Opinion ID: 2345595
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Trial-Related Claims of Error

Text: Appellants contend that several rulings by the trial judge deprived them of their Sixth Amendment rights to present a defense and to confront the witnesses against them, and that the judge abused his discretion by declining to sanction the government under the Jencks Act for its failure to preserve evidence. Appellant Stewart further asserts that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions. In this section, we address each of appellants' trial-related claims of error in turn.
At a hearing on the eve of trial, Stewart's counsel Veronice Holt announced appellants' intention to present a so-called Winfield [6] or third-party perpetrator defensethe (surprising) gist of which was that Sue Ann Mascall and her brother Ricardo were the real murderers, and that they killed Rosebure in order to rob him of drugs he was carrying. After eliciting a proffer of the evidentiary basis for that claim and finding the proffer wanting, the judge barred appellants from asserting, either in argument to the jury or in leading questions on cross-examination, that Mascall and her brother were guilty of the murder. [7] Appellants argue that the judge thereby abused his discretion and deprived them of their Sixth Amendment rights. We do not agree.
The most important fact Stewart's counsel proffered was that an unnamed eyewitness[a] person who was there on the scenehad told her that the last individual to possess the guns fired outside 1600 E Street on New Year's Eve (the presumptive murder weapons) was Sue Ann Mascall's brother Ricardo. At some point during the noisy celebration, Holt elaborated, the police showed up, and Ricardo took the guns and hid them. The judge agreed that such eyewitness testimony would be very powerful evidence ... that would permit a Winfield defense to go to the jury. But when the judge asked Holt if she actually had such testimony to present, she refused to state that her source would testify [8] and she acknowledged having no other witness who could tie Ricardo Mascall to the murder weapons. At trial, appellants never called such a witness, nor did they cross-examine Sue Ann Mascall (or any other government witness) on Ricardo's possession of the guns fired by appellants the night before Rosebure's murder. Holt further proffered that Rosebure was known to have sold crack cocaine, which he habitually concealed in his rectum, [9] and an unidentified witness had said that on the day [of] the shooting Mr. Rosebure did in fact have a stash and he was going to that area [i.e., 1600 E Street] to sell it and promised to give this individual money after the sale. (At a subsequent bench conference, Holt identified the witness in question as the mother of Rosebure's child, who had been pressing him for money.) No money or cocaine was recovered from Rosebure's body, but Holt represented that his pants were missing when the police and paramedics arrived on the scenesuggesting he had been robbed, presumably by Sue Ann and Ricardo Mascall. At trial, however, a paramedic testified without contradiction that Rosebure's pants were on when I got there. [10] Finally, Holt proffered, the ballistics and medical evidence would be consistent with the hypothesis that Rosebure was shot on the porch outside the apartment buildingnot in the lobby as Sue Ann Mascall claimedand then dragged inside. (Evidence at trial, including testimony that there was no blood outside the building before the paramedics moved Rosebure outside to work on him, tended to refute this hypothesis.)
A third-party perpetrator defense requires proof of facts or circumstances which tend to indicate some reasonable possibility that a person other than the defendant committed the charged offense. [11] Without such a foundation in the evidence, the defense is unduly speculative and likely only to distract and mislead the jury. [12] A defendant proposing to present a Winfield defense therefore must proffer some evidence, either circumstantial or direct, of a third party's actions, motives, opportunity, statements or declarations against penal interest. Such evidence may consist of one fact or circumstance, or a set of facts or circumstances, which, in the aggregate, establishes the necessary link, connection or nexus between the proffered evidence and the crime at issue. [13] We agree with the trial judge that appellants' evidentiary proffer was too speculative and insubstantial to show a reasonable possibility that Rosebure was murdered by Sue Ann or Ricardo Mascall. Among its other deficiencies, the proffer identified no witness who actually would testify that Ricardo Mascall received the murder weapons on New Year's Eve as counsel alleged; [14] no testimony or other proof that Sue Ann or Ricardo Mascall robbed Rosebure (or rummaged through his clothing before police and paramedics arrived on the scene); no evidence that either of them had any motive to kill or rob Rosebure; [15] and no incriminating statements attributed to either of them. Even if the defense arguably impeached Sue Ann Mascall's testimony that Rosebure was shot in the building lobby with evidence he actually was shot on the porch outside, that discrepancy is not enough to implicate Mascall or her brother in the crime. Our review of a trial judge's ruling barring a Winfield defense is for abuse of discretion. [16] We are satisfied the judge exercised his discretion appropriately here.
When Sue Ann Mascall was on the witness stand during trial, McCraney's counsel asked her during cross-examination whether Rosebure had a presence in the area of Sixteenth and E Streets, N.E., before she became romantically involved with him. In response, Mascall said that Rosebure used to hustle around there. Picking up on that answer, appellants later sought to question her and her father about Rosebure's drug dealing at 1600 E Street on the day he was murdered. The avowed purpose of this proposed cross-examination was not only to support appellants' third-party perpetrator defense, but also to expose Mascall's and her father's motive to mislead the police about the identity of Rosebure's assailants in order to conceal the alleged fact that Sue Ann Mascall was selling drugs with Rosebure when he was killed. [17] The trial judge sustained the government's objection to the latter rationale because appellants proffered no factual basis for believing that Mascall was involved with Rosebure in any drug dealing on the day of his murder. [18] Without such a factual predicate, the judge ruled, the introduction of evidence that Rosebure was a drug dealer would be highly and improperly prejudicial to the government. [19] Before reaching that conclusion, the judge personally examined Mascall outside the jury's presence to ascertain whether there was any factual basis whatsoever to justify the inquiry. [20] In answer to the judge's inquiries, Mascall testified under oath that Rosebure was not selling drugs at her building in the hours immediately before his murder; that she was not selling or using drugs then; and that she and Rosebure were not talking about dealing drugs. She denied being involved in any way with [Rosebure] with anything to do with drugs at all. [21] Appellants argue that the judge's ruling abridged their Sixth Amendment right to cross-examine Mascall and Johnson for testimonial bias. [22] The question is a close one in our view, but we uphold the judge's determination that appellants did not lay a sufficient foundation for the inquiry they wished to pursue. In order to pursue a line of cross-examination suggesting that a witness is biased, a defendant must lay a proper factual foundation. [23] This requirement serves to prevent harassment of the witness, prejudice to the opposing party, confusion of the issues, and unnecessary waste of time; it enables the judge to guard against the danger that counsel will ask highly prejudicial questions of witnesses with the almost certain knowledge that the insinuations are false. [24] As with other evidentiary rulings, the determination of whether a defendant has laid a satisfactory foundation to proceed with bias cross-examination is a discretionary decision for the trial judge. [25] A judge does not abuse his discretion by precluding cross-examination where `[t]he connection between the facts cited by defense counsel and the proposed line of questioning [is] too speculative to support the questions.' [26] To lay a proper foundation, the examiner must proffer facts supporting a genuine belief that the witness is biased and that allow the judge to evaluate whether the proposed questioning will be probative of bias. [27] If unable to make such a proffer, the questioner at least must articulate a `well reasoned suspicion' rather than `an improbable flight of fancy' to support the proposed cross-examination. [28] Although these criteria are meant to be fairly lenient, [29] they are not trivial; and [t]he more pointed and directly accusatory the examiner's question, the stricter the foundational requirement becomes[.] [30] Where, as here, the claim of bias is predicated on the witness's conduct having been felonious, it is appropriate for the trial judge to subject the proffered foundation to a careful evaluation. Appellants made a sufficient factual proffer (based on the reported statement of the mother of Rosebure's child, a seemingly credible witness) that Rosebure went to 1600 E Street to sell drugs. That, however, was not the issue. Whether Sue Ann Mascall, or her father, had the alleged motive to testify falsely or misleadingly depended on whether she could be implicated in Rosebure's criminal conduct. Appellants could not proffer any factual basis to believe that Mascall sold drugs or assisted Rosebure in doing so; nor did such a basis materialize when the judge put the question to Mascall herself under oath. [31] At best, appellants could argue that if Rosebure was selling drugs at 1600 E Street, and if Mascall was (even innocently) present when he did so, thendespite the total absence of any evidence or claim of wrongdoing on her partshe (and her father) had a motive to lie about the circumstances of Rosebure's murder in order to avoid her being charged with a drug offense as an aider and abettor. That argument strikes us the same way it struck the trial judgeas unduly speculative. We cannot fault the judge for finding that it fell short of being a well-reasoned suspicion that Mascall or her father were biased. [32]
Stewart's counsel sought to have Michael Evans testify not only that he was driving a brown Pontiac with temporary tags in the vicinity of 1600 E Street around the time of Rosebure's murder, but also that the police stopped his car and detained him for several hours that night for questioning about the murder. As Evans never was charged with Rosebure's murder and appellants conceded he was not involved in it, the trial judge asked why the additional testimony from Evans would be relevant. Holt argued that the fact that police considered Evans a suspect tended to impeach the government's evidence that Sue Ann Mascall identified McCraney by name to the police within minutes of the shooting, because if [McCraney] was a suspect, why are [the police] arresting somebody else? [33] Viewing this rationale as pure speculation, the judge precluded appellants from examining Evans about his questioning by the police as a suspect in Rosebure's murder. Appellants contend the judge erred in excluding the proffered testimony of Evans as irrelevant and thereby infringed their Sixth Amendment right to present a defense. The testimony would have been relevant, appellants argue, either to discredit the testimony that Sue Ann Mascall promptly identified McCraney or to indicate that the police were skeptical of her identification. (The latter rationale is offered for the first time on appeal.) Whether proffered evidence is relevant or not is a determination entrusted to the trial court's sound discretion. [34] We are not persuaded the trial judge abused his discretion in making that decision in this instance. In general, a defendant is entitled to wide latitude in presenting evidence tending to impeach the credibility of a witness, especially ... a key government witness, [35] and competent evidence that is relevant to that or any other matter in issue is presumptively admissible. [36] For evidence to be relevant, however, it must tend[ ] to make the existence or nonexistence of a fact more or less probable than would be the case without the evidence. [37] This standard is met so long as the evidence offered conduces in any reasonable degree to establish the probability or improbability of the fact in controversy. [38] A defendant has no right to present irrelevant evidence. [39] Like the trial judge, we think the inferences appellants would have asked the jury to draw from the police interrogation of Evans as a suspect in Rosebure's murder are entirely too speculative and illogical to render that testimony relevant. There are obvious reasons why the police treatment of Evans as a suspect does not even remotely impeach the testimony that Mascall already had identified McCraney, nor fairly imply that the police were skeptical of that identification. Even if the police knew that one of the shooters was McCraney, they had reason to consider Evans to be a possible accomplice: they observed him near 1600 E Street minutes after the murder driving a vehicle strikingly similar to that in which Rosebure's assailants reportedly fled; and, according to Mascall and other witnesses, there was at least one other shooter whose identity was still unknown. That other shooter could have been Evans. It would have been poor police work indeed to ignore Evans merely because the police credited Mascall's identification of McCraney. Thus, the fact that the police questioned Evans implies nothing about when Mascall identified McCraney or whether the police disbelieved her. In other words, the proffered evidence that police viewed Evans as a suspect on the night of Rosebure's murder was irrelevant. [40]
In October 1997, when the grand jury indicted appellants for the murder of Rosebure, the Assistant United States Attorney assigned to the case requested the Metropolitan Police Department's Communications Division to prepare a tape of the recorded 911 calls and police radio transmissions relating to that incident. In response to that request, a communications officer searched the master tape maintained by the Division and copied the relevant calls and radio transmissions recorded on January 1, 1997, around the time of the shooting. The resulting radio run tape, created on October 17, 1997, included 911 calls made by Hart, Johnson, and an unidentified female caller, plus a dispatcher's communication informing police that a caller (whom the dispatcher did not identify) had reported a shooting at 1600 E Street, N.E. Curiously, the logged time of the dispatcher's communication to police was 20 seconds before the logged time of the earliest 911 call. [41] This seemed to imply that the dispatcher must have referred to an earlier 911 call that was omitted from the radio run tape, because the dispatcher would not have known about the shooting until after someone called 911. Appellants requested the radio run tape in February 1999 and noticed the apparent omission. By then, the original master tape recording of police calls and radio communications made on January 1, 1997, had been recycled (after having been maintained for over a year as required by the applicable MPD records retention policy). As the master tape could no longer be searched, appellants moved the trial court to sanction the government for negligently failing to preserve the putatively lost 911 call, which they posited had been made by Sue Ann Mascall. [42] After holding a hearing and taking testimony from the head of the Communications Division and the officer who prepared the radio run tape, the trial judge denied the sanctions motion. In addition to finding no evidence whatsoever of any act, omission, or shortcoming by the government ... that would warrant the imposition of sanctions, the judge found it purely speculative on this record whether there even was a missing 911 call, and if there was, whether it was from Mascall. Appellants argue that the judge abused his discretion in failing to sanction the government for violating the Jencks Act. [43] No such violation was established, however. While the trial judge found multiple defects in appellants' motion, we need address only one. The preservation and disclosure requirements of the Jencks Act apply only to prior statements made by persons whom the government chooses to call as its witnesses at trial. [44] That limitation dooms appellants' invocation of the Jencks Act here. As the judge found, the evidence did not support appellants' claim that Sue Ann Mascall made a 911 call. Mascall testified that she did not telephone the police. Nor was there evidence that any other government trial witness placed the putative lost call. Accordingly, no sanctionable violation of the Jencks Act was shown.
Stewart argues that the trial judge should have granted his motion for a judgment of acquittal because the evidence was insufficient to prove his identity as a participant in Rosebure's murder. In support of his claim, Stewart emphasizes that Sue Ann Mascall, the only eyewitness to the shooting itself, did not recognize him as one of Rosebure's assailants, and that Geraldine Hart (the only witness who directly implicated him in the crime) was heavily impeachedmost notably, by her repeated failure to select Stewart's photograph even though she professed to know him. [45] While appellate evaluation of a claim of evidentiary insufficiency is emphatically not toothless, it is deferential. [46] In recognition of the jury's prerogatives in this case, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, giving full play to the right of the jury to determine credibility, weigh the evidence, and draw justifiable inferences of fact, and making no distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence. [47] The evidence is sufficient to sustain a conviction so long as a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. [48] The evidence need not compel  such a finding in order to pass muster. [49] The prosecution case against Stewart was no means overwhelming. Nonetheless, we think a rational jury could find the evidence against him sufficiently probative to convict him of Rosebure's murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Hart's identification of Stewart was impeached, but it was not so inherently unreliable that [it] lacked probative value entirely. [50] [I]t would take an exceptional case to take such eyewitness testimony about the circumstances of a criminal offense away from the jury, [51] and we do not find this to be such a case. The core of Hart's testimonythat she saw McCraney, Stewart and Gray take guns from the trunk of a brown car with a broken window and temporary tags and walk toward 1600 E Street, and that after hearing several shots she saw the three men run back to the car, stow their weapons in its trunk, and drive off with McCraney at the wheelwas corroborated by substantial independent evidence at trial, including the testimony of Mascall and Bacote and the subsequent finding of the murder weapons in McCraney's car. Of particular import, Mascall testified that it was Stewart who fired a silver 9 mm handgun outside her building on New Year's Eve, and forensic evidence supported the inference (though it did not conclusively prove [52] ) that the same weapon was used to shoot Rosebure the next day. Furthermore, Mascall said the second shooter had a dark-skinned hand. That description fit Stewartand it did not fit Gray, the only other person whom Mascall saw with a 9 mm handgun on New Year's Eve and whom Hart saw in the alley at the time of the shooting. We are satisfied that a rational trier of fact could find Hart's identification of Stewart credible in spite of its weaknesses. Viewing the evidence in its totality, we conclude that the trial judge did not err in denying Stewart's motion for a judgment of acquittal and allowing the case against him to go to the jury.