Opinion ID: 601465
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Prior Consistent Statement

Text: 15 Walker's second claim, that the district court erred in excluding a prior consistent statement (his police report filed shortly after the incident), is considerably more persuasive. To explain why, we must provide additional background. At trial, Walker testified that his use of force was prompted by Gaines' attempt to knife him. Predictably, on cross-examination, Gaines' attorney attempted to undermine the credibility of this claim. Laying the groundwork for this effort, Gaines' counsel questioned Walker about the difference between [300 U.S.App.D.C. 95] the crimes of carrying a deadly weapon and possession of a prohibited weapon; Walker responded that the possession crime implies an intent to use the weapon. Gaines' attorney then showed Walker Exhibit 32, a document detailing the incident completed by the United States Attorney's office, and Walker admitted that whoever completed Exhibit 32 would have likely relied on Walker's PD-163--his sworn arresting officer's report about the incident. 4 Walker acknowledged that Exhibit 32 charged Gaines only with the carrying offense, which did not imply an intent to use the knife, even though the more serious possession offense was also listed as an option on that form. Attempting to capitalize on that point, Gaines' attorney asked Walker the following questions: 16 Q. Well, did you indicate to the United States Attorney or in preparing your form that Mr. Gaines did not intend to use his long knife unlawfully against you? 17 A. I gave the US Attorney my 163 of what happened that night. I swore to it, and that's based on the information on a 163, the arrest report, and that's what they used. 18 Q. All right. Just so we have it clear, at no point did Mr. Gaines seek to use his knife against you; is that correct? 19 A. No, that's not correct. 20 After Gaines' attorney completed his examination, Walker's attorney tried to introduce Walker's actual PD-163--which clearly mentions Gaines' assault on Walker with a knife--under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(1)(B) 5 as a prior consistent statement submitted to rebut an express or implied charge of recent fabrication. The district court refused to allow admission of the report on the ground that the cross-examination of Walker did not expressly or impliedly make any charge of fabrication. According to the district court, Gaines' attorney merely attempted to show an inconsistency in Walker's testimony, that Walker did not say the same thing at trial as he did immediately after the incident, not that Walker's later assertion was a fabrication. 21 This ruling was reversible error. 6 We recognize, of course, that not every attempt to impeach a witness's credibility constitutes a charge of fabrication. See United States v. Wright, 783 F.2d 1091, 1099 n. 5 (D.C.Cir.1986). Nor does pointing out inconsistencies between trial and pretrial testimony inevitably constitute such a charge; in some cases, an attorney may be implying only that the witness has a faulty memory, not that he has wilfully altered his account of events. And we are cognizant that our review of the trial court's ruling is only for an abuse of discretion. See United States v. Montague, 958 F.2d 1094, 1098 (D.C.Cir.1992). Nonetheless, we conclude that the only reasonable interpretation that  'fairly arises [300 U.S.App.D.C. 96] from the line of questioning ... pursued,'  United States v. Farmer, 923 F.2d 1557, 1568 (11th Cir.1991) (quoting United States v. Baron, 602 F.2d 1248, 1253 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 967, 100 S.Ct. 456, 62 L.Ed.2d 380 (1979)), is that the cross-examination of Walker went beyond such unexceptional tactics and did in fact amount to a charge that Walker was fabricating his in-court testimony when he said that Gaines tried to use his knife on him. 22 Indeed, we think a reasonable juror would find the charge of fabrication to be rather explicit. Gaines' attorney suggested that Exhibit 32 did not charge Gaines with a crime consistent with use of the knife because Walker's PD-163 did not include that fact. The clear implication of that questioning is that Walker's PD-163 omitted this crucial fact because he did not come up with that accusation until long after he completed the document made contemporaneously with the incident. Moreover, in the excerpt quoted above, Gaines' attorney appeared to explicitly challenge the veracity of Walker's in-court testimony that Gaines had pulled a knife on him by confronting him with a statement 180 degrees opposite from his testimony: All right. Just so we have it clear, at no point did Mr. Gaines seek to use his knife against you; is that correct? We conclude that this line of questioning contains a more than sufficiently clear charge that Walker's testimony was a recent fabrication to require the district court to allow the PD-163 into evidence under Rule 801. See United States v. Casoni, 950 F.2d 893, 904 (3d Cir.1991) (there need be only a suggestion that witness consciously altered testimony to allow prior consistent statement into evidence); United States v. Cherry, 938 F.2d 748, 755-56 (7th Cir.1991) (cross-examination that challenged the core of witness's testimony constituted implied charge of fabrication). 7 23 Moreover, we think that the failure to admit this evidence was especially prejudicial here. When the charge of fabrication is based on a misleading or partial rendering of a witness's past statements--as opposed to an attorney's highlighting of actual inconsistencies in a witness's account of events at different times--it is particularly important that the consistent statements be allowed into evidence so that the jury is not left in the dark as to the actual facts. See United States v. Tarantino, 846 F.2d 1384, 1411 (D.C.Cir.) (The opposing party may not pick and choose among prior statements to create an appearance of conflict and then object when this appearance is rebutted by means of a fuller version of the same prior statements.), cert. denied sub nom. Burns v. United States, 488 U.S. 840, 109 S.Ct. 108, 102 L.Ed.2d 83 (1988); United States v. Andrade, 788 F.2d 521, 533 (8th Cir.) (where cross-examination left impression of inconsistency between witness's in-court testimony and his earlier notes, government was entitled to introduce the notes to show that they were entirely consistent with the live testimony), cert. denied sub nom. Riley v. United States, 479 U.S. 963, 107 S.Ct. 462, 93 L.Ed.2d 408 (1986); cf. Coltrane v. United States, 418 F.2d 1131, 1140 (D.C.Cir.1969) (prior consistent statements should be admitted where they could be of clear help to the factfinder in determining whether the witness is truthful). Here, the attorney's charges of fabrication were based on the insinuation that Walker's PD-163 did not include the allegation that Gaines pulled a knife. In fact, that document included just such a claim. The trial court's refusal to allow the jury to have full information on this key point left the factfinders with a skewed understanding of the evidence and must inevitably have prejudiced Walker's case.