Opinion ID: 2776907
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Second Lee Factor

Text: The second Lee factor required the judge to consider the impact of the nondisclosure on the trial — an inquiry that logically must encompass not only the significance of the new evidence and the defendant’s ability to respond to it, but also the efficacy of any remedial measures offered or implemented by the judge. The necessary consideration was not slighted in this case. Appellant’s counsel informed the judge of the significance of Freese’s undisclosed opinion that, based on the firing pin and breech face impressions, the murder weapon was a Mac 10 or Mac 11. Counsel explained that Freese’s testimony conveying this opinion was “extremely prejudicial” to appellant because it was the strongest corroboration the prosecution had of Dorsey’s claim to have seen appellant commit the murder — “when our case rests,” counsel stated, “on whether or not Mr. Dorsey was able to identify what he said he was able to 26 identify.”14 Counsel further explained that, because this opinion came as a surprise, appellant was unprepared to meet its force. In particular, counsel noted, the defense had not consulted its own expert to determine whether Freese’s opinion was correct, and it had not seen the necessity to impeach Dorsey with a prior statement he had made to the police, in which he had identified the weapon in appellant’s hands as a “Mac 90.” Because the strengths and weaknesses of the government’s other witnesses against appellant were fully aired before the jury, the actual importance of Freese’s undisclosed opinion to the prosecution case might be questioned. In considering the second Lee factor, the trial judge recognized that the government had presented other, if arguably less powerful, corroboration of Dorsey, including but not limited to the admissible forensic corroboration from Freese that the murder weapon could 14 Appellant argues that Freese’s testimony “made it considerably more likely that Dorsey had in fact seen the shooting.” (italics added). Arguably, though, Freese’s additional testimony, about variation in the appearance of Mac 10s and about the five-and-a-half inch barrel he typically saw on Mac 10s, tended to undermine Dorsey’s description of a one-inch barrel (and Rowe’s description of an eighteen-inch clip also did not jibe with Dorsey’s description of a seven-inch clip). Further, even if, as the prosecutor argued to the jury, Freese’s testimony helped to establish that Dorsey “g[o]t the shape of the gun right,” Rowe’s and Stover’s descriptions, too, had bolstered Dorsey’s description of the gun as “boxy.” 27 have been a Mac 10 based on both the rifling characteristics and the physical description of the gun given not only by Dorsey but also by other witnesses. But we need not attempt to calibrate the potential impact of Freese’s undisclosed opinion on the trial too finely, because the trial judge did not minimize it. On the contrary, the judge castigated the prosecutor’s apparent obliviousness to the importance of disclosing that information prior to trial, as described above, and he undertook to protect appellant from any unfair adverse impact of Freese’s undisclosed opinion. The judge did so, primarily, by offering appellant the choice of either a continuance to secure a defense expert of his own and thereby have a fair opportunity to confront the issue head on (which appellant declined), 15 or the remedy the judge ultimately did adopt of striking Freese’s undisclosed opinion testimony and instructing the jury to disregard it — an attempt to nullify the adverse impact of the Rule 16 violation that defense counsel stated “probably could work out.” 15 The court also offered to recall Dorsey to the stand for further crossexamination; appellant did not pursue this option. 28 In deciding that his curative instruction would be effective, the judge noted he had forewarned the jurors at the outset of the trial that they might be instructed after an objection to completely disregard testimony and not to consider it during their deliberations, and that if a juror should refer to such testimony during deliberations, the other jurors should remind that juror that it had been stricken and that the jury was not allowed to consider it at all. Thus, the opening instructions had primed the jury to be receptive to the curative instruction pertaining to Freese’s testimony. Our cases recognize that an instruction not to consider stricken testimony is usually a sufficient remedy where a jury has heard damaging testimony it should not have been permitted to hear.16 In such cases, we have said, “we must presume that a jury follows the court’s instructions, absent any indication to the contrary.” Lewis v. United States, 930 A.2d 1003, 1008 (D.C. 2007). To be sure, “[c]ases 16 For instance, in Peyton v. United States, 709 A.2d 65 (D.C. 1998), the government’s star witness, whose testimony that he saw the defendants shoot the victim was impeached with his initial grand jury testimony denying any knowledge of the killers, twice volunteered on redirect that he had taken a lie detector test — statements that had, we acknowledged, “a substantial potential for prejudice.” Id. at 65. We nonetheless held that the trial judge’s admonition to the jury to disregard the testimony sufficed to minimize the possibility of prejudice, and that the judge therefore did not abuse her discretion by denying the defendants’ motions for a mistrial. See id. at 71-74. 29 may arise in which the risk of prejudice inhering in material put before the jury may be so great that even a limiting instruction will not adequately protect a criminal defendant’s . . . rights.” Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 324 n.9 (1985) (citing, as examples of such cases, Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968), and Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368 (1964)). But “[a]bsent such extraordinary situations, . . . we adhere to the crucial assumption underlying our constitutional system of trial by jury that jurors carefully follow instructions.” Id. In the present case, appellant did not provide the trial judge with any reason to think the curative instruction would be ineffective, and on appeal he has identified no reason for this court to second-guess the trial judge on that score. We appreciate that the instruction could have been clearer in identifying the precise testimony the jury had to disregard; it focused the jury more on what it could consider than on what it could not. This, however, reflected a considered judgment that it would be better not to emphasize the stricken testimony by repeating it. That judgment was not unreasonable; and we think the instruction was clear enough, especially since appellant did not object to its clarity. The prosecutor helpfully reinforced the court’s prohibition when he told the jury in his closing argument that “Mr. Freese did not say this absolutely was a Mac 10 and he did say 30 that there were eight or nine different guns that may have fired or made those impressions.” In sum, we are satisfied that the trial judge appropriately addressed the second Lee factor. We cannot say that the information available to the judge about the impact of the non-disclosure on the trial should have led the judge to decide that it was necessary to impose a sanction more severe than striking a portion of Freese’s testimony.