Opinion ID: 2074284
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: mack's appeal

Text: As previously noted, the trial judge declined to admit into evidence, under the rule of completeness, the portion of Mack's statement to the police in which Mack claimed to have received the Bryco two or three days before his arrest, and thus approximately twelve days after this pistol was used in the murder of Deyon Rivers. On appeal, Mack contends that the redacted version of the statement received in evidence by the court, especially when considered together with statements made by the prosecutor during closing argument, conveyed the false impression that Mack had confessed that the Bryco was my gun and that he had not denied possessing the weapon on the day of the murder. Mack claims that the trial judge's ruling was contrary to the rule of completeness and denied him a fair trial. Although the government disputes some of Mack's contentions, it concedes in its brief that Mack's statement that he got the gun two [or three] days before the police stopped him should have been admitted under the rule of completeness and this [c]ourt's precedents of Henderson, Reams, and Cox.  (Citations omitted.) In light of the government's concession, which we deem to be a provident one, the only issue that we must decide is whether the error was prejudicial or harmless. Our precedents are not entirely clear whether, in determining the error was prejudicial or harmless, we should look to the non-constitutional standard of Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946) or the constitutional harmless beyond a reasonable doubt standard of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). Compare Cox, 898 A.2d at 382; Henderson, 632 A.2d at 431; and United States v. Sutton, 255 U.S.App. D.C. 307, 331, 801 F.2d 1346, 1370 (1986) (applying Kotteakos ), with Henderson, 632 A.2d at 432 n. 36 and Reams, 895 A.2d at 923 (both suggesting that curtailment of the defendant's right to cross-examine the officer regarding the exculpatory portion of the declarant's statement may implicate Chapman ). [14] We need not decide whether Kotteakos or Chapman governs this appeal because, assuming, arguendo, that the Kotteakos standard applies, we are unable to say with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened, without stripping away the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error. Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239. To conclude that an error is harmless [under Kotteakos ], we must find it highly probable that that error did not contribute to the verdict. Wilson-Bey v. United States, 903 A.2d 818, 844 (D.C.2006) (en banc) (emphasis in original; citations, internal quotation marks and internal brackets omitted). Although the case against Mack was by no means a weak or marginal one, we conclude that the government has not satisfied the reasonable assurance standard of Kotteakos or shown the high[] probab[ility] required by Wilson-Bey.
Under the rule of completeness, a party is entitled, once a part of a document or recorded statement has been introduced into evidence, to seek admission of the remainder of the statement. Henderson, 632 A.2d at 424 (citations omitted). The rule has its origin in a concern that if only a part of a statement is introduced, the statement may be unfairly removed from its context. Id. at 425 (citations omitted). [15] More specifically, as we explained in Henderson, the principle underlying the rule of completeness is fairness. When properly invoked the rule is designed to secure for the tribunal a complete understanding of the total tenor and effect of the utterance[s]. Id. at 426 (quoting 7 JOHN HENRY WIGMORE, EVIDENCE IN TRIALS AT COMMON LAW § 2113, at 653 (James H. Chadbourn ed. 1978) (other citations omitted)). Further, in criminal cases, the fairness concerns that gave rise to the rule of completeness are amplified by constitutional considerations. The rule of completeness must be applied to ensure that a defendant is not forced to choose between allowing his or her statement to stand distorted as a result of selective introduction and abandoning his or her Fifth Amendment right not to testify in order to clarify that statement. Id. Thus, the prosecution may not introduce a portion of a defendant's statement to the police if that portion fails to convey the thrust of the whole statement, Beech Aircraft Corp. v. Rainey, 488 U.S. 153, 170, 109 S.Ct. 439, 102 L.Ed.2d 445 (1988), or does not give the jury a complete understanding of the total tenor and effect of the statement. Henderson, 632 A.2d at 426. The rule however, is not absolute; its applicability in criminal cases is limited to situations in which the prosecution introduces only the inculpatory portions of a statement made by the defendant, id., or excludes information substantially exculpatory of the declarant. Butler v. United States, 614 A.2d 875, 882 (D.C.1992) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Cox, 898 A.2d at 381. Finally, cumbersome definitions and quibbling objections should not prevent the defense from putting the whole of what was said at the same time on the same subject before the jury. Reams, 895 A.2d at 922 (quoting Henderson, 632 A.2d at 427) (other citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The present appeal illustrates how the rule of completeness promotes the interests of justice in a criminal case. By failing to apply the rule, the trial judge enabled the jury to hear extremely damaging evidence that Mack possessed one of the murder weapons on July 21, but she excluded evidence which, if credited, would have shown that he did not possess it on the day that Rivers was murdered. After viewing Mack's statement in its redacted form, the jurors knew that Mack had spoken to the homicide detectives about his relationship to the murder weapon, but they were not apprised of the fact that Mack had provided an innocent (as to the murder) explanation of his possession of it. As Mack persuasively argues in his brief, Mr. Mack's apparent failure to deny complicity in the murder and provide an innocent explanation for his possession of the murder weapon in circumstances where an innocent man would have been expected to provide such an explanation strongly indicated to the jury Mr. Mack's guilt through his own admission. But the truth of the matter is that Mr. Mack did deny the gun was his, denied complicity in the murder, and essentially explained to the homicide detectives that although it may have looked incriminating that he had a hot gun, he had only recently received it from another man, twelve days after the shooting, a time-frame that, if established made it impossible for him to have been one of the shooters. Further, as previously noted, the government agrees that the admission of the statement as edited cannot be reconciled with the rule of completeness as enunciated in Henderson, Reams, and Cox.
In determining whether the trial court's error was prejudicial or harmless, we consider (1) the centrality of the issue affected by the error; (2) the closeness of the case; and (3) the steps taken to mitigate the effects of the error. Allen v. United States, 837 A.2d 917, 921 (D.C. 2003) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). In the present case, no mitigating measures were taken, and our decision must therefore turn on the first two factors identified above. We consider each in turn.
The case against Mack consisted, essentially, of (1) his identification by Jones as one of the shooters; (2) Burley's testimony regarding his encounters with Mack on the night of the shooting and on the following day; (3) Mack's possession of the Bryco shortly before his arrest; and (4) Mack's videotaped statement to the police. In its redacted form, Mack's statement was an unqualified confession that he possessed one of the murder weapons on July 21, unaccompanied by any explanation of how he obtained it or any denial of complicity in the murder. Although Mack did not admit, in his statement to the police, that he was involved in the murder of the decedent, the existence of the redacted statement enabled the government to use Mack's possession of the Bryco on July 21 as persuasive evidence that he was one of the murderers. The prosecutor even asserted, albeit inaccurately, both in his opening statement and in rebuttal argument, that Mack had referred to the murder weapon as my gun. [16] Mack's redacted statement to the police was thus, at least, a major part of the case for the prosecution. Indeed, it is fair to state that the prosecutor attributed great significance to the admissions in Mack's redacted statement during his opening remarks to the jury and in his closing and rebuttal arguments. [17] When the government was presenting its case, a police detective described in some detail the circumstances under which Mack gave the statement, without ever mentioning Mack's version of the manner and timing of his acquisition of the pistol. A prosecutor's repeated highlighting, during the course of the trial, of an erroneously admitted statement is persuasive evidence of its centrality and prejudicial character. See Hill v. United States, 858 A.2d 435, 448-49 (D.C.2004). Moreover, the government's assertion on appeal that the improper redaction of Mack's statement probably did not affect the jury's verdict is difficult to reconcile with the prosecution's argument to the judge at trial. Claiming that the jury should not be apprised of Mack's claim that he received the pistol only two or three days before his arrest, the prosecutor asserted that everything beyond the simple affirmation that he had the gun on the day he was arrested . . . is really exculpatory. It is unduly prejudicial. . . . I think those kind[s] of self-serving exculpatory and we believe untrue assertions by Mr. Mack really are prejudicial to the government's case. (Emphasis added.) The judge agreed with the prosecutor's argument and excluded the questions and answers that Mack's counsel sought to bring to the jury's attention. If the admission of the contested parts of Mack's statement would have been substantially prejudicial to the government, as the prosecutor insisted, then it is difficult to understand why the exclusion of the same evidence was not similarly and unfairly prejudicial to the defense. Indeed, the prosecutor's representation to the trial court that the exculpatory portions of the statement would unfairly undermine the government's case is a powerful indication of the centrality  at least in the prosecutor's mind  of the error. Allen, 837 A.2d at 923. Moreover, [a prosecutor's] own estimate of his case, and of its reception by the jury at the time, is, if not the only, at least a highly relevant measure now of the likelihood of prejudice. Garris v. United States, 129 U.S.App.D.C. 96, 100, 390 F.2d 862, 866 (1968); Allen, 837 A.2d at 923. To paraphrase the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals in United States v. DeLoach, 164 U.S.App.D.C.116, 504 F.2d 185 (1974), if [the exculpatory portion of Mack's statement] had really been unimportant, the prosecutor would not, we think, have objected to [it] so strenuously. 164 U.S.App.D.C. at 122, 504 F.2d at 191. The government's claim at trial that the admission of the exculpatory questions and answers in Mack's statement would be unfair and prejudicial was not entirely unreasonable. As the prosecutor pointed out, the government would have no opportunity to cross-examine Mack, who chose not to testify, with respect to Mack's assertion that he did not receive the Bryco pistol until approximately twelve days after the murder. Moreover, as the trial judge explained in excluding the contested parts of Mack's statement, the redacted version of that statement did not amount to a confession of guilt of the murder: The government is free to argue [that] the fact that [Mack] had the gun on July 21 is circumstantial evidence that he had it on July 7. And on the other hand, [Mack] is free to argue that the fact that he had it on July 21 does not mean that he had it on July 7.[ [18] ] Indeed, the defense questioned several jurors during voir dire about the connection and each juror questioned indicated that he or she understood that possession of the gun on July 21 did not mean possession of the firearm on July 7. Moreover, an impartial juror could reasonably be expected to infer from the redacted statement that Mack did not confess participation in the murder, for if he had confessed, then that confession would surely have been brought to the jury's attention. Thus, in our view, the claim in Mack's reply brief that [t]he government chose to exploit the unfairly redacted version of the statement to make its point that Mack essentially confessed to having the murder weapon on the day of the murder  (emphasis added), overstates the effect of the trial court's ruling. Nevertheless, the impermissible redaction of the statement went to a major piece of evidence. The importance of that evidence  i.e., of the statement without its exculpatory portion  was emphasized by the prosecutor when the issue arose in the trial court. In our view, therefore, the trial court's failure to apply the rule of completeness had substantial, if not overwhelming, centrality, and it was significantly prejudicial to Mack's defense.
Turning now to the second factor to be considered in the harmless error calculus  the strength of the government's case  we begin by noting the obvious: the prosecution's evidence against Mack was by no means insubstantial. The government's principal witness, Jones, who claimed to have seen the murder, testified that he observed Andrews and Mack, both of whom he knew personally, shoot at the decedent. Two weeks after the murder, each of the defendants was in possession of one of the murder weapons. Coincidences happen, but an explanation not predicated on happenstance is often the one that has the ring of truth. In re Brian O. Godette, 919 A.2d 1157, ___, No. 05-BG-412, 919 A.2d 1157, 2007 D.C.App. LEXIS 156 (D.C.2007) (quoting Burwell v. United States, 901 A.2d 763, 770 (D.C. 2006)). Even if the identification by Jones, bolstered by Burley's testimony regarding his encounters with Mack on the night of the murder and on the following morning, are deemed to be of dubious reliability, the believability of these witnesses is significantly enhanced by the discovery that each of the defendants was in possession of one of the murder weapons two weeks after the commission of the crime. Conversely, even assuming, arguendo, that handguns are rapidly passed around in the criminal sub-culture, and that possession of the Glock or the Bryco on July 21 is of limited probative value as to who possessed either weapon two weeks earlier, the inference to be drawn from such possession is undoubtedly reinforced when an eyewitness identifies both July 21 possessors as July 7 shooters. Moreover, Jones' accurate identification of Andrews, and Burley's report of Mack's activities, provided further corroboration of Jones' testimony that Mack was one of the murderers. Nevertheless, at least without Mack's unexplained possession of the Bryco on July 21, the government's case against Mack was burdened by significant difficulties. Morris Jones was fifteen years old when he claimed to have witnessed the murders. Notwithstanding his tender years, he was already heavily involved in criminal activity, including several armed robberies and the abuse of illegal drugs. He was a retarded youngster of limited intelligence. Under these circumstances, common sense tells us that when Jones was brought to the United States Attorney's Office in August 2000, he was, in all probability, a highly suggestible witness. Already in a heap of trouble, Jones was hardly in a position to do anything to defy the police or to act in a manner that was likely to displease the officers or the prosecutors. Prior to their interview with Jones, the police had already made substantial progress in their investigation of the murder of Deyon Rivers, and their efforts had borne fruit. One of the murder weapons had been found in Andrews' Cadillac. The other had been dropped by Mack while running from the police. In denying his own guilt in his statement to the police, Mack implicated Andrews. Thus, when Morris Jones was brought to the United States Attorney's Office, the police already had their prime suspects  Andrews and Mack. The reliability of Jones' identification of Mack as one of the shooters must be evaluated with this sequence of events in mind. There is no evidence in the record, and we certainly do not suggest, that the police coerced or put improper pressure on Jones (or on Burley) or induced either of them to lie. Nevertheless, the detectives had a viable theory of the murder, based on the recovery of the two pistols. Obviously, this viable theory would be even more viable if Jones identified Andrews and Mack as the two shooters. Indeed, identification of the two men as participants in the crime would plainly have been helpful to, and welcomed by, the police. It is therefore a reasonable inference that Jones  intellectually limited, but no doubt somewhat street-wise  grasped what it was that the police wanted the truth to be and what they wanted him to say. Jones admitted that at the outset of the questioning, he stated that he did not know anything about the murder. He also acknowledged that during the three-hour interview, he did not feel free to leave. At the end of the three hours  certainly not an unreasonable time, given the seriousness of the subject under discussion, but a significant time nevertheless  Jones had incriminated Mack and Andrews, thus implicitly conceding that his initial version that he knew nothing about the murder  was a lie. An impartial trier of fact might well wonder which time Jones was lying, and whether he switched to the second version (incriminating the two defendants) because that was the one that he thought that the officers wanted to hear. Serious doubt was also cast upon Jones' account by the testimony of James Braddy, the father of the young man whose hostile encounter with the decedent is said to have precipitated the murder. Mr. Braddy's testimony is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with Jones' account. According to Mr. Braddy, he, his wife, and his son David had been inside the house for a substantial period of time before the shooting. David Braddy could not simultaneously have been inside the house (with his parents) and on the porch (with Jones). Moreover, when James Braddy went out to the porch immediately after hearing gunfire, nobody was there. Indeed, Mr. Braddy, who was acquainted with Morris Jones, had not seen the boy that night or during the preceding day. Mr. Braddy was not impeached, and he appeared to be an impartial witness. If he had a motive to protect anyone, it was his son, David, who was arguably the most logical suspect, for it was David Braddy, not Andrews or Mack, who had a dispute with the decedent. The government claims that Mack had an ample motive to commit the murder, but this contention is questionable at best. Mack's motive was generated, according to the government, by the firecracker incident involving Rivers and David Braddy. Apparently, the government contends that Mack (and Andrews) killed the decedent because he had shot a bottle rocket which had almost hit Braddy's girlfriend, but which had missed. It is true that life can be cheap on the streets of our city, and that people are sometimes murdered in the District for very trivial reasons. Nevertheless, an incident with a firecracker which could have struck, but did not strike, someone else's girlfriend is, to put it in the vernacular, something of a stretch.