Opinion ID: 2074284
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Background and applicable legal standard.

Text: As previously noted, the trial judge declined to admit into evidence, under the rule of completeness, the portion of Mack's statement to the police in which Mack claimed to have received the Bryco two or three days before his arrest, and thus approximately twelve days after this pistol was used in the murder of Deyon Rivers. On appeal, Mack contends that the redacted version of the statement received in evidence by the court, especially when considered together with statements made by the prosecutor during closing argument, conveyed the false impression that Mack had confessed that the Bryco was my gun and that he had not denied possessing the weapon on the day of the murder. Mack claims that the trial judge's ruling was contrary to the rule of completeness and denied him a fair trial. Although the government disputes some of Mack's contentions, it concedes in its brief that Mack's statement that he got the gun two [or three] days before the police stopped him should have been admitted under the rule of completeness and this [c]ourt's precedents of Henderson, Reams, and Cox.  (Citations omitted.) In light of the government's concession, which we deem to be a provident one, the only issue that we must decide is whether the error was prejudicial or harmless. Our precedents are not entirely clear whether, in determining the error was prejudicial or harmless, we should look to the non-constitutional standard of Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946) or the constitutional harmless beyond a reasonable doubt standard of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). Compare Cox, 898 A.2d at 382; Henderson, 632 A.2d at 431; and United States v. Sutton, 255 U.S.App. D.C. 307, 331, 801 F.2d 1346, 1370 (1986) (applying Kotteakos ), with Henderson, 632 A.2d at 432 n. 36 and Reams, 895 A.2d at 923 (both suggesting that curtailment of the defendant's right to cross-examine the officer regarding the exculpatory portion of the declarant's statement may implicate Chapman ). [14] We need not decide whether Kotteakos or Chapman governs this appeal because, assuming, arguendo, that the Kotteakos standard applies, we are unable to say with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened, without stripping away the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error. Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239. To conclude that an error is harmless [under Kotteakos ], we must find it highly probable that that error did not contribute to the verdict. Wilson-Bey v. United States, 903 A.2d 818, 844 (D.C.2006) (en banc) (emphasis in original; citations, internal quotation marks and internal brackets omitted). Although the case against Mack was by no means a weak or marginal one, we conclude that the government has not satisfied the reasonable assurance standard of Kotteakos or shown the high[] probab[ility] required by Wilson-Bey.