Opinion ID: 2675586
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Threat to Kill Witnesses

Text: Marfo next contends that the district court erred by admitting a recorded statement by him to Davis on January 12, 2012, that Marfo would “tak[e] care” of and “pop” Copeland when things “cool[ed] down.” (J.A. 275–79.) Marfo also stated, “I’ll let him have it, yo, for real,” which Davis understood to mean that Marfo would murder Copeland. (J.A. 279.) Marfo also asserts that the district court erred by admitting a statement he made to Davis – while they were planning the murder of Callaway – that Marfo wished he had murdered a female witness in a Baltimore County theft case that 21 resulted from a December 2009 arrest. 1 Davis testified that while he and Marfo were planning to murder Callaway, Marfo referred to the state prosecution, stating that he wished he had killed a female witness in that case. This conversation necessarily occurred between December 2010 – when Callaway was arrested – and April 11, 2011, when Callaway was murdered. Davis testified that at the time of this conversation, Marfo had just “gone through” the state prosecution (for which he was still on probation at the time of the Callaway murder), and that Marfo did not want to go through that again. (J.A. 185.) Davis stated that, “[n]ow facing it again, [Marfo] wished he had killed the witness [a woman whose name Davis did not recall] for the other case.” (J.A. 185.) Marfo does not dispute that he made these statements. Instead, he claims that the statement that he wished he had killed the female witness in the state theft case was admitted solely as propensity evidence, in violation of Rule 404(b)(1). 1 In December 2009, Marfo and Styron were charged in Baltimore County, Maryland, with the theft of money orders from rent deposit boxes and related charges. Styron identified several individuals, including a woman, whom he and Marfo recruited to deposit or cash stolen money orders. These individuals were also identified in police reports written by the Baltimore County police detectives who investigated and arrested Marfo and Styron in December 2009. The state charges were disposed of in October 2010, and Styron was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. Marfo received a suspended sentence. 22 As to his recorded statement to Davis on January 12, 2012, Marfo contends that also was only propensity evidence “to show that Marfo is the type of bad guy who would kill a witness,” and that such evidence had no relevance to Callaway’s murder. (Appellant’s Br. 56.) We find, however, that both of these statements were intrinsic to the “story” at trial. Marfo made both statements during the fraud conspiracy and the murder conspiracy, and evidence of Marfo’s participation in the former was probative of his motive and intent to participate in the latter. See Chin, 83 F.3d at 88 (“Other criminal acts are intrinsic when they are inextricably intertwined or both acts are part of a single criminal episode or the other acts were necessary preliminaries to the crime charged.” (quotation marks omitted)). Both statements were probative of the existence of the ongoing fraud conspiracy and of Marfo’s motive and intent to murder Callaway to preserve that ongoing fraud scheme. Marfo’s threats and statement of intent to kill witnesses in the same case in which he was charged were intrinsic evidence of consciousness of guilt. Moreover, although unnecessary, this evidence could have been properly admitted under Rule 404(b). We have allowed evidence of prior threats against witnesses in unrelated cases as consciousness-of-guilt evidence under Rule 404. See, e.g., 23 United States v. Higgs, 353 F.3d 281, 312 (4th Cir. 2003); United States v. Queen, 132 F.3d 991, 993–94 (4th Cir. 1997) (affirming admission of evidence in witness tampering case that defendant had intimidated two witnesses in unrelated, earlier prosecution); Basham, 561 F.3d at 328 (statements by defendant charged with carjacking that he was willing to kill in an unrelated matter were “highly probative” of his specific intent to cause serious harm in carjacking). As the evidence was intrinsic and would have been properly admitted under Rule 404(b), we find that the district court did not err.