Opinion ID: 4150102
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mumin Slaughter

Text: The prosecution’s last witness was Mumin Slaughter, Johnson’s convicted co-defendant. Slaughter had given a statement to police implicating Johnson, and based on this cooperation and his anticipated testimony at Johnson’s retrial, his sentence had been vacated. However, at trial, he essentially refused to testify. The jury was then read portions of his statement over defense counsel’s objection and Slaughter’s repudiation of the statement itself. Because Johnson argues that the introduction of this statement violated his rights and substantially influenced the verdict, we recount not only the statement itself, but also the context within which it was introduced. Just before Slaughter was to testify, counsel appeared in the judge’s robing room, which was out of earshot of the jury. The prosecutor informed the trial judge that Slaughter was refusing to come upstairs to testify despite being subpoenaed. The trial judge stated that Slaughter had no Fifth Amendment privilege and the prosecutor agreed.14 Slaughter was then brought into the courtroom and called to the witness stand. 13 At the time of the second trial, Williams had been clean for two years, except for occasional marijuana use. 14 The trial court admitted later that this was error. App. 19 n.8. Because Slaughter’s sentence had been vacated, he was still entitled to exercise his privilege. Id. 19 Slaughter answered a few questions, confirming, for example, that he had been convicted of murder in the first trial, that his sentence had been vacated, and that he had spoken to the prosecutor that day and understood he would be held in contempt if he refused to testify. But he denied making the statement to police that implicated Johnson. When the prosecutor began to press Slaughter on that issue, he became uncooperative: Q. . . . Did you make a statement? A. No. Q. Did you, on August 26, 2005, in that period of time, did you sell drugs? THE WITNESS: Your Honor, I don’t know why I’m sitting here. I don’t have nothing to say. THE COURT: You’ve been called as a witness, Mr. Slaughter. THE WITNESS: Well, I did not witness anything. THE COURT: Well, you’ve been called as a witness because your sentence was vacated, and I was the sentencing judge who gave you 25 to 50 years. ... And we’re here now. And [the prosecutor] is going to ask you some questions. THE WITNESS: I have nothing to say, Your Honor. BY [THE PROSECUTOR]: Q. Good. Well, listen to me a little while longer. 20 [DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Objection, Your Honor. THE COURT: No. Overruled. It’s not your – you don’t represent him. BY [THE PROSECUTOR]: Q. Sir, did you serve a federal sentence? A. I plead the fifth. I don’t have nothing to say. THE COURT: You don’t have a Fifth Amendment privilege. THE WITNESS: Well, I’m just going to sit here with nothing to say, because you all can’t force me to do anything. R.847–48. At sidebar, counsel eventually agreed to attempt to contact Slaughter’s attorney and court recessed for the weekend. On Monday, counsel convened in the robing room outside the presence of the jury. Slaughter’s trial attorney appeared in court and explained Slaughter’s state of mind: Now that he’s realized – he says that he’s being asked to testify, he said he doesn’t want to do that. He says he doesn’t want to share the bad fortune that has descended on him in this case, having been improperly convicted, on somebody else. . . . He talked about [how] he thought he was misle[d] by the District Attorney’s office in some fashion and reiterated that he didn’t want to bring any – any harm to Mr. Johnson, and at one point said that he really had no knowledge 21 of, you know, who, in fact, killed the officer in this case. R.862–63. The Court agreed with the Commonwealth, however, that Slaughter should be brought out again and held in contempt or resentenced if he refused to testify. The jury then returned to the courtroom. The prosecutor resumed his questioning, over defense counsel’s objection. Slaughter admitted to speaking to the prosecutor and his lawyer but answered little else. The Court then interrupted Johnson’s trial to resentence Slaughter. The jury was escorted from the courtroom again, as was Johnson, and Slaughter was seated in the defendant’s chair. A separate “sentencing hearing” was then conducted and recorded in a separate transcript under a different case number. See R.404–24. Ultimately, no new sentence was imposed; instead the parties probed Slaughter’s unwillingness to testify further. Slaughter testified: THE DEFENDANT: [Slaughter] . . . So I put a freaking statement together to try to help myself, to make him not go to trial. Now he want me to come up here and say he did do all this. THE COURT: Well, quite frankly, all you have to do is say you gave a statement and answer his questions. THE DEFENDANT: But if I do that, it’s going to make his trial look bad. The thing – he said he could help us get deals, just to help me. Now he want me to go up there and say all this. It’s going to mess up the trial and make him look 22 like a murderer. Nobody don’t believe us anyway that we didn’t do it. But being though I got 50 years, I wanted to help myself and make it back to my kids. Now he want me to sit here and say he did do this. I’m not willing to do that, because that’s going to make me a liar and that’s going to make me look bad, and I’m going to have that on my conscience. R.409. The prosecutor then recommended that given “this defendant’s attitude and not showing any type of remorse and, in fact, trying to undermine the truth-seeking process of the Commonwealth trying to bring some justice,” Slaughter should be resentenced in line with his original sentence. R.414. The transcript then ended at this point and Johnson’s trial resumed.15 The jury was brought out and the prosecutor resumed his questioning. After Slaughter remained essentially silent, the prosecutor presented Slaughter with his statement and, over Johnson’s attorney’s objections,16 the Court permitted 15 The prosecutor indicated that if Slaughter continued to refuse to testify he would go “line by line” over Slaughter’s statement. R.411. The prosecutor’s apparent strategy was to use the testimony from the “sentencing hearing” to establish that Slaughter adopted the statement. 16 The trial court denied defense counsel’s motion for a mistrial. Defense counsel had earlier indicated that he would make a motion for a mistrial on the grounds that Slaughter’s refusal to testify prevented him from cross examining 23 the prosecutor to put Slaughter’s statement on the overhead projector screen so that the jury could see it. Slaughter initially denied making the statement to police. He called the prosecutor a “liar,” a “sneak,” and “vicious.” R.895. After being asked if he had said, at the earlier “sentencing hearing,” that he had “put a freaking statement together,” R.898, Slaughter interjected in front of the jury: THE WITNESS: Listen, I got found guilty for a fucking murder that nobody don’t know who killed this man. They gave me 50 years and nobody said I did nothing. They trying to railroad us. They gave me 50 years. My own lawyer, even him told me I can never get back in court to get back to my kids or nothing. They said just say that you all did it and he won’t want to go to trial. You can get your 50 years back and he’ll take a statement – I mean, he’ll take a deal. He won’t want to go nowhere, because he be scared if I come out there with all these other liars saying that we did something. I didn’t have no choice. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared. A desperate man do desperate things. I tried it. Now, he didn’t go for it. He didn’t take it because he know me. He know that I was lying. He knew that I wouldn’t do this, because it was a lie. … Q. Does that mean he’s your friend? Slaughter, and thus that Johnson’s “right . . . to confrontation of a witness has now been destroyed.” R.881. 24 A. This is bullshit. You lie. You lie. Q. Answer the question. Is he your friend? A. This is bullshit. Q. Is he your friend? A. You trying to come in here and make like I really said he did this. R.899–900. Defense counsel then asked Slaughter a number of questions, most of which went unanswered, and finally, Slaughter was excused. The prosecutor subsequently called a detective who read Slaughter’s statement, line by line, to the jury. In the written statement, Slaughter indicated that he went by the nickname “Muk” and that he knew Johnson as “Juice;” that on the night of the murder he was on the corner of 20th and C.B. Moore selling crack; that Bowens had approached them to report the attempted solicitation by Flomo; that, when the car pulled up, “Juice pulled out his gun and started firing at the guy through the passenger side;” and that they both then ran off in different directions. R.922–24. Finally, at the close of the Commonwealth’s case, the prosecutor called the court reporter, who then read Slaughter’s earlier sentencing hearing transcript in its entirety to the jury. The Commonwealth then rested. Johnson presented only one witness, Deborah Bryant, who also testified in the first trial. Her testimony was read in by stipulation because she was unavailable. Although Bryant denied knowing anything about the murder at the time of the first trial, defense counsel impeached her at the first trial by reading portions of a statement, given to police at an earlier 25 time, claiming that two men by the name of “Peanut” and “Jeff” shot Flomo. R.1113. The jury was then instructed and retired to deliberate. During deliberations, the jury sent out two notes, to which the judge responded by sending back some of the evidence and giving them further instructions on the law.17 The jury then 17 The jury first requested that certain evidence be sent back to the jury room including crime scene photographs, the demonstrative map of the intersection, and Slaughter’s written statement. The trial judge, however, did not permit the statement to be given to the jury and the jury did not ask for it again. Later in the day, the jury sent out another note containing two questions. Before responding, the judge re-