Opinion ID: 1670792
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: presentation of inconsistent prosecutions

Text: Relying chiefly on Smith v. Groose, 205 F.3d 1045 (8th Cir.2000), and a recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Bradshaw v. Stumpf, 545 U.S. 175, 125 S.Ct. 2398, 162 L.Ed.2d 143 (2005), the Appellant further claims that the State prosecuted Mathews and himself using inconsistent theories, facts, and arguments in violation of his Due Process rights. Specifically, he claims the prosecution pursued a lone perpetrator theory at Mathews' trial and a multiple perpetrator theory at his own trial that, considered together, are inherently factually inconsistent[,] cannot be reconciled, and thus are contrary to constitutional protections. In State v. Robinson, No.W2001-01299-CCA-R3-DD, 2003 WL 21946735, at  (Tenn.Crim.App. Aug.13, 2003), our Court of Criminal Appeals expressly adopted the rule of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Groose, 205 F.3d at 1052, that such core inconsistencies violate Due Process guarantees. But in our review of Robinson, we expressly declined to address the issue, or whether the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in adopting the rule, because we held that the facts of the case did not support a finding that the two prosecutions were inherently inconsistent. State v. Robinson, 146 S.W.3d 469, 496 n. 13 (Tenn.2004). Just as in Robinson, we need not, and do not, address the legal issue here because we conclude that the State did not pursue inconsistent prosecutions at Mathews' and the Appellant's respective trials. First, we think that the Appellant's lone perpetrator characterization of Mathews' prosecution is demonstrably false. During opening statements in Mathews' trial, the prosecution specifically referred to the possible involvement of people other than Courtney B. Mathews and David Housler and also mentioned that Housler was charged[,] as is Courtney B. Mathews[,] in a separate indictment with four counts of first-degree murder. The prosecution further stated that, at that time, it was seeking the death penalty against Housler. The State also claimed the defendant [Mathews] engaged with others at a party at a trailer in Oak Grove, Kentucky, . . . in a discussion of the planning of [a robbery of] his place of employment. During a sidebar on June 16, the prosecutor mentioned [t]his case is still under investigation as to other people's involvement. The very last witness called by the prosecutor during rebuttal, Judge Charles Bush, testified that Housler had been indicted for first-degree felony murder and that the State was seeking the death penalty against him. In short, the Appellant's lone perpetrator characterization of the Mathews trial seems to be based on the fact that the prosecutor primarily presented evidence only of Mathews' guilt. But since this was the sole issue at his trial, this fact is not remarkable. We recognize that the prosecution based its case against the Appellant here mainly upon his own confessiona confession that admittedly contained numerous falsehoods that contradict evidence presented at Mathews' trial. The chief variation in the evidence is this: At Mathews' trial, the prosecution presented evidence that Mathews left work at Taco Bell on the night of the killings at about 9:15 p.m., returned to his residence at Ryder Avenue in Clarksville shortly thereafter, packed up several weapons and changed his clothes, and then left alone at around 10:30 to 11:00 p.m. presumably straight for Taco Bell, where the murders occurred sometime after 2:00 a.m. At Mathews' trial, no account was made of Housler's whereabouts on the evening of the murders; furthermore, the prosecutor presented evidence that Mathews' car was parked outside the restaurant at the time of the killings and that Mathews was seen both inside and possibly outside the restaurant after he clocked out but before it was closed. All this, argues the Appellant, gave the impression that Mathews committed the Taco Bell murders alone. At Housler's trial, the prosecution's evidence, based on the Appellant's confession, showed that on the night of the murders Housler met Mathews and several others at a trailer park in Kentucky, that the group left in two or three cars at about 11:00 p.m., and that they arrived shortly thereafter at the Taco Bell, where Mathews and Kevin Tween entered and within twenty minutes committed the murders and robbery while Housler served as a lookout. We agree with the Court of Criminal Appeals that the State did not present inconsistent, constitutionally-infirm theories in the respective prosecutions of Mathews and Housler. Although we do not today adopt the rule of Groose, the court there stated that [t]o violate due process, an inconsistency must exist at the core of the prosecutor's cases and that prosecutors need not present precisely the same evidence and theories in trials for different defendants. 205 F.3d at 1052. The inconsistencies here did not exist at the core of the prosecutors' cases; in fact, the core theory of the two prosecutions was consistentnamely, that Mathews shot the victims and robbed the store, while Housler served as a lookout. These two theories obviously are not irreconcilable. How Mathews and Housler arrived at the Taco Bell on the night of the murders is immaterial to their guilt, and like the appeals court, we do not think there is a reasonable likelihood of a different result had the prosecutor presented precisely the same factual evidenceparticularly in light of the fact that Housler rebutted the prosecution's case in chief against him by presenting the factual account that the State gave at the Mathews trial. Ultimately, the Appellant here argues that the State violated Due Process by presenting differing accounts of both Mathews' and Housler's arrival at the Taco Bell murdersat least one of these accounts, he argues, was certainly not true. We agree that prosecutors must not present proof of an historical narrative that they know not to be true[,] United States v. Siriprechapong, 181 F.R.D. 416, 422 (N.D.Cal.1998) (summarizing Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and its progeny), but we also recognize that prosecutors are not omniscient. Thompson v. Calderon, 120 F.3d 1045, 1071 (9th Cir.1997) (Kozinski, J., dissenting). Just as important, prosecutors are not finders of fact. [4] When a prosecutor has conflicting evidence or simply does not know the truth, he is entitled to retain skepticism about the evidence he presents and trust the jury to make the right judgment. Id; see also id. at 1074-75 (Kleinfeld, J., dissenting) (The jury is supposed to decide the case based on the evidence and the judge's instruction.... It is up to the jury, not the prosecutor, to decide what happened amidst a lot of lies.) In sum, we think the words of Justice Thomas in his Bradshaw concurrence apply aptly to this case: The Bill of Rights guarantees vigorous adversarial testing of guilt and innocence and conviction only by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. These guarantees are more than sufficient to deter the State from taking inconsistent positions; a prosecutor who argues inconsistently risks undermining his case, for opposing counsel will bring the conflict to the factfinder's attention. 125 S.Ct. at 2410. That is exactly what happened at the Housler trial: the Appellant presented evidence offered at the Mathews trial that contradicted the prosecutors' account of events at his own trial. During his trial, Housler presented evidence to the jury indicating various inconsistencies in the factual accounts. The jury nevertheless chose to convict Housler.