Opinion ID: 2338714
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Reverse Drew/Winfield

Text: We are satisfied that Samuels' proffer also put forward defensive or reverse Drew evidence. See Morris, 622 A.2d at 1127; Groves, 564 A.2d at 378 n. 15. The June 3 and 18 incidents were similar enough to each other to suggest reasonable inferences that Hungerford had the same male accomplices on both occasions, and that because Samuels (according to Bego) was not present on June 3, he was not involved on June 18. The Supreme Court of New Jersey noted almost two decades ago that [i]t is well established that a defendant may use similar other-crimes evidence defensively if in reason it tends, alone or with other evidence, to negate his guilt of the crime charged against him. State v. Garfole, 76 N.J. 445, 388 A.2d 587, 591 (1978) (remanding for determination of whether to admit four episodes of child molesting similar to fifth episode for which defendant was charged, where defendant had alibi for all but two episodes). The court added that other crimes evidence offered by the prosecution requires for admission a fairly rigid standard of similarity, to be sure the defendant is not convicted for mere propensity to commit crime; but, when the defendant is offering that kind of proof exculpatorily, prejudice to the defendant is no longer a factor, and simple relevance to guilt or innocence should suffice as the standard of admissibility, since ordinarily, and subject to rules of competency, an accused is entitled to advance in his defense any evidence which may rationally tend to refute his guilt or buttress his innocence of the charge made. Id. The defense-proffered Bego testimony, therefore, was eligible for admission under ordinary defensive other crimes (Drew) analysis, as elaborated by the New Jersey Supreme Court. Before Winfield, however, this court had not expressly embraced defensive or reverse Drew theory in general. See, e.g., Morris, 622 A.2d at 1127; Groves, 564 A.2d at 378 n. 15; Gates v. United States, 481 A.2d 120, 125 (D.C.1984). In Winfield, moreover, we dealt with a particular species of reverse Drew evidence which had received considerable attention in other cases and apparent tight restriction on admissibility. We therefore turn to Winfield to inform the reverse Drew application here. For years, this court applied the rule that, before evidence of the guilt of another can be deemed relevant and thereby admissible, the evidence must clearly link the other person to the commission of the crime. Brown v. United States, 409 A.2d 1093, 1097 (D.C.1979) (emphasis added); accord Beale v. United States, 465 A.2d 796, 803 (D.C.1983). Later, in Johnson v. United States, 552 A.2d 513 (D.C.1989), this court announced that the clearly link test meant proof of facts or circumstances which tend to indicate some reasonable possibility that a person other than the defendant committed the charged offense. Id. at 516; accord Freeland v. United States, 631 A.2d 1186, 1189 (D.C. 1993). Despite Johnson, however, there was confusion as to whether clearly link suggested a standard of relevance stricter than the standard employed in other contexts. [9] Recently, therefore, in Winfield, we took occasion to announce en banc that there is only one standard of relevance, 676 A.2d at 3, that set forth in Punch v. United States, 377 A.2d 1353 (D.C.1977): that which tends to make the existence or nonexistence of a fact more or less probable than would be the case without the evidence, id. at 1358, quoted in Winfield, 676 A.2d at 4. We then reaffirmed Johnson's formulation: the proffered evidence need only `tend to indicate some reasonable possibility that a person other than the defendant committed the charged offense.' Winfield, 676 A.2d at 4 (quoting Johnson, 552 A.2d at 516). Furthermore, because [t]he `focus' of the standard is not on the third party's guilt or innocence, but on `the effect the evidence has upon the defendant's culpability,' it follows that `[t]here is no requirement that the proffered evidence must prove or even raise a strong probability that someone other than the defendant committed the offense.' Id. (second alteration in original) (quoting Johnson, 552 A.2d at 517). On the other hand, we cautioned that a defendant's proffer of evidence that other individuals had even stronger motives to murder the victim than the accused [is] insufficient, without more, to establish the [required] link to the offense charged. Id. at 5 (alterations and emphasis added by original) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, the trial judge ordinarily may exclude evidence of third-party motivation unattended by proof that the party had the practical opportunity to commit the crime, including at least inferential knowledge of the victim's whereabouts. Id. Finally, we emphasized in Winfield that a determination that particular evidence is relevant does not exhaust the trial judge's responsibility in deciding whether to admit it. The judge must also balance the probative value of the evidence against the risk of prejudicial impact, including the risk of jury confusion from a trial-within-a-trial that could result from admitting the proffered evidence followed by government rehabilitative evidence. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). In adopting Johnson 's reasonable possibility formulation (while expressly discarding the clearly linked language), see Winfield, 676 A.2d at 3, 4, we compared the test for relevance with the roughly reverse situation where the government seeks to introduce proof of other criminal acts by the defendant, id. at 4, citing Drew. Accordingly, we said as a general rule that if other prescribed limitations on admissibility are met (e.g., probative value outweighs prejudicial impact), the type of evidence admissible under Winfield as tending to show a third party committed the crime charged against the defendant is akin to the kind of evidence admissible under Drew as tending to prove the defendant committed other crimes or bad acts. If a prior crime, in other words, were similar enough to the present crime for admissibility against the defendant under Drew to show identity, for example, it should be admissible for the defendant under Winfield when that evidence tends to indicate someone else was the culprit in a recent, similar crime and thus likely was involved, rather than the accused, in the present crime. As we summarized: [E]vidence of the type appellant seeks to admit hererecent assaults against the victim stemming from identical motivationhas been considered highly probative by this court in the reverse setting of admission of other crimes evidence to support guilt. Unduly restricting admission of third-party perpetrator evidence would raise concerns of unequal treatment. Winfield, 676 A.2d at 7 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). We therefore now commonly refer to Winfield (formerly Brown-Beale ) evidence as a species of reverse Drew evidence. [10] We stressed in Winfield that the trial court must resolve close questions of admissibility in this setting in favor of inclusion, not exclusion, 676 A.2d at 6, because a defendant's constitutional right of `a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense' is implicated, id. at 7 (quoting Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 2146, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986)). As to the present case, while there were differences between the June 3 and June 18 crimes, there also were similarities sufficient for us to be confident that, if the situation were presented under Drew, a trial judge very likely would admit the other crimes evidence under the identity or the common scheme exception. The crimes took place only two weeks apart. See Gates, 481 A.2d at 123 (affirming government use of other crimes evidence where similar robberies/sexual assaults occurred nineteen days apart). They concerned similar modes of operation in that Hungerford initially socialized, and attempted to negotiate a transaction, with the victimspossibly ascertaining that they had moneybefore attempting a robbery. See id. at 122 (noting that robbery turned into sexual assault in charged and uncharged crimes); Bartley v. United States, 530 A.2d 692, 696 (D.C.1987) (concluding that government established similar modus operandi when robbers showed preference for supermarkets in same chain). And, in both cases, the robbers required the victims to remove their shoes, socks, and pants and told them to give it up. See Cox v. United States, 498 A.2d 231, 238 (D.C.1985) (concluding that similar instructions to each victim and similar means of tying victim with clothing to prevent escape supported admissibility under Drew ). Finally, for admissibility the crimes need not be identical if the totality of the circumstances demonstrates a reasonable probability that the same man attacked both complainants. Cox, 498 A.2d at 238. In translating Drew analysis to the reverse- Drew  context, it is important to note that the present case is not the kind where the defense points to another person who has a motive and practical opportunity to commit the crime. Here, but for the proffer that Bego would testify unequivocally that Samuels was not involved in the June 3 robbery, Hungerford's June 3 accompliceswhose descriptions matched appellantscould just as well have been Newman and Samuels. Put another way, but for Bego's proffered testimony exculpating Samuels, the government arguably could have used the June 3 incident as Drew evidence inculpating both appellants. For this reason, Newman can get no benefit from the proffer (as his counsel on appeal appears to recognize, see supra note 2). But Samuels' case is different. By proffering Bego's testimony that Samuels was not present on June 3, that potential Drew evidence was converted, powerfully, into reverse- Drew  evidence in his favor. By thus assuredly demonstrating a reasonable possibility that someone other than Samuels committed a similar crime with Hungerford on June 3, Samuels proffered evidence that especially because it connects Hungerford with an assailant other than Samuels tend[ed] to create a reasonable doubt that [Samuels] committed the offense. Winfield, 676 A.2d at 4 (internal quotation marks omitted). Put in terms of the applicable standard of relevance, Bego's proffered testimony tend[ed] to make the existence ... of a factSamuels' alleged presence at Williams' robbery/murderless probable because of evidence tending to show he was not Hungerford's accomplice in a similarly executed crime two weeks earlier. As we have indicated, the fact that Samuels could not proffer the identity of the person who Bego said was not Samuels may go to the weight of the proffered evidence but not to its admissibility. See id. at 5-6. The trial judge, therefore, not only erred in failing to recognize that Samuels' proffer went to Hungerford's bias, not merely to her credibility, but also erred in declining to find the proffered extrinsic Winfield (reverse Drew ) evidence relevant to Samuels' defense. In reviewing the admission of evidence for abuse of discretion, however, we must inquire not only whether the judge erred in the ruling but also whether the error was of a magnitude requiring reversal. See ( James W.) Johnson v. United States, 398 A.2d 354, 366 (D.C.1979).