Opinion ID: 179299
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mr. Hall's Alibi

Text: To rebut the case against him, Mr. Hall presented an alibi defense. The predicate of the defense was that he was not positively identified by any witnesses at the robbery scene. We therefore summarize the eyewitness descriptions and other identification evidence before reciting his account of his whereabouts. Mr. Hall is white and 6'2 tall. At the time of his arrest he was 46 years old, weighed about 210 pounds, had a shaved head, and wore a mustache. Although most of the eyewitnesses were consistent in their descriptions of the robber as relatively slender, approximately six feet tall, and wearing dark clothing and a dark ski mask, and teller Smith said that he was wearing a black belt with a silver buckle, id. at 79, there were some inconsistencies in the eyewitnesses' physical descriptions of the robber and not all descriptions matched Mr. Hall's true appearance. One eyewitness described Mr. Hall as 5' 10 (but admitted that was just a guess), and another who admitted to seeing the robber for [m]aybe about ten seconds, id. at 96, estimated that he was between 5'7 and 5'10 tall. One witness estimated that the robber weighed 165 pounds, while another described him as weighing between 175 and 200 pounds. At least two witnesses described the robber as young, though one based her opinion on the sound of his voice, and the other assumed that the robber was in his 20s because he was so thin. Id. at 116. Three witnesses described the robber as having hair, but one admitted that what she thought was hair could have been a hat, another (who reported seeing hair coming out the back of the mask) testified that she saw the robber only for a matter of seconds before she got under her desk, and the third stated that because she didn't see any long hair ... coming out of the ski mask, she assumed that he had short hair. Trial Tr., Doc. 151 at 485. Also, neither of the witnesses who saw the robber after he had left the bank and rolled up the ski mask mentioned seeing a mustache. One witness indicated on a police form that the robber wore tennis shoes, although it was pointed out at trial that the tennis shoe was the only option on the form depicting a lace-up shoe above the ankle. Finally, two witnesses observed that the robber had a tan or dark complexion. In addition, some of the forensic evidence did not implicate Mr. Hall. The government's expert identified two possible hairs inside the recovered ski mask, but did not conduct DNA tests on either of them. Id. at 403. She did find some DNA on the recovered shotgun, but both Mr. Hall and Morrison were eliminated as being its source. Further, the police were unable to find any fingerprints on the shotgun, and the recovered money was not examined for fingerprints. Mr. Hall filed a notice of alibi defense one week before trial. It said that he would be the sole alibi witness and that at the time of the robbery he was near a halfway house for recently released prisoners in Leavenworth, Kansas. Suppl. R., Vol. 1 at 48. Given that he was seen driving the getaway car 20 minutes after the robbery, he needed to explain how he happened to enter the car in the interim. His explanation was that the robber was a man named Lee, who (with Mr. Hall's permission) had driven off with Morrison about 45 minutes before the robbery and returned the car to Mr. Hall a few minutes after the robbery. He testified as follows: In 1992 Mr. Hall pleaded guilty to a bank robbery committed in 1990. He remained incarcerated until he was released to a halfway house in Leavenworth, Kansas, in August 2005. A few days later he got a job as a welder, making from $600 to $700 per week. After three months in the halfway house, although still on supervised release, he moved to Topeka, Kansas, and lived with his mother before moving in with a girlfriend, Sherry Lorence. He bought a Harley-Davidson and a car. Mr. Hall incurred two DUI charges during the first half of 2006. As a result, his probation officer required him to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet and imposed an evening curfew. He lost his job in late September 2006 and borrowed money from his mother. In early November 2006 Mr. Hall had a fight with Lorence. He went to Kansas City, Kansas, where he stayed in motels and with his sister, Connie Lunsford. He was aware that being in Kansas City was a violation of his supervised release, but he assumed that he would be heading back to prison anyway because of the pending DUI charges, so he just left. Trial Tr., Doc. 148 (Hall Testimony) at 12. While in Kansas City, Mr. Hall hung out in bars. It was in one such bar, on Saturday, November 4, three days before the robbery, that he met Morrison. The two men met again on November 6. During their night of drinking, they met Lee, who was shorter than Mr. Hall, but taller than Morrison, was half white, half Mexican, weighed between 165 and 170 pounds, had medium-length brown hair, and was in his late 20s. Id. at 27. Mr. Hall had never met Lee before. Mr. Hall drove Morrison and Lee to a hotel. After Lee and Morrison carried Morrison's belongings to a room, Morrison returned to the car and asked Mr. Hall to drive him to the store for cigarettes. On the way Mr. Hall noticed that the license-plate light on his car was not working, so he decided to drive to a nearby Wal-Mart to fix it. In addition to cigarettes, he purchased a screwdriver and a hooded sweatshirt for Morrison. Morrison asked for the sweatshirt because the jacket he was wearing belonged to Lee and he needed something to keep warm since he didn't have a place to stay. Id. at 29. For the same reason, Morrison separately purchased gloves and a ski mask. Mr. Hall then took Morrison back to the hotel, where Morrison got $18 from Lee to repay Mr. Hall. Mr. Hall then drove to his sister's house to spend the night. Mr. Hall drove back to the hotel the following morning and picked up Morrison and Lee. Morrison needed a truck to get some of his belongings from his former residence, so Mr. Hall volunteered to give him a ride to Lansing, Kansas, where Lee knew someone who would lend them one. En route, they stopped at the hospital where Mr. Hall's sister Connie worked, and she gave him $20. Mr. Hall then drove to a liquor store and purchased a pint of Wild Turkey. Lee, however, was unable to borrow a truck in Lansing, so they drove to Mr. Hall's former halfway house in Leavenworth. Wanda Wing, Mr. Hall's former girlfriend, was staying there. He wanted to speak to her and thought she might be willing to lend them a truck. Upon their arrival, he asked a woman who was sitting outside to ask Wing to come out and speak with him. While the three men waited for Wing, a staff person came outside. Mr. Hall turned away, knowing that he was not supposed to be associating with residents of the halfway house. Morrison thought that the staff person was staring at Mr. Hall's car, so Mr. Hall suggested that Morrison and Lee take the car elsewhere while he waited across the street for Wing to come out and talk. Morrison and Lee left between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m. Wing never came out to speak with Mr. Hall, though he saw her through a window. Morrison returned with the car, but not Lee, about an hour later. He said that they were to meet Lee at the Dillons store, so Mr. Hall got in the driver's seat and began driving there. While stopped at a red light, he saw Lee a few cars ahead of them driving a pickup truck, and he tried to follow him. A few moments later a police car passed Mr. Hall, who noticed that the officer was looking at him like he saw something, saw a ghost or whatever, that's how hard he looked at me. Id. at 37. Thinking that there might be a warrant out for his arrest because he had violated the terms of his supervised release, he tried to get away. Id. at 38. By the time he caught up to Lee's truck and pulled along side it, Morrison was act[ing] like something was really wrong. Id. at 39. Morrison kept looking back and he kept telling me, hurry, go, go, go, and that's what I was doing. Id. Mr. Hall first asked what was going on when Morrison pulled out a three-quarter inch stack of five dollar bills and put it in a tote bag, but Morrison just told him to drive. Without asking any other questions, he complied. As they passed Lee's truck, Morrison threw the tote bag in the bed of the pickup. Just after that Mr. Hall encountered a police vehicle, which gave chase. Mr. Hall did not know why he initially was running from the police, but he was scared. He started figuring out that something was really wrong when Morrison started throwing stuff out and continued imploring Mr. Hall to go, go, go. Id. at 42. At one point, without saying a word, Morrison reached into the backseat, pulled out a shotgun from underneath Lee's jacket, and brought it toward the window. Not knowing what Morrison was going to do, Mr. Hall grabbed his elbow and the gun discharged. Morrison then threw the gun out the window. He also threw out the window a white, plastic bag that was tied shut. It was only then that Morrison told him that Lee might have robbed something. Id. at 44. But Mr. Hall did not stop. He knew that when you run from the police, that you're going to get beat down when they pull you over. So I wanted to go somewhere where there was a lot of witnesses so nobody would get shot or beat or any of that stuff. I just didn't want to be stopped out in the country where there was nobody around. Id. After his arrest Mr. Hall did not tell the police about Lee or that Lee and Morrison had dropped him off at the halfway house; he is not a snitch and does not tell on people. Id. at 47. Trial testimony corroborated parts of Mr. Hall's alibi. Lorence confirmed that he had been living with her from August to November of 2006, and that he had left without permission from his probation officer after she had a fight with him in early November. Mr. Hall's sister Connie remembered his visiting her at the hospital on November 7, and stated that he was accompanied by Morrison and a clean-shaven man in his early to mid-30's with dark hair and a dark complexion. She also testified that Wing had called her in December 2006 and said that, from a window, she had seen Mr. Hall outside the halfway house on the day of the robbery, but because it was getting close to count time she was afraid she would get in trouble if she went out to speak with him. Despite this corroboration, the alibi had serious holes. For example, how did Lee get the truck that he was driving just before the police chase, and why would Lee give all the money to Morrison (except for $101 from the teller's drawer not accounted for in the bag found by the road)? But the government did not rely solely on those holes and the strength of its case in chief; it also undertook to rebut the alibi through additional evidence. Wing testified that although she had spoken with Mr. Hall during the summer of 2006, she had not had any further contact with him before the robbery. She went back to the halfway house in early November 2006 after having violated her supervised release, but she could think of no way that he could have known she was there on November 7. Wing also recounted how Mr. Hall had tried to convince her to be an alibi witness. After he had been arrested for the bank robbery, she saw him while at the halfway house. As she was smoking outside, he yelled to her from the recreational yard of the federal detention facility, which is part of the same complex, telling her that his sister Connie was going to call her. Connie called the same day and told her that Mr. Hall was in the detention center, that his mother needed to talk to her more about it, and that he needs you to help him. Trial Tr., Doc. 151 at 529. Mr. Hall's mother called Wing in early 2007, after she was released from the halfway house. The two had lunch together and Mr. Hall's mother handed her a letter from Mr. Hall. Wing didn't really read the letter. Id. at 531. She later agreed to meet a second time with Mr. Hall's mother, who gave her another letter from Mr. Hall and told her some things that I needed to do. Like I needed to have a watch on.... And she gave me a watch to wear so I could say something around two o'clock I was with him, seeing him at the half-way house. Id. at 531-32. Also, Mr. Hall mailed two or three letters for Wing to her brother's house in Kansas City, Kansas. Mr. Hall's letters said that she could really help him out because they couldn't really identify him at the bank. They had a description wrong. Id. at 535. The letters instructed her to say that she was with him at the halfway house at approximately 2 p.m. on November 7, 2006, and that two men had dropped him off and left him talking with Wing. But two o'clock is count time at the halfway house, so she could not have met with Mr. Hall then; and she was not about to go along with the story because she didn't want to get up here and lie and go back to prison again. Id. at 536. Wing denied telling Connie that she had seen Mr. Hall on November 7. She did, however, admit on cross-examination that she did not keep Mr. Hall's letters or give them to her probation officer or any police officer. The government also attempted to rebut the alibi testimony using evidence of Mr. Hall's prior crimes. Because this evidence goes to the heart of his issues on appeal, we defer summarizing that evidence until our discussion of those issues.