Opinion ID: 2329136
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Certain Evidence Obtained Pursuant to a Search Warrant

Text: As indicated above, after defendant was indicted by the grand jury, the prosecution sought a search warrant to seize a sample of his blood so that it could conduct a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis of that sample and then compare the results with the features of certain unidentified blood that had been discovered on bed sheets that were taken from the murder scene. On September 30, 1999, a District Court judge issued the search warrant pursuant to G.L.1956 § 12-5-2, as amended by P.L.1972, ch. 169, § 13. [10] Before trial, defendant filed a motion in limine, which sought to prohibit the prosecution and its witnesses from making any direct or indirect offer or reference to    evidence, testimony and/or laboratory results of any blood tests performed pursuant to the seizure of blood pursuant to a search warrant issued for defendant's blood. The trial justice denied defendant's motion in limine. At trial, Robin Smith, a supervisor in the forensics biology laboratory at the Department of Health, testified that her laboratory performed DNA tests on a sample of defendant's blood and on samples from the unidentified blood stains that were on the bed sheets, and the laboratory determined that the blood samples were a match. Suzanne Ulery, an expert on DNA analysis from Bode Technology Group (a private DNA laboratory based in Springfield, Virginia) also testified that the stain on the bed sheet matched that of the suspect Antonio Gomes. The defendant asserts that the trial justice erred in denying his motion in limine, which sought to exclude any evidence that was based upon the seizure of his blood. He maintains that reversal of his conviction is required in light of this Court's decisions in State v. DiStefano, 764 A.2d 1156 (R.I.2000), and State v. Dearmas, 841 A.2d 659 (R.I.2004). The central issue in DiStefano was whether law enforcement officers could obtain a search warrant to extract blood and urine samples from a driver who had refused to give consent in reliance upon G.L.1956 § 31-27-2.1 (which statute is entitled Refusal to submit to chemical test). [11] This Court, in a plurality opinion, noted that the only portion of § 12-5-2 (as it was worded at that time) that would be arguably relevant to the seizure of blood would be subsection (4), which authorized the seizure of property that is evidence of the commission of a crime. DiStefano, 764 A.2d at 1167. The plurality stated that it was not satisfied that one's bodily fluid is `property' or evidence of the commission of a crime, because, in the plurality's view, it is not the blood itself that is the `evidence of the commission of a crime,' but rather the test results that are relevant in a criminal trial. Id. Some four years later, in Dearmas, this Court was faced with a challenge to the legality of a Superior Court blood seizure order and subsequent search warrant. The issue in that case was whether the Superior Court exceeded its jurisdiction under § 12-5-2 when it issued a blood seizure order and authorized the prosecution to apply for a search warrant to effectuate the order, and then issued a search warrant for the police to seize a vial of the accused's blood. Dearmas, 841 A.2d at 661. We acknowledged in Dearmas, 841 A.2d at 662, that the justices of the Superior Court and of the District Court are vested with the authority to issue search warrants by virtue of the provisions of G.L.1956 § 8-3-6 and § 12-5-1(a). However, we went on in Dearmas to hold that the plain and ordinary understanding of the word `property' excludes blood samples, forcibly taken from living human beings, from the ambit of that term as it is used in § 12-5-2. Dearmas, 841 A.2d at 663. We also held that the word `property' in § 12-5-2 does not include blood samples seized involuntarily from criminal defendants or suspects. Dearmas, 841 A.2d at 668. We further held in Dearmas that given the property-seizure limitation on the issuance of warrants under § 12-5-2,    the Superior Court lacked the authority to issue blood-seizure orders such as the one that the court issued in this case, authorizing the state to apply for a search warrant to seize a sample of the petitioner's blood. Dearmas, 841 A.2d at 668. [12] In light of our opinions in DiStefano and in Dearmas, it is our view that the District Court in issuing the instant search warrant authorizing the seizure of samples of defendant's blood exceeded its authority under the statute as it was worded at that time. It follows that, because they were derived from tests of those blood samples, the DNA results and the conclusions drawn from them should not have been admitted into evidence at defendant's trial. However, in spite of our determination that the search warrant was improperly issued and that the evidence derived from that search warrant was inadmissible, it is nonetheless our opinion that the admission of the challenged DNA evidence constituted harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt  in view of the other independent and overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt. See State v. Robertson, 740 A.2d 330, 337 (R.I.1999) ([T]he admission of impermissible evidence need not be prejudicial in a case in which there is independent overwhelming evidence of a defendant's guilt.); see also State v. Gomes, 764 A.2d 125, 137 (R.I.2001). [13] Of particular significance as evidence of defendant's guilt were his own inconsistent statements that he gave to the police detectives who were assigned to investigate Ms. Brown's murder. In his very first statement (the hospital statement), defendant told the detectives on August 27 that, between approximately 9 and 9:30 p.m. the previous evening, he had been attacked near St. Joseph Hospital by five or six people, one of whom he identified by name and characterized as a former boyfriend of Ms. Brown. He added that he then went directly from the location of the alleged attack to Rhode Island Hospital. In contrast, Detective Corley testified that, by his estimate, it would take only approximately fifteen minutes for a person to walk the distance between the site of the alleged attack (near St. Joseph Hospital) and Rhode Island Hospital. He then noted that defendant's medical records indicated that he had arrived at the emergency room at Rhode Island Hospital at approximately 4:30 a.m. on August 27  that is, several hours after the alleged attack near St. Joseph Hospital. Detective Corley further testified that, when defendant was interviewed by the detectives at Rhode Island Hospital on August 27, he admitted to having been in an argument with Ms. Brown on the previous day. Detective Corley further testified that defendant also told him at the hospital that he never saw Ms. Brown again after the police had allowed him to remove some of his clothing from her apartment and to leave the area on August 26. In his next statement to the police (the first police station statement), which he made on September 2, defendant stated: [14] When I was near St. Joseph's Hospital I got jumped by six black guys, I tried to fight back but I couldn't whip [h]im. I think one of them was Mary Brown['s] old boyfriend Levan. They kept saying `mess the pretty boy['s] face' and `woman stealer.' After they jumped me I walked to RI Hospital to get treated. [15] In the same first police station statement, defendant again denied that he ever went back to Ms. Brown's apartment after the reserve officers told him to leave on August 26. And, when asked whether he had keys to Ms. Brown's apartment, defendant replied: The police took them and gave them to Mary. Later in the same statement, defendant positively identified the items that he had allowed the detectives to remove from the hospital. Included among those items was defendant's clothing and a set of keys that he said was the same set he had given to the police on August 26. The following dialogue between a police officer and defendant also constituted part of the first police station statement: Q. How did you get these keys back from Mary? A. When the police officer made me give these keys back to Mary she gave them back to me when the officer wasn't looking. Q. Why would Mary Brown give you the keys back when she ask[ed] the police to get the keys from you in the first place so that you wouldn't come back into her apartment? A. Mary has a split personality when she drinks and when she gave me the keys she told me to come back later. In the same statement, defendant was asked directly whether he had killed Mary Brown. He responded: No, I didn't, I loved her very much, I couldn't hurt anyone, I'm a pussy cat. As indicated earlier in this opinion, defendant voluntarily gave Detective Patricia Cornell permission to remove from Rhode Island Hospital a bag that contained the clothing that he had been wearing when he arrived at the hospital. In his first police station statement, the defendant identified the clothing that had been removed from the hospital as the same clothing that he had been wearing when he left Ms. Brown's apartment on August 26. Among the items that he identified as being his were a jacket and a pair of blue jeans. The defendant was then asked by the police (as is noted in the first police station statement): Was there a drawstring on the hood [of the jacket]? To that question, defendant replied: Yes, and there was one on the waist too. In his second police station statement on September 2, defendant informed the police that he was beginning to remember additional events that had occurred in the time frame that began when he was told by police to leave Ms. Brown's apartment on the evening of August 26. In that second statement, defendant admitted for the first time that he actually had returned to Ms. Brown's apartment after his initial departure. He then described a violent altercation that occurred between himself and Ms. Brown after his return. Specifically, he stated: [N]ow I remember that    I then went to Mary's house. I rang the buzzer and she buzzed me in. I went upto the apartment and I used the knocker and she let me in. Mary was still upset. I'm pretty sure that Mary made me something to eat and then we went to bed. We both took off our clothes. She started to flip out and she grabbed me by the neck. Mary went to the kitchen and when she came back into the bedroom she grabbed me by the neck again. I got off the bed and stood up and then she swung a knife at me and cut my right hand (index finger and the middle finger) and my left wrist. I must have took the knife off of her or else I would have been dead. I don't remember getting dressed and I don't remember leaving her apartment. The next thing I know is getting beat up on Broad St. I walked to the Rhode Island Hospital. [16] Apart from the inconsistencies that are so striking in defendant's various statements to the police, the record contains a considerable amount of additional evidence that is further indicative of defendant's guilt. At the police station, defendant was asked to identify the clothing that he had had been wearing when he arrived at Rhode Island Hospital early in the morning of August 27. Among the clothing that defendant identified in both his first and second police station statements was a drawstring/windbreaker jacket. At the police station, he informed the police that he had been wearing that jacket when he left Ms. Brown's apartment. Detective Corley testified that, when he investigated the Dodge Street crime scene on August 27, he observed what appeared to be a cord from a jacket lying on the floor near where Ms. Brown's body had been found. He further testified that the cord was taken into evidence. When asked at trial if the injuries on Ms. Brown's neck were consistent with the cord that had been found at the scene, Dr. Sikirica (the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Ms. Brown) answered the question in the affirmative. Dennis Hilliard, the director of the State Crime Laboratory, who has special expertise in the area of hair and fiber analysis, testified at trial. Mr. Hilliard testified that he removed and examined several hair-like fibers that were attached to the cord and that the fibers were human head hairs. He further testified that a microscopic comparison between those hairs and ones taken from Ms. Brown revealed that the samples were consistent with each other and could have originated from the same source. Mr. Hilliard then testified that he compared the construction of a piece of cord taken from the scene of the crime with a piece of cord taken from the hood of a jacket, [17] and that the cords matched each other in component structure. He further testified that the two cords were similar and could have originated from the same manufacturer and could have both [come] from  originated from the same jacket. When defendant arrived at the Rhode Island Hospital emergency room early on August 27, he was wearing a pair of blue jeans. In his first police station statement, he identified those jeans as being the same pair that he had been wearing when he left Ms. Brown's apartment on the evening of August 26. The front part of the blue jeans was noticeably stained with what appeared to be blood. Robin Smith of the Department of Health and Suzanne Ulery of Bode Technology Group both testified that they tested samples of these stains and determined that, in fact, the stains were caused by blood. Ms. Smith and Ms. Ulery also testified that they performed a DNA analysis on a sample of blood taken from Ms. Brown as well as on the samples taken from the blue jeans and then compared the results from these separate DNA tests. Ms. Smith and Ms. Ulery then testified that, to a very high degree of certainty, the DNA contained in the blood found on defendant's blue jeans matched the DNA found in Ms. Brown's blood. In light of all of the overwhelming and independent evidence of defendant's guilt, the erroneous admission of the evidence that was based upon the seizure of his blood was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In view of our decision with respect to this aspect of this case, we need not formally address the question of whether, by filing a motion in limine but no motion to suppress, defendant properly preserved for appellate review the issue of the seizure of his blood. We would indicate, however, that it is our view that the vehicle for seeking to exclude allegedly improperly obtained evidence (or the fruits thereof) should ordinarily be a motion to suppress. See DiStefano, 764 A.2d at 1158 (noting that the defendant in that case had filed a motion to suppress the introduction of the test results on the ground that her blood was drawn without her consent). Furthermore, we shall refrain from ruling on whether this search and seizure issue may have been waived because defense counsel did not renew his in limine objection to the admission of the contested evidence during the trial itself. We wish to indicate, however, that our preliminary view of that issue is that, except when the in limine ruling is clearly definitive, it would at the very least be prudent for counsel to articulate the objection once again in the vital context of the trial itself. See State v. Torres, 787 A.2d 1214, 1220 (R.I.2002) (The preliminary grant or denial of an in limine motion `need not be taken as a final determination of the admissibility of the evidence referred to in the motion.') (quoting State v. Fernandes, 526 A.2d 495, 500 (R.I.1987)); State v. Bennett, 122 R.I. 276, 286, 405 A.2d 1181, 1186-87 (1979). [18]