing the same facts is before the jury in another form). [14] Appellant also argues that the tape of the second message was relevant to rebut the government's theme that appellant didn't work and was sponging off Ms. Hawkins, [15] because in that message she used an angry tone in referring to the repair estimate appellant gave her for the car window she smashed when she threw a brick at his car. We agree with the trial judge that the fact that Ms. Hawkins was upset about the amount of the estimate has no logical relevance to the issue of whether appellant took financial advantage of Ms. Hawkins. Without information as to the amount of the repair estimate relative to the actual damage to the car, the fact that she was angry about having to pay for the car damage does not make it more or less likely that appellant was sponging off the complainant. In any event, the financial relationship between appellant and Ms. Hawkins was not a material issue relating to the two alleged assaults, and as a result, even if the tape did rebut the government's suggestion that appellant took financial advantage of Ms. Hawkins, any error in excluding the tape was harmless. See Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239. Finally, appellant argues that Ms. Hawkins's statements on the tape expressing dissatisfaction with the amount of the damage estimate for the car window established that she had a monetary bias against appellant. Although evidence of bias is always relevant, see Hollingsworth v. United States, 531 A.2d 973, 979 (D.C. 1987), even if the trial judge erred in excluding the tape on this basis, any error was nonetheless harmless, because defense counsel was able to establish the same point during the examinations of Ms. Hawkins and appellant. Ms. Hawkins admitted that she initially refused to pay for the damaged window, and that she obtained a restraining order against appellant after appellant had obtained a restraining order against her, following the damage she caused to the car. She agreed to drop the restraining order against appellant when appellant agreed not to pursue a domestic violence charge against her. In cross-examining Ms. Hawkins, defense counsel implied that her restraining order was just [her] way of trying to keep from having to pay [appellant] money. Moreover, appellant testified that Hawkins made some threats to [him] about her pursuing avenues of retaliation against [him] for . . . trying to get [his] window fixed, and that she threatened to tell her brothers that he took money from [her]. Therefore, the jury already had before it evidence that Ms. Hawkins was purportedly angry about having to pay for the damage to appellant's car, and, as such, the tape was merely cumulative. [16] Accordingly, we conclude that even if the trial court erred in excluding the tape, the error was harmless. See Watson, 612 A.2d at 184.