Opinion ID: 4564786
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Phase I of the Trial

Text: Trial began on Monday, July 11, 2016. On Walker’s motion, the District Court had agreed to bifurcate the trial, as described above, separating prosecution of Counts One through Three (the robbery and related firearm charges) from that of Count Four (the felon-in-possession count) so that the jury would learn about Walker’s criminal history only after it had reached a verdict on the robbery-related offenses. To prove its case with respect to the first three charges, the government relied primarily on testimony from the following witnesses: (1) NYPD Detective Yuan Newton, the lead investigator on the robbery case, who testified about his observations of the crime scene, his conversations with Almontaser regarding the robbery, the video 8 surveillance system used at the store and the footage it captured of many of the events leading up to the robbery and large portions of the robbery itself, the various steps he took to identify a suspect (including the process of generating a photo array), and Walker’s eventual arrest; (2) store clerk Almontaser, who testified about his role as a clerk at the convenience store, the sale of K2 at the store, and his recollection of the events that had occurred on the day of the robbery; (3) NYPD Officer Robert Youngs, who testified about photographing and collecting evidence from the crime scene, including the shell casings that were the basis of the ammunition charge and the cigarette carton bearing Walker’s fingerprint; (4) NYPD Detective Gerald Rex and NYPD Detective Lezcano, both of whom testified about the fingerprint evidence; and finally, (5) Probation Officer Parris, who identified Walker in the surveillance video as the person robbing the store. For his part, Walker mounted his defense primarily through rigorous crossexaminations intended to demonstrate that he was not the robber (a case of mistaken identity) and that Almontaser was not credible (because, as counsel argued, he was “a lying drug dealer”). App’x 918. Indeed, Walker relied heavily on the fact that portions of the surveillance video were inexplicably missing, implying that the police had destroyed footage that lent credence to his alternative theory, including video of Almontaser dealing drugs from the store. To further bolster that theory of the case, Walker attacked the fingerprint evidence through testimony provided by his witness Dr. Dror about the manner in which cognitive and other biases can lead fingerprint examiners to reach inaccurate conclusions. Following the first phase of the bifurcated trial, which concluded on Friday, July 15, the jury convicted Walker of Counts One, Two, and Three. 9