Opinion ID: 2100110
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Proffer and the Trial Court's Decision

Text: In reviewing the trial court's ruling, the majority relies upon a characterization of the proffer in the brief of amicus curiae, rather than the facts as presented in the trial court. [2] One fact critical to the trial court's decision, but omitted from the facts upon which the en banc majority relies, was that the witness who allegedly heard the killer state on the night of the murder, You won't tell this, examined a photo array which included Huff's picture but did not identify Huff as the person who made the statement. This was an important factor which guided the trial court in the exercise of its discretion to exclude the evidence. [3] In ruling on the motion in limine, the trial court, in its careful decision, made this point explicitly, stating: A defense witness who viewed a photographic array which included the photograph of Mr. Huff did not identify him as the person who allegedly said, open quote, You won't tell this, close quote. Although appellant's counsel contended that the photograph of Huff was not a recent one, she declined the court's suggestion that she make arrangements to show the witness a more recent photograph. Later, in its ruling, the court again stated as a basis for its ruling that a defense witness claimed that a person other than Mr. Huff said to [the victim], . . . `You won't tell this.' Other inadequacies in the proffer, including the ambiguity in the statement attributed to the shooter, also informed the trial court's discretion. The shooter's meaning in saying [y]ou won't tell this is not clear. The shooter could have meant that the victim would not be able to tell on him as she had on others. In that sense, the statement did not reflect that the shooter's motive for the murder was related to the motives of Artis, Bias and Huff. The trial court found the words not to be so distinctive that they necessarily tie Mr. Huff to the shooting by relating back to the words spoken by Mr. Artis in Mr. Huff's presence. At the time of the prior shooting, these words were not used. Instead, Artis told Davis that she would be killed because she was the only one who could testify against him concerning an earlier robbery involving Artis and Bias in which Huff was not involved, according to the proffer. The trial court determined that the ambiguity of the proffered evidence including the shooter's statement, was such that it would not tend to create a reasonable doubt that [Winfield] who was apparently known by many of the eyewitnesses did not commit the murder. See Johnson v. United States, 552 A.2d 513, 517 (D.C.1989) (Third-party culpability evidence need only tend to create a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the offense.) (emphasis in original). The trial court also determined that, in light of the ambiguity of the statement, the probative value of the evidence was outweighed by the tendency of the evidence to mislead the jury. See Brown v. United States, 409 A.2d 1093, 1097 (D.C.1979). However, the majority posits that Huff had the ability to locate the victim, Ms. Davis, on the night of the shooting, a fact which appellant neither proffered nor contended in the trial court. Moreover, the record is devoid of any evidence that would lead a reasonable factfinder to conclude that Huff knew how to locate Davis that night. Appellant did not claim that either Huff or the victim lived in the area where she was gunned down or that either ever had been there before. Appellant did not identify the area from which Davis was abducted earlier. In the motion in limine, the proffer states that it was appellant, not Huff, who lived approximately one-half block from the basketball court where Ms. Davis was killed. In making its ruling, the trial court accurately took into account the absence of a proffer that Huff was near the scene of the crime or knew where Ms. Davis could be located that night. The trial court stated in this regard: There is no evidence that Mr. Huff was anywhere near the scene of the murder of July 26th, 1990. There is no credible evidence that Mr. Huff knew that Ms. Davis had testified before the Superior Court grand jury on July 26th. There is no evidence that Mr. Huff knew where Ms. Davis could be located on the night of her death. Further, as stated in the majority opinion in Winfield I: [A]lthough there was evidence that Huff had a motive to commit the crime and a proffer that Huff had committed other acts of violence against the victim on another occasion, no evidence was proffered tending to show that Huff was implicated in the commission of the offenses for which appellant was on trial. Appellant conceded in the motion that he was not connected to Artis, Huff, and Bias. . . . Not a single person who witnessed the crime, even those who viewed photo arrays with Huff's picture in it, identified him either as the perpetrator of the crime or as someone who was even in the area of the crime scene at any time that night. (Emphasis added.) Id. 652 A.2d at 613. Therefore, consistent with our prior opinions, the trial court found lacking the requisite nexus between Huff's motive and prior crime and the crime charged. [4] The majority supplies the critical fact missing from the proffer in order to find the requisite nexus to Davis' murder. It does so by assuming that having abducted and assaulted Davis before, Artis and Huff had demonstrated their ability to find her whether or not they actually knew her whereabouts. Majority opinion at 4. The flaw in this assumption is that it has no factual basis in the record to support it. Indeed, it is inconsistent with the facts before the trial court when it made its ruling. The proffer, as pointed out in the majority opinion at 5, was that Davis was kidnapped from the District of Columbia and taken to Maryland by Artis, who was joined at some point in the abduction by Edward Huff. [5] (Emphasis added.) Thus, even at the time of the kidnapping, the proffer shows only Artis' knowledge of Davis' whereabouts one month earlier. Appellant's counsel conceded that she was not claiming that Artis and Bias, other individuals allegedly involved in the prior crimes, were responsible for Davis' murder because both were in jail at the time. Therefore, the parties and the trial court focused upon the possibility of Huff's culpability only. Although identifying Huff as the remaining likely suspect, appellant, unlike the en banc majority, did not proffer any facts tending to show that Huff knew how to find Davis. [6] In finding that Huff also knew where to find the decedent the night of the murder, the en banc majority must first impute to Huff Artis' knowledge, or speculate that Artis told Huff where he had located Davis earlier. The majority then must assume either that the kidnapping and murder occurred in the same general area, or that armed with whatever knowledge Huff might have obtained from Artis, if any, Huff was able to trace the victim to the basketball court at the critical time when she met her death. The problem with these assumptions is that we have no information that Huff obtained any such information from Artis, or if he did, that he acted on it. The majority's assumptions stretch well beyond the limits of inferences permissible by our jurisprudence, which requires that reasonable inferences be made from proof of other facts. See United Ins. Co. v. Nicholson, 119 A.2d 925, 927-28 (D.C.1956). Conclusions may be drawn by inference from established facts but not from other inferences, because conclusions so reached are merely conjectural. Id. The trial court relied upon legal principles extracted from Johnson, supra, 552 A.2d at 516-17, just as the en banc court does today. In that regard, the trial court adhered to the principles governing relevance for purposes of admissibility of third-party culpability evidence, including the rule that relevance . . . requir[es] a `link, connection or nexus between the proffered evidence and the crime at issue.' See majority opinion at 5 (quoting Johnson, supra, 552 A.2d at 516); see also Winfield I, supra, 652 A.2d at 612. What accounts for the difference in the en banc court's outcome can be attributed only to (1) the impermissible substitution of speculation for a proffer of facts, or (2) the reasonable possibility rule which the majority inserts into the nexus requirement. Having examined the former, I turn now to an examination of this new gloss which the majority places upon the nexus requirement.