Opinion ID: 2286082
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Commonwealth v. Kenneth Williams 2009-SC-000418-MR

Text: Williams's first contention on appeal is that he was entitled to be tried separately from Quisenberry and that the joint trial was rendered unfair by the use of their paraphrased statements to police. The detective's paraphrase of Quisenberry's statement, Williams maintains, directly implicates him, Williams, in the crimes, and because Quisenberry did not testify and so could not be cross-examined, the use of the incriminating statement deprived him of his right under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to confront the witnesses against him. Williams also maintains that the trial court erred by not sua sponte instructing the jury to limit its consideration of Quisenberry's statement to its determination of Quisenberry's guilt or innocence.

As we recently reiterated in Rodgers v. Commonwealth, 285 S.W.3d 740 (Ky.2009): Rule of Criminal Procedure (RCr) 6.20 permits the joinder for trial of two or more defendants if they are alleged to have participated in the same act or transaction or in the same series of acts or transactions constituting an offense or offenses. Joint trials are a mainstay of our system, as they give the jury the best perspective on all the evidence and thus increase the likelihood of proper verdicts and avoid the possibility of inconsistent ones. Conflicting versions of what happened, we have thus noted, is a reason for rather than against a joint trial. ... RCr 9.16, on the other hand, requires that trials be severed if it appears that a defendant or the Commonwealth is or will be prejudiced by the joinder. Rodgers, 285 S.W.3d at 745 (quoting from Shepherd v. Commonwealth, 251 S.W.3d 309, 313 (Ky.2008)). We review the trial court's denial of a motion to sever for abuse of discretion, Shepherd, and the burden is on the appellant to show that the denial was in fact unfairly prejudicial. Parker v. Commonwealth, 291 S.W.3d 647 (Ky.2009); Bratcher v. Commonwealth, 151 S.W.3d 332 (Ky.2004). As Williams correctly notes, in a joint trial, the Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution precludes the pretrial confession of one [defendant from being] admitted against the other unless the confessing defendant takes the stand. Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 206, 107 S.Ct. 1702, 95 L.Ed.2d 176 (1987); see also Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004) (holding more generally that testimonial hearsay is inadmissible if the declarant is not available to testify and the defendant has not previously had the opportunity to cross-examine the declarant). The pretrial confession may not even be admitted against the confessor, moreover, if on its face it implicates another defendant being jointly tried with the confessor. Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968); Gray v. Maryland, 523 U.S. 185, 118 S.Ct. 1151, 140 L.Ed.2d 294 (1998). The Supreme Court has held, however, that the Confrontation Clause does not rule out either joint trials or the use therein of pretrial confessions against the confessors themselves. To be admissible though, the codefendant's confession must be redacted so as to remove express and obvious inferential references to the defendant: the Confrontation Clause is not violated by the admission of a nontestifying codefendant's confession with a proper limiting instruction when, as here, the confession is redacted to eliminate not only the defendant's name, but any reference to his or her existence. Richardson, 481 U.S. at 211, 107 S.Ct. 1702. Citing Bruton and Crawford, Williams moved for a separate trial on the ground that the introduction of Quisenberry's August 29th statement would violate his, Williams's, right to confrontation. The Commonwealth proposed, pursuant to Richardson, to redact from Quisenberry's statement any reference to Williams and from Williams's statement any reference to Quisenberry, and the trial court ruled that with these redactions there was no need for the trials to be severed. As the trial court noted, we have upheld the use of a codefendant's redacted statement for this purpose. Shepherd, 251 S.W.3d at 313-15. Williams first contends that the trial court abused its discretion because the written redaction of Quisenberry's statement which the Commonwealth proffered in response to Williams's severance motion did not eliminate what, Williams maintains, were obvious references to him. Significantly, however, that written redacted statement was not read or otherwise introduced at trial. Whatever its inadequacies, therefore, the written statement did not prejudice Williams and so does not provide a ground for relief. Our focus is, as it must be, on what the jury actually heard. At trial, the Commonwealth asked the detective to paraphrase what the two men had told him. In doing so, the detective scrupulously avoided any mention either defendant made of the other, limiting his testimony to what each defendant said about his own actions, about the two victims, and about his having seen a gun and heard gunshots. As noted, on cross-examination each defendant was allowed to ask whether he had denied shooting anyone, and in both cases the detective answered that he had. Williams contends that this paraphrased version of Quisenberry's statement violated his confrontation right because notwithstanding the fact that it does not refer to him expressly it does so by obvious implication. If Quisenberry saw a gun and heard gunshots, but was not himself the shooter, then clearly, Williams maintains, he is accusing Williams of filling that role. We disagree. As Williams notes, in Gray v. Maryland , the Supreme Court held that a codefendant's confession redacted only to the extent of replacing each instance of the defendant's name with a blank or with the word deleted was inadmissible under Bruton because in each instance the jury was virtually certain to understand that the deletion referred to the defendant. Even redacted, therefore, the confession remained inculpatory of the defendant on its face and thus was so similar to the unredacted confession in Bruton as to warrant the same result. In Richardson v. Marsh , however, the Court upheld the admission of a codefendant's confession notwithstanding the fact that in conjunction with other evidence introduced at trial the confession became inculpatory of the defendant. The confession had been redacted so as to eliminate any direct or obvious reference to the defendant. Noting the vital roles that joint trials and confessions play in our criminal justice system, the Richardson Court explained that a codefendant's confession such as this, one incriminating of the defendant not on its face but only by inference when linked with other evidence, did not pose the same risk the facially incriminating confession in Bruton did of confounding an instruction that the jury is to consider the confession only against the confessor and not against the defendant. Accordingly, as noted above, the Court held that the Confrontation Clause is not violated by the admission of a nontestifying codefendant's confession with a proper limiting instruction when, as here, the confession is redacted to eliminate not only the defendant's name, but any reference to his or her existence. Richardson, 481 U.S. at 211, 107 S.Ct. 1702. While this case falls somewhere between Gray and Richardson, we believe that it is more like the latter than the former and so agree with the trial court that the joint trial and the admission of a paraphrased version of Quisenberry's redacted statement to police did not violate Williams's right to confrontation. Unlike the confessions held inadmissible in Bruton and Gray, Quisenberry's statement did not expressly or in any way directly refer to Williams. It was clearly focused, rather, on Quisenberry's own role in the events at issue. To be sure, Quisenberry's admission that he heard shots and his denial of having fired them imply that someone else did, but the inference that Williams was the someone else is not suggested by the redacted paraphrase of Quisenberry's statement. It instead arises only by inference upon consideration of the other evidence of Williams's involvement ( e.g., Turner's testimony and the DNA evidence) admitted at trial. That sort of inferential linkage is not improper under the Confrontation Clause, but may, as the Court held in Richardson, be addressed in a limiting instruction. The joint trial did not unduly prejudice Williams, therefore, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying his motion to sever.
This brings us to Williams's final contention with respect to Quisenberry's statement, which is that even if the statement was adequately redacted it should not have been admitted in the absence of an instruction or admonition limiting the jury's consideration of it to Quisenberry. Neither defendant requested a limiting instruction in this case, but Williams maintains that the trial court erred by failing to give one sua sponte. He acknowledges that in Barth v. Commonwealth, 80 S.W.3d 390 (Ky.2001), we held that a limiting instruction in this context is required only upon request, but he urges us to reconsider that holding. However, even if we were to revisit Barth and conclude that the trial court erred by failing to give a limiting instruction sua sponte, the error was not preserved and Williams cannot establish that it was palpable. KRE 105(a) (providing that the failure to give an unrequested limiting instruction is reviewable only for palpable error), RCr 10.26 (providing that unpreserved errors may be reviewed under the palpable error standard). In Barth, Justice Cooper analyzed Bruton and Richardson, noting that neither case addressed whether the limiting instruction could be waived by the defendant's failure to request it. Drawing on Kentucky [1] and federal precedent as well as KRE 105 in writing for the majority, he opined that waiver would occur without a specific request by the defendant. Some might question the observation in Barth that [p]resumably, a confession properly redacted ... would not incriminate the codefendant at all. 80 S.W.3d at 397. There is certainly merit to the argument that even a scrupulously redacted statement, at some level, is detrimental to a codefendant to the extent the confessor denies responsibility for criminal conduct because a jury may be inclined to shift that responsibility to the other person(s) on trial. This potential strengthens the argument for requiring a limiting instruction whenever the trial court admits a statement by any of the defendants on trial. Additionally, as Justice Johnstone noted in his concurring opinion in Barth, 80 S.W.3d at 404-405, the admissibility of a codefendant's statement as sanctioned in Richardson can, under the most straightforward reading of that case, be deemed to depend upon both proper redaction and a limiting instruction, with the absence of either creating a Confrontation Clause violation. So there is merit to Williams's contention that the limiting instruction should be given by the trial judge sua sponte, but even were we to abandon Barth, that would not provide Williams with the relief he seeks because, having not requested the instruction as this Court has repeatedly held a defendant must, [2] he is relegated to having the issue reviewed for palpable error, a high hurdle that he cannot clear. To justify relief under the palpable error standard, an error must be obvious and serious and it also must have resulted in manifest injustice. Ernst v. Commonwealth, 160 S.W.3d 744, 758 (Ky. 2005) A court reviewing for palpable error must do so in light of the entire record; the inquiry is heavily dependent upon the facts of each case. Id. citing United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 16, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985). Given the compelling circumstantial evidence linking Williams to these crimes, Williams's own admission of involvement, and Rashon Turner's testimony of Williams's confession to him, we are convinced that the admission of Quisenberry's redacted and paraphrased statement without a limiting instruction did not render the judgment against Williams manifestly unjust. Cf. United States v. Vega Molina, 407 F.3d 511, 520-21 (1st Cir.2005) (applying plain error standard to the failure to give an unrequested limiting instruction and finding no such error as to one defendant where there was a mass of other evidence of that defendant's guilt aside from the codefendant's statement; finding plain error as to a third defendant against whom the totality of the evidence was noticeably thinner and where the statement was misused by the prosecutor against that particular defendant in closing argument.) Given the recurrence of this issue, we reiterate that when a properly redacted statement of a codefendant is to be presented to the jury, a limiting instruction should always be given upon the defendant's request. Moreover, while not required, there is certainly nothing inappropriate about the trial judge informing counsel of his or her intent to provide such admonition sua sponte absent an objection from the defendant or defendants for whose presumed benefit it would be given. [3] As the Commonwealth and several courts have noted, sometimes there are tactical benefits to foregoing an admonition from the bench that may draw undue attention to fleeting or perhaps ineffective testimony which otherwise would have little practical effect on the defendant's case. See, e.g., Caudill, 120 S.W.3d at 659; United States v. Clark, 989 F.2d 1490, 1500 (7th Cir. 1993). Trial counsel knows best whether a limiting instruction will be beneficial, given what the jury has heard or will hear in the course of the trial. Thus, Kentucky precedent leaves that important judgment call squarely within the trial counsel's sound discretion by recognizing the concept of waiver. If a limiting instruction is advisable, trial counsel is now well-informed of the requirement to ask for one.
Williams also contends that the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress his August 29, 2007 statement. Suppression was required, he asserted, because the investigating officers obtained the statement in violation of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). Following a suppression hearing at which both the transcript and video recording of Williams's interrogation were introduced along with the testimony of the detective who conducted most of the interview, the trial court ruled that Williams had been properly Mirandized and that his statement was the result of a knowing and voluntary waiver of his Miranda rights. Williams contends that the trial court erred by disregarding instances during the process, both before he was Mirandized and after, when he invoked his rights and when, accordingly, the questioning should have ceased. Although the trial court did not address the alleged invocations specifically, that court appears to have concluded that Williams's references to a lawyer and his apparent willingness at one point to be taken to jail did not amount to the unambiguous assertion of his rights that Miranda has been held to require. With that apparent conclusion, we agree. In Miranda, of course, the United States Supreme Court determined that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments' prohibition against compelled selfincrimination required that custodial interrogation be preceded by advice to the putative defendant that he has the right to remain silent and also the right to the presence of an attorney. Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 481-82, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981). In furtherance of those rights, the Court held in Edwards that law enforcement officers must immediately cease questioning a suspect who has clearly asserted his right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation. Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 454, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994). Thus, if a suspect requests counsel at any time during the interview, he is not subject to further questioning until a lawyer has been made available or the suspect himself reinitiates conversation. Id. at 458, 114 S.Ct. 2350 (citing Edwards). In subsequent cases, however, the Court has explained that the Edwards prohibition on further questioning applies only to unambiguous requests for counsel ( Davis ) and unambiguous assertions of the right to remain silent ( Berghuis v. Thompkins, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2250, 2260, 176 L.Ed.2d 1098, (2010)). A suspect must articulate his desire to have counsel present sufficiently clearly that a reasonable police officer in the circumstances would understand the statement to be a request for an attorney. Davis, 512 U.S. at 459, 114 S.Ct. 2350. If, on the other hand, a reasonable officer in light of the circumstances would have understood only that the suspect might be invoking the right to counsel, our precedents do not require the cessation of questioning. Id. at 459, 114 S.Ct. 2350. The same standards apply to assertions of the right to remain silent. Berghuis, 130 S.Ct. at 2259, 2260. Williams and Quisenberry were both summoned to LMPD headquarters during the afternoon of August 29, 2007. Williams's questioning took place in a room equipped for that purpose with audio and visual recorders. The recorded interview commenced at about 4:30 and lasted slightly more than an hour and a half. Detective Arnold, the lead detective on the case, did most of the questioning, but he was sometimes joined by Detective Brown. At the outset of the recorded interview, Detective Arnold introduces himself to Williams, explains briefly that he is investigating the murder of Earon Hughes, and then informs Williams of his Miranda rights. He tells Williams of his rights to remain silent and to have an attorney, tells him that he may invoke those rights at any time during the questioning, and tells him that his volunteered statements can and will be used against him. Williams concedes that these warnings satisfy the Miranda requirements. Having received them, Williams proceeded to waive his rights and to submit to questioning. The trial court found, and Williams does not seriously dispute, that Williams's waiver was both knowing and voluntary. Before Williams signed the waiver form and agreed to be questioned, however, the following exchange took place: Det. Arnold: If you understand it [your rights] just sign right there, sign your name. I'm gonna sign here as a witness. We're just talking. I know we uh, I know we are, I'm just. And you can stop at any time. Williams: This, this is what I'm saying brother, you just told me I had to (inaudible)... So, you just ready to ask me some qu ... But, you told me I was ready to go to jail. This is what you told me. Det. Arnold: I told you you were in custody, that's correct. Williams: I'm talking about you told me I was ready to go down for a murder. That is what you told me. Det. Arnold: That's not what I told you. Williams: That's exactly what you just t... that's, that's the only reason I said lawyer. When you said, when you asked me for my attorney. Det. Arnold: No. Williams: You said, you was like, You ready, you ready to be charged with murder? Det. Arnold: No, I did not, uh-uh. I, there's, when I walked in you asked me what you're here for, and I said a murder investigation. Williams: And, you said ... Det. Arnold: No. Williams: And, okay, and then what'd you say? You said, You're not going nowhere, you going ... Det. Arnold: Is ... and you said, Am I gonna go to jail? I said, you're not leaving here. That's correct. Sgt. Brown: Dude, you're in custody right now, on HIP [home incarceration program]. Williams: I, I know that. Det. Arnold: That's what I'm saying. Sgt. Brown: You're, you're in our, we're responsible for you right now. Williams: Aw, I didn't know; I didn't understand. Sgt. Brown: Yes, and we're responsible for you. Williams: Okay. Det. Arnold: It's nothing personal here. Williams: I know. Det. Arnold: Kenneth, I just, you had, when I walked in you said, Yeah, what am I doing here? That's when I said, I'm a homicide detective. I'm investigating a murder. And, you said well what am I here for? I said, well it's in reference to this murder case. And you said, Am I in cus ...? Or you said, Am I going to jail? I said, You're not going anywhere right now. That's correct. Sgt. Brown: Because you're on HIP. So, do you want to talk to us about this? Williams: I'm a ... What y'all wanna know? Sgt. Brown: All right. Well, go ahead and sign that. Det. Arnold: And, if you want to stop at any time, it says that you can stop at any time. You can talk to me as long as you want, or as short as you want. Williams: Okay, all right. So, I'm signing; I'm signing this to talk to y'all, to give y'all permission to talk without my lawyer, right? Det. Arnold: Correct, right. Because I can't talk to you until you sign this. Williams: Okay. So where do I sign? Det. Arnold: You sign right here. And I'm gonna put my name as a witness. And, you do understand this, correct? Williams: Yeah, I understand it and all. Williams maintains that this passage shows that before the recorded interview began he invoked his right to counsel and that under Edwards, accordingly, he should not have been questioned at all. At most, however, the passage indicates that before being questioned Williams said lawyer,' not that he unambiguously requested an attorney. At the suppression hearing, Detective Arnold testified that in their brief exchange prior to questioning Williams did not ask for counsel. Given that testimony and the recording which is, at best, ambiguous, the trial court did not err by ruling that Williams's interrogation was not precluded by a pre-questioning request for an attorney. Williams also asserts that his reference at the beginning of his interview to his pre-interview lawyer remark was itself a request for counsel, but as discussed above, Edwards requires more than the mere mention of the word lawyer. An officer could reasonably have understood Williams's remarks prior to signing the Miranda waiver not as a request for counsel, but as an attempt to determine whether the police had decided to charge him with murder and put him in jail. Because Williams's remarks did not constitute an unambiguous request for counsel, the Edwards prohibition on further questioning did not arise. Nor does Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600, 124 S.Ct. 2601, 159 L.Ed.2d 643 (2004), afford Williams any relief, since clearly this is not a case in which the officers postponed giving the Miranda warnings until after the suspect had made incriminating admissions. The Miranda warnings came before any incriminating remarks. Williams's other assertions that the officers violated Miranda are likewise unavailing. As noted above, Williams initially denied having been with Quisenberry the night of the murder or having been at Harper's residence. Gradually, however, the LMPD officers persuaded him that they had compelling evidence that he and Quisenberry had been with Harper, and at that point, apparently fearful of what Quisenberry may have told the officers, Williams grew frustrated, and the following exchange took place: Williams: This is, I'm tellin' you, it is a game. `Cause see what happened, a m_ f_ got to y'all and told y'all his story. So, therefore, he got to y'all first. Det. Arnold: No. Williams: Man, I won't ... Det. Arnold: I'll let you listen to his story if you want; I don't care. You can hear his whole story if that's what you wanna do. You just gotta tell me yours, [pause] Man, you ain't a bad dude. You made some bad choices, but you ain't a bad dude. Jamo [Quisenberry] ain't a bad guy either. He done some stupid s____. And he's right in the middle of this just like you are. Williams: Man, tell me sir. Y'all just need to go on and take me to jail. Det. Arnold: I'll take you down to jail, that's fine. I just ... Williams: I don't give a f___, dog, f___ it. Williams contends these last remarks were, in effect, an invocation of his right to remain silent, that they amounted to a demand that the questioning cease and that he be taken to jail. Even if that might be what Williams meant to say, however, those remarks were far from unambiguous. They could just as well have been a concession of his predicament, a You've got me; you might as well take me to jail. At the suppression hearing, Detective Arnold testified that he understood Williams's remarks in this latter sense, not as a request to cease the exchange and be taken to jail, but as marking Williams's realization that his blanket denials were not working and his situation was serious. As a reasonable officer could certainly have interpreted Williams's take me to jail remarks in that way and not as an assertion of rights, Miranda and Edwards did not preclude further questioning. A few minutes later, after Williams had admitted that he and Quisenberry had gone to Harper's house to obtain drugs and that the deal had gone bad and turned violent, Detective Arnold asked if Williams had ever seen the murder weapon, a 9 mm handgun, before. Williams said that he had. When asked who had possessed it, however, he became concerned about being thought a snitch: Det. Arnold: Where have you seen it [the gun] before? Williams: Where you think I seen it before? Det. Arnold: I don't know, man. Don't play with me. I just wanna know who had it; just say the name. Williams: [inaudible] ... snitched. Det. Arnold: If you're worried about snitching and you're going to the death penalty, going to the freakin' death row, then, then be proud of yourself. But I mean, snitching ... Williams: Man, I'm freezing in here. Det. Arnold: Snitching has nothing to do with nothing right now. There's 5000 snitches over in that jail. Williams: I already know. Det. Arnold: I know you do, but ... I know you do. [pause] Williams: This is all I'm saying, can I tell my lawyer the real story and he tell y'all? Det. Arnold: Sure. He can hear the story. Williams: Can he tell y'all? Det. Arnold: You can do whatever you want to do. You have every right to do what you wanna do. That's why we went over the Rights Waiver Form when you first walked in here. But I would like for you to tell me, so I can go to the prosecutor and tell them right now, or tomorrow morning. Williams: And I'm still convicted, regardless. Det. Arnold: I don't know about you, whether you'll be convicted or not. I know right now that if I didn't have a case, I wouldn't be bringing you in here arresting you. Williams: Right. Det. Arnold: Then, after a year, I would arrest somebody and press charges. I have to end the case. Williams: I understand what you're saying. Det. Arnold: You know, I mean that's why. And there's physical evidence, there's forensic evidence, there's statements, and there's other people that have been interviewed, and so on and so forth. It's a situation where, you know, if you want to admit to the best of a bad situation, then get back to what you were talking about as far as him going in there to do whatever he was gonna do [inaudible] And tell me what that's all about. Williams then made further incriminating statements. Williams contends that his question about dealing with the police through counsel was a request to do so, and so should have brought his questioning to an end. Again, however, what Williams said was ambiguous. Was he asking for counsel or was he merely asking if counsel was an option? Was his interest in counsel for the sake of counsel's advice or merely in hopes that counsel could screen him from being perceived as a snitch? An officer in these circumstances would reasonably have entertained doubts about Williams's meaning, and thus it was not improper for the detective to continue the interrogation unless and until Williams made his desire for counsel clear, something he never did. Williams's counsel question was similar to the suspect's question in Davis v. United States , Maybe I should talk to a lawyer?that the Supreme Court held was not the unequivocal request for counsel required to activate the Edwards prohibition against further questioning. Neither was Williams's, Can I tell my lawyer the real story and he tell y'all? With respect to Williams, in sum, the trial court did not err either by refusing to suppress Williams's August 29, 2007, statement to LMPD officers or by denying his motion for separate trials. Williams's ambiguous references to counsel during his questioning did not suffice to invoke his rights under Miranda and Edwards, and the introduction of both defendants' statements did not require separate trials where the statements were redacted in compliance with Bruton, Richardson, and Gray.