Opinion ID: 2325528
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Parker's motivation to testify.

Text: During his testimony at the CPO hearing, appellant described Parker as a crack head and testified that she and appellant had smoked crack together. Appellant also claimed that Parker had left him with her children while she went out and sold her body. He asserted that Parker was jealous of his dealings with other women, has nothing but anger for me and hate, and was vindictive and would do [a]nything to get [him] to do time. Appellant accused Parker of having cried wolf before, questioning why she had not previously tried to obtain a protection order, and suggesting that Parker wanted to control appellant by having him locked up. By the time of the Kastigar hearing, Parker had died (of cancer) and thus the government could not present testimony from her about the effect of appellant's CPO hearing testimony on her or on her reasons for testifying at trial. Appellant urges us to hold that without Parker's testimony, the government could not meet its burden of proving that his immunized testimony did not motivate Parker to testify at trial. We decline to adopt such a per se rule. [18] Quite the contrary, we are satisfied that the trial court did not clearly err in finding, and did not err as a matter of law in concluding that the government met its burden of proving, that appellant's CPO testimony did not motivate Parker to testify against him during the criminal proceedings. In addition to Herndon and Satterfield, the other witness who testified at the Kastigar hearing was Deardre Smith-McGuire, who was employed by the U.S. Attorney's Office and who was Parker's victim/witness advocate and worked with her throughout the duration of the case. Smith-McGuire memorialized her interactions with Parker on a Victim/Survivor Intake Form, which was admitted at the hearing. [19] The intake form describes the various incidents of threats and destruction of property that Parker reported to Smith-McGuire between March and October 2000. An August 21, 2000 entry notes that Parker was concerned b/c her criminal case was dismissedwants to know why & to have it re-brought. Attached to the intake form was an August 24, 2000 email from Smith-McGuire to the assigned prosecutor. In the email, Smith-McGuire noted that the March 11 assault case had been dismissed for want of prosecution. She noted that Parker was upset when she found out the case had been dismissed. The email also stated that Parker was keeping a log book of everything and was totally on top of this. [20] Smith-McGuire testified that Parker was in repeated contact with her. A Subsequent Contacts Form admitted into evidence showed that between August 21 and September 20, 2000, Parker called or spoke with Smith-McGuire at least seventeen times to discuss the case. Parker expressed frustration about appellant's continuing to elude the police and provided Smith-McGuire with information regarding potential witnesses. In addition, as the trial court noted, Parker went to the extraordinary effort of posting wanted pictures of appellant (almost 300 copies, she estimated) in public areas to help facilitate his arrest. Parker gave Smith-McGuire a few copies of her wanted poster to give to the U.S. Marshal to help in apprehending appellant. Smith-McGuire observed that Parker stood out from a lot of the other women I worked with in just her strength and her determination. If the pre-CPO hearing events were not enough to cause Parker to testify, the post-CPO events appear to have provided any additional needed incentive. Parker testified at trial that on October 2, 2000, appellant hit her in the face with his fist and beat and stomped her in front of her young children, fracturing her facial bone. She testified that appellant also chase[d] one of [Parker's children] when [the child] ran to get help. Appellant acknowledged that he hit Parker repeatedly on that day, causing her to fall to the ground. Following that incident, Parker, while driving with her friend Donald King, spotted appellant, who had absconded from a halfway house, on the street and chased him in her vehicle. King held appellant down until police arrested himfurther evidence of Parker's resolve to see him prosecuted. Appellant acknowledged this chase. Upon this record, the trial court found that Parker was dogged in her efforts to prosecute [appellant] to protect herself and her children before and after his CPO testimony. That finding is amply supported by the record, and we discern no reason to disturb the trial court's rejection of appellant's claim that his CPO testimony possibly motivated Ms. Parker to testify in the grand jury and at trial. We do not overlook that the types of insults and accusations appellant hurled at Parker during his CPO testimony can be in some contexts and for some people fighting words. Nor do we overlook that Parker had failed to appear as a witness against appellant at the first scheduled trial regarding the March 11 assault, or that a domestic violence complainant's initial efforts are not necessarily an accurate barometer of what her motivation will be as a case progresses. [21] But the track record of Parker's pre-and post-CPO hearing efforts to bring appellant to justice enabled the trial court to conclude that the government met its burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that appellant's immunized testimony was not a cause of Parker appearing and testifying in the criminal proceedings. We discern no reason to disturb that conclusion.