Opinion ID: 2369775
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The decedent's out-of-court statements.

Text: Clark contends that the testimony of prosecution witnesses regarding Ms. Harrison's alleged statements to them describing Clark's past abuse of her ought not to have been received in evidence. We agree. The purported issue to which the trial judge deemed the testimony relevant Ms. Harrison's state of mind on the night of the homicidewas at most a marginal one, and the challenged evidence did not significantly illuminate it. The potential for prejudice, on the other hand, was substantial, for the out-of-court accusations by Ms. Harrison, if credited, tended to establish a pattern of intense mistreatment over a period of many years and thus to cast grave doubt on Clark's defense of accident. Clark, of course, had no opportunity to cross-examine Ms. Harrison regarding the events which she allegedly related to the prosecution witnesses. The notion that Ms. Harrison's out-of-court statements were admissible to cast light on her own state of mind emerged rather late in the case. On October 6, 1988, the government filed a pretrial motion seeking admission of evidence of prior crimes. In its motion, the government proffered not only incidents which had been observed by prosecution witnesses, but also statements made by the decedent to those witnesses. Although these two kinds of proposed testimony present discrete types of evidentiary problemsproof of the events observed by witnesses would be competent, but could be attacked as other crimes evidence subject to the strictures of Drew v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 11, 331 F.2d 85 (1964), while Ms. Harrison's out-of-court statements also raised obvious hearsay issuesthe prosecution's motion made no attempt to differentiate between the two and did not discuss the hearsay issue at all. [3] Both in its pretrial motion and at trial, the government insisted that the decedent's out-of-court statements were admissible to prove Clark's state of mind, i.e. that he killed Ms. Harrison with malice and with a bad motive, rather than by accident. Although he originally agreed with the government's theory, see note 3 supra, the judge eventually rejected it and, instead, ruled as follows: The defense here is accident and the defendant has stated at the time that this was an accident, [s]he messed with me, I didn't realize the gun was loaded, but I shot her. And it seems to me that incidents of abuse in the past by the defendant particularly when he was drinking as on this occasion would tend to show that Helen's state of mind was such that she would not have messed with this defendant on the date in question and hence, this was not an accident and I believe it is limited to just that, and that's the ruling of the court. (Emphasis added). The predicate for the admission of the evidence, then, was the judge's apparent belief that the prosecution was contending that, contrary to Clark's account, Ms. Harrison had not been messing with him. Our review of the record, however, persuades us that the government did not make any such contention and, on the contrary, depicted Ms. Harrison's cantankerous goading [4] as the motive for the crime. Indeed, the prosecutor argued in closing as follows: There were three witnesses the defendant talked to on the night of the shooting and he said that Helen was messing with me. We think it's a fair inference, ladies and gentleman, that she probably was. She may have been pestering with him. She may have nagged at him. There was some sort of an altercation there, and as the defendant himself told you, when that happened he got angry. (Emphasis added). The prosecutor continued: If this was truly an accident, why would he say, ladies and gentlemen, I was lying on sofa, she was messing with me? That suggests, ladies and gentlemen, that he got angry and took some deliberate action. (Emphasis added). According to the prosecutor, Ms. Harrison's pestering and nagging was why the killing occurred. The government argues on appeal that, although Ms. Harrison may have verbally messed with Clark, her out-of-court statements tended to establish that she was afraid of him and dominated by him and therefore would not have pointed a handgun at him. This was not an argument which the prosecutor made at trial, [5] nor was it the basis upon which the trial judge admitted the evidence. But even assuming that the government's theory is correct, and that the level of pestering in which the decedent engaged was at issue between the parties, the degree to which Ms. Harrison's out-of-court accusations could illuminate this question was surely marginal at best. If her accusations were true, and if Ms. Harrison had indeed been forced by Clark to endure years of torment, it is equally plausible to infer that, with her resistance reinforced by alcohol, [6] she took possession of the handgun as a means of demonstrating that she would not put up with the abuse any more. The state of mind exception to the hearsay rule allows the admission of extrajudicial statements to show the state of mind of the declarant ... if that is at issue in the case. Rink v. United States, 388 A.2d 52, 57 (D.C.1978) (quoting United States v. Brown, 160 U.S.App.D.C. 190, 194, 490 F.2d 758, 762 (1973)); see also Clark v. United States, 412 A.2d 21, 25 (D.C.1980). Where the defendant in a murder case has raised a defense of accident, suicide, or self-defense, the victim's mind is of particular concern to the jury. Clark, supra, 412 A.2d at 25. A statement by the decedent that she was afraid of the defendant, or that the defendant has threatened her, may therefore be admissible if the decedent's state of mind is at issue. Id. As we noted in Clark, however, [t]his type of statement ... also includes the allegation of an act which has not been proven by competent evidence. The danger is that the jury, even with a proper limiting instruction, may be unable to use the statement as evidence of the declarant's state of mind without also erroneously concluding that the incident related in the statement has been proven to have occurred. Id. In Shepard v. United States, 290 U.S. 96, 54 S.Ct. 22, 78 L.Ed. 196 (1933), the defendant had been convicted of murder in the poisoning death of his wife. The wife's nurse testified that her patient had told her Dr. Shepard has poisoned me. The prosecution claimed that this evidence tended to show that the decedent had the will to live, and thus rebutted Shepard's claim that his wife had committed suicide. In reversing Shepard's conviction, the Court, speaking through Justice Cardozo, said: It will not do to say that the jury might accept the declarations for any light that they cast upon the existence of a vital urge, and reject them to the extent that they charged the death to someone else. Discrimination so subtle is a feat beyond the compass of ordinary minds. The reverberating clang of those accusatory words would drown all weaker sounds. It is for ordinary minds, and not for psychoanalysts, that our rules of evidence are framed. They have their source very often in considerations of administrative convenience, of practical expediency, and not in rules of logic. When the risk of confusion is so great as to upset the balance of advantage, the evidence goes out. Id. at 104, 54 S.Ct. at 25-26; accord Clark, supra, 412 A.2d at 25 n. 5 (quoting from Shepard ). Given the obvious risk of prejudice which evidence such as that here at issue invites, trial courts should exercise considerable caution in determining whether it should be received. We have held in the somewhat analogous context of the use of other crimes evidence to prove the defendant's intent that the trial judge must first determine whether a genuine and material issue has been raised with respect to which [other crimes] evidence is relevant. Thompson v. United States, 546 A.2d 414, 420 (D.C.1988). If no such issue is presented, then the probative significance of the evidence is necessarily reduced, with obvious consequences for the balancing of probative value against prejudicial effect. We added in Thompson that the judge must view with a jaundiced eye evidence purportedly offered as relevant to some other issue but in reality bearing wholly or primarily on the defendant's predisposition to commit another similar crime. Id. With specific reference to the problem presented in this case, we have emphasized that the deceased declarant's extra-judicial statements of fear may be admitted under this exception only if the declarant's, not the appellant's state of mind is a relevant issue. Fox v. United States, 421 A.2d 9, 11-12 (D.C.1980). There was no meaningful dispute at trial as to Ms. Harrison's state of mind. The evidence was therefore far more prejudicial than probative. Accordingly, it should not have been received. [7]