Opinion ID: 1788253
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: additional errors

Text: We turn now to address three other errors asserted to have been committed by the trial court. The first error we address is the trial court's decision to admit two notes recovered from Davis's leg cast when it was removed shortly after the murders, on May 2, 1996. One piece of paper contained the following two written statements, What time is the first flight and the name, and US Air, 545, $244.00, Sgt. Samms. The second note also contained two written statements, the first being, Mark would have cracked up and the second stating, Events, Home to walk Heavy and then to home. In response to defense counsel's objection, the State argued that the notes, written in two different handwriting styles, were relevant to connect the coconspirators through the lies they told law enforcement, to link each of them to the night of the murders, and to show consciousness of guilt. On appeal, the State stresses the fact that the notes capture the lie told by Brooks during his interview with police that he and Davis were at Davis's apartment on the night of the murders setting up a waterbed and left the apartment only for a brief time to walk Davis's dog. [16] The trial court admitted the notes as additional evidence to show an association between Brooks and Davis from which the jury could determine the existence of a conspiracy and as evidence from which the jury could infer Brooks' consciousness of guilt. Brooks contends on appeal that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the notes because there is no evidence connecting him to the notes. We agree. The only person to whom the notes reasonably could be linked was Davis because they were found on his person and bore his fingerprint. The notes were never connected in any form or fashion to Brooks. While the State contends that the notes were jointly authored and constitute a conversation of sorts in which the co-conspirators solidified the lies they would tell police, it offered no evidence that either Davis or Brooks wrote the notes. The State's argument that the lies of Brooks to law enforcement officers tied him to the notes similarly fails to persuade us that they were admissible, because the State offered no evidence as to when the notes were drafted or when they were placed in Davis's cast. We also find error in the trial court's decision to allow the State to impeach the trial testimony of witness Melissa Thomas with the statement she had previously given police. At trial, Melissa Thomas testified that on the night of the murders, Davis and Brooks came to her Crestview apartment at approximately nine o'clock. In her testimony, she relayed that each man arrived at her apartment clothed in black nylon pants and that Brooks used the bathroom. Thomas further testified that she recalled being interviewed by police shortly after the murders. When the State asked whether she recollected telling Agent Haley during the course of the interview that Brooks came out of the bathroom wearing shorts, Thomas answered, No, I don't remember. Subsequently, the State called Agent Haley to testify regarding his interview of Thomas, including the portion in which she stated that Brooks changed into shorts in the bathroom. Defense counsel made multiple objections, including that the impeachment was improper because Thomas's trial testimony did not materially differ from her police statement. The trial judge allowed the impeachment, determining that her trial testimony and previous statement were contradictory to a degree. The trial court erred in permitting this impeachment of Thomas's testimony. Florida courts have held that a witness's inability to recall making a prior statement is not synonymous with providing trial testimony that is inconsistent with a prior statement. See James v. State, 765 So.2d 763, 766 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000); Calhoun v. State, 502 So.2d 1364, 1365 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987) (deeming it improper to impeach a witness who testified that she could not recall stating that she had a reputation as an aggressive female police officer with the testimony of another witness who heard her make such a statement). In James, the district court adopted the reasoning employed by the Oregon Court of Appeals in holding: The controlling issue on appeal is whether it was appropriate to impeach [a witness'] asserted lack of memory by showing substantive statements that she made when her memory was fresh. As a matter of logic, that is not appropriate impeachment by inconsistent statement. The fact that a witness once stated something was true is not logically inconsistent with a subsequent loss of memory. The only thing that is inconsistent with a claimed loss of memory is evidence that suggests that the witness in fact remembers. James, 765 So.2d at 766 (quoting State v. Staley, 165 Or.App. 395, 995 P.2d 1217, 1220 (2000)). In support of the contrary position, the State quotes from Morton v. State, 689 So.2d 259 (Fla.1997), where this Court determined that [i]n a case where a witness gives both favorable and unfavorable testimony, the party calling the witness should usually be permitted to impeach the witness with a prior inconsistent statement. Id. at 264. However, the State fails to include the very next sentence, where the Morton Court clarified its holding by stating that, [o]f course, the statement should be truly inconsistent, and caution should be exercised in permitting impeachment of a witness who has given favorable testimony but simply fails to recall every detail unless the witness appears to be fabricating. Id. Importantly, the trial judge in the instant case allowed the impeachment of Thomas's testimony because he found her testimony inconsistent to a degree with her prior statement, not because he determined that she was fabricating her inability to recall the content of her police statement. Given the other detailed evidence provided by Haley and the fact that Brooks' retrial occurred six years after the murders were committed, there is no basis on which to conclude that Thomas fabricated her lack of recollection. For that reason, the trial court erred in permitting the impeachment of Thomas's trial testimony with her previous statement. The State compounded the error by impermissibly relying on the impeachment as substantive evidence in closing arguments. See McNeil v. State, 433 So.2d 1294, 1295 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983) (reversing conviction based in large part on impeachment evidence improperly considered as substantive evidence). Finally, we conclude that the trial court erred in refusing to provide the coconspirator hearsay instruction requested by defense counsel. Section 90.803(18)(e) of the Florida Statutes provides that [u]pon request of counsel, the court shall instruct the jury that the conspiracy itself and each member's participation in it must be established by independent evidence, either before the introduction of any evidence or before evidence is admitted under this paragraph. § 90.803(18)(e), Fla. Stat. (2002). As characterized by Brooks on appeal, the requirement to give the instruction is mandatory, not permissive, and it is not within the trial court's discretion to refuse counsel's request. Applying the standard articulated in DiGuilio, we determine that each of these errors was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See DiGuilio, 491 So.2d at 1135. We note that the substance of the notes retrieved from the leg cast of Davis was established through independent witness testimony. Air Force Special Agent Garcia relayed that Brooks denied being in Crestview the night of the murders, and indicated that he and Davis remained in Davis's apartment leaving only briefly to walk Davis's dog, Heavy. Airman Hardin testified that he accompanied Brooks to purchase a plane ticket back to Philadelphia for which Brooks was wired $244. With the information already a part of the record, there is no reasonable possibility that the erroneous admission of the notes themselves contributed to the conviction. The same conclusion can be drawn regarding the improper impeachment of Melissa Thomas. Permitting Agent Haley to testify to the prior statement of Thomas, in which she indicated that Brooks had changed into shorts in her bathroom, did not contribute to his conviction. Neither Thomas nor any of the witnesses who placed Brooks in Crestview on the night of the murders indicated that he or his clothes were covered in blood. The State did not recover or seek to introduce any blood-stained clothing. In the absence of any such evidence, testimony that Brooks changed clothes in Thomas's bathroom is of no consequence. Finally, given that sufficient evidence existed to establish a conspiracy between Gilliam, Brooks, and Davis beginning Monday, April 22, see Brooks I, 787 So.2d at 778, Brooks was not prejudiced by the trial court's refusal to give the coconspirator hearsay instruction as requested. See Boyd v. State, 389 So.2d 642, 646 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980).