Opinion ID: 4311008
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Nari Rhodes’s Testimony

Text: Nari Rhodes’s testimony featured prominently in the prosecution case. The State called Nari as a witness and ques‐ tioned her about what happened on April 3, the day before the shooting. Nari testified that she and Davis got into an ar‐ gument that morning. Davis stole her wallet and telephone and punched her car window so hard that he broke it. Davis was the father of Nari’s child, and at some point, the State asked Nari what her relationship was with Davis at the time of the shooting. Nari responded that they “had had a lot of No. 17‐2223 5 domestic violence problems,” had not been romantically in‐ volved for a year, and “had just been working on being friends.” The afternoon of April 3 took an even more violent turn, which was the focus of the State’s direct examination and its motive theory. Nari testified that she drove past Davis’s girl‐ friend’s house that afternoon and saw Davis, and that he waved her down. She pulled over, thinking he was going to return her telephone and wallet. Instead, Davis’s girlfriend, Nancy Segura, approached, and Nari and Segura argued. Ac‐ cording to Nari’s trial testimony, Davis walked away once the women began arguing. Nari wanted to get out of the car and fight Segura, but before she could, another woman attacked Nari from the passenger side of the car. Segura and the other woman pulled Nari out of the car by her feet. Nari’s head hit the concrete and she lost consciousness. The State questioned Nari about her injuries. Nari testified that she received treatment at a hospital. She had a cut near her eye, a cut on her lip, four displaced teeth, and “a lot of skin missing from the right side” of her face. The State intro‐ duced four photographs of Nari’s injuries and showed them to the jury. This evidence did not concern the fatal shooting that was being tried, but it was detailed and full‐color evi‐ dence of a separate assault to support the State’s motive the‐ ory. The State tried twice to get Nari herself to endorse the mo‐ tive theory on direct examination. She was not as cooperative as the State hoped. She testified that she saw her brothers, Rhodes and Saleem, when she got home from the hospital on April 3. She testified that she told them that the two women, not Davis, were responsible for the beating. She also testified 6 No. 17‐2223 that her brothers were not angry at Davis. Apparently skepti‐ cal, the prosecution asked follow‐up questions: Q: Well, did they become angry? Either of them? A: No. Q: They just took it calmly? A: Yes. Q: That their sister had just been beaten? A: Yes. After introducing the photographs of Nari’s injuries, the State asked Nari again: “And your testimony earlier is that this had no eﬀect on your brothers?” She answered that her brothers were mad only at her—for putting herself “in the predicament to be beaten.” On cross‐examination, the defense tried to respond to the State’s motive theory. The defense asked Nari about an earlier time when Davis himself had beaten her. Rhodes’s attorney asked the following questions before the State objected: Q: You did tell us … on direct examination that there had been domestic violence or violence between yourself and Davis be‐ fore, right? A: Yes. Q: Before that date? A: Yes. Q: In fact, Mr. Davis had attacked you pre‐ vious to April 3, 2006; is that right? No. 17‐2223 7 A: Yes. Q: And you—On direct examination you said something to the eﬀect that there had been a lot of that; is that right? A: Yes.    Q: [I]n your conflict with Mr. Davis, have there been other times when you’ve been injured? A: Yes. Q: And what injuries had you received? A: One side—My orbital bone in my eye was broken and it was like really bad. At that point, the State objected and the judge held a side‐ bar conference oﬀ the record. In a later proﬀer on the record, Rhodes’s attorney said that he would have asked Nari more questions to rebut the State’s motive theory. He said: She said her orbital bone had been broken. That’s a fairly serious injury. My next question would have been, well, what’s your orbital bone? The question—She would have described as something around her eye. After that I would have asked her did she make her brothers aware of that injury and who would have inflicted it and she would have said yes. There was no response from the brothers. The State objected that it did not have notice of that particular incident of abuse or that the defense would make “a history of domestic abuse” by Davis an issue. The State also argued 8 No. 17‐2223 that the court had previously ruled that both sides could make general references to domestic abuse, but could not go through individual prior acts, invoking Wis. Stat. § 904.04, the Wisconsin analog to Federal Rule of Evidence 404, which re‐ stricts the use of evidence of a person’s prior bad acts. The court sustained the State’s objection and cut oﬀ cross‐ examination on the subject. It agreed with the State’s under‐ standing of its prior evidentiary ruling that the defense was not permitted to make an incident‐by‐incident inquiry into Davis’s prior violent abuse of Nari. The judge also reasoned that the parties should “not get into evidence—extraneous ev‐ idence that would mislead the jury on other issues in a trial within a trial which is the concern.”