Opinion ID: 3158587
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appellant’s Collateral Challenge

Text: Prior to appellant‟s sentencing, Jenifer Wicks replaced Ms. Baron as appellant‟s defense counsel. On August 7, 2002, Ms. Wicks filed an ex parte motion seeking access to certain firearms and ballistics evidence in the possession of the Metropolitan Police Department. In pertinent part, the motion represented that appellant‟s first defense counsel, a PDS attorney, had moved to withdraw in September 2001 because of a conflict of interest between appellant and another PDS client named Randall Mack. According to the motion, the basis of this conflict (not disclosed to the court when PDS moved to withdraw) was that “the defense had learned” that a gun recovered in the arrest of Mack on July 21, 2000, and linked by police ballistics analysis to a homicide committed on July 7, 2000, “should match” the gun that fired the four cartridge cases found at the scene of the Jackson shooting six weeks earlier. The motion proffered, in addition, that the two shootings were “in the same area”; that Mack was “a known drug dealer” in the neighborhood of 18th and D Streets Northeast with “an apparent proclivity for violence and weapons possession”; and that Mack was acquainted with Jackson and knew she was an informant. Concluding that a match between Mack‟s weapon and the gun used in the Jackson shooting might enable appellant to advance a third-party-perpetrator defense, the motion requested the court to order the 9 Metropolitan Police Department to make the firearm and ballistic evidence in the two cases available for testing by a defense ballistics expert. The trial court granted the motion on August 9, 2002. Appellant‟s expert, John Dillon, did not receive the requested evidence for testing until sometime in 2006.7 In a report dated November 8, 2006, he opined that there was a match: the four shell casings found at the scene of Ms. Jackson‟s shooting on May 26, 2000, were fired from the handgun used in the July 7, 2000, shooting, that the police recovered from Mack on July 21, 2000. Five years later, on November 4, 2011, appellant filed his motion for a new trial alleging, inter alia, that his trial counsel, Ms. Baron, had been ineffective in failing to investigate the ballistics match and use it to present a third-partyperpetrator defense, and that the government had violated its obligations under Brady by failing to disclose the ballistics match.8 7 It appears that additional motions and proceedings were required to dislodge the evidence. In the meantime, appellant‟s present counsel had entered their appearance on his behalf, succeeding Ms. Wicks. 8 In addition to seeking a new trial on those constitutional grounds pursuant to D.C Code § 23-110, appellant presented a claim of actual innocence under the Innocence Protection Act (IPA), D.C. Code § 22-4135. He has not asserted any (continued…) 10 Relying in part on information set forth in the opinion of this court in Andrews v. United States,9 appellant proffered that on July 21, 2000, the police recovered the two 9mm semi-automatic pistols, a Glock and a Bryco, that were used (according to a July 2000 police firearms examiner‟s report) in the murder of Deyon Rivers at 18th and C Streets Northeast on July 7, 2000. The ultimately convicted perpetrators of this homicide were two men named Patrick Andrews and Randall Mack.10 Police recovered the Glock from Andrews‟s automobile, and the Bryco from Mack when he attempted to discard it during the course of his arrest. After being taken into custody, Mack claimed that Andrews had given him the Bryco and told him the gun was “hot.”11 (continued…) claim of error with respect to the trial court‟s denial of his IPA claim, however, so we do not address it further in this opinion. 9 922 A.2d 449, 453-54 (D.C. 2007). 10 Andrews and Mack were tried together for the murder of Rivers. On May 1, 2002, a jury found them each guilty of first-degree murder while armed and the related firearm possession offenses. In Andrews v. United States, supra, this court affirmed Andrews‟s convictions, but granted Mack a new trial. After his re-trial resulted in a hung jury, Mack pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. 11 A friend of Mack and Andrews named David Braddy later testified to having seen them with the guns frequently before the murder of Rivers. 11 Per the November 2006 ballistics report obtained from Mr. Dillon, the Bryco obtained from Mack was the gun used by Jackson‟s assailant on May 26, 2000. This conclusion was corroborated by police crime scene reports showing that some of the cartridge cases found at the scene of the Rivers shooting were the same brand as those found at the scene of the Jackson shooting. In an affidavit accompanying his new trial motion, appellant stated that PDS never told him what the conflict of interest was that required his original trial attorney to withdraw. Appellant did not then know that PDS lawyers had “discovered” that Mack, who was also a PDS client, was accused of murdering someone with “the same firearm used to shoot Lorraine Jackson, in the same neighborhood, during the same time period.” However, appellant averred, after Ms. Baron was appointed to represent him, she told him prior to his second trial “that someone told her about a firearm from another shooting, namely, the Mack case, that could be linked to [appellant‟s] case.” Appellant, who professed his innocence, hoped this information would exonerate him, and Baron assured him she would investigate the report of a ballistics match. But neither Baron nor her 12 investigator followed up on the report in any way.12 Instead, appellant stated, Baron told him, falsely, that the prosecutors refused to turn over any information about ballistics or matching firearms, and that the court had denied her motion to compel the disclosure of information about a ballistics match—a motion she actually had never filed. The government opposed appellant‟s motion for a new trial. It did not dispute that the gun used to shoot Jackson was recovered from Mack. It denied, however, that appellant‟s trial counsel had been constitutionally ineffective or that there had been a Brady violation. The government argued, inter alia, that it had been prejudiced by appellant‟s five-year delay in presenting his ineffective assistance claim, because Baron‟s death (in October 2009) prevented the government from establishing what she knew and did. The government further argued that the ballistics match had not been withheld from the defense because neither the prosecutors nor the police knew of the match. In any event, the government contended, the ballistics match was not probative of appellant‟s innocence, because guns frequently were shared among members of the 18th and D 12 In a second affidavit appellant submitted to the court, Baron‟s investigator stated that he was not asked to do anything with respect to appellant‟s case except serve subpoenas. 13 Street Crew (a local gang with which Andrews and Mack allegedly were affiliated), and appellant therefore could not show either the prejudice required to support his claim of ineffective assistance or the degree of materiality required for a Brady violation. In support of its contentions, the government submitted affidavits from (1) Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) Glenn Kirschner, a homicide division supervisor who prosecuted Andrews and Mack for the murder of Rivers and thereafter participated in a joint FBI-MPD investigation of the 18th and D Street Crew; (2) Detective Norma Horne, who also was involved in that investigation; and (3 and 4) AUSA (now Associate Judge of the Superior Court) Jennifer Anderson and AUSA Diane Lucas, who were the prosecutors at appellant‟s second and third trials. The affidavits were offered to support the government‟s claims that neither the police nor the prosecutors knew of the ballistics match at the time of appellant‟s trials, and that the match did not exculpate appellant in light of the regularity with which guns were shared. AUSA Kirschner averred that, “[a]fter consultation with relevant law enforcement agents, fellow AUSAs, and a review of the available records, I have no indication or recollection that there was any information linking the murder 14 weapons used by Patrick Andrews and Randall Mack in the murder of Deyon Rivers to the May 2000 shooting of Lorraine Jackson.” Kirschner further stated that Andrews and Mack were members of the 18th and D Street Crew; that “information was developed” that members of the crew used “multiple communal guns,” some of which were hidden in a compartment of a lamppost located at the intersection of 18th and D Streets Northeast; and that it was believed to be “common knowledge among” the crew members that “these guns were accessible and available to any crew member who needed a gun at any given time.” Detective Horne, the sole police affiant, asserted that the Metropolitan Police Department “protocol” is that investigators do not request ballistic comparisons “as a matter of course,” but only when they have “specific reason to believe that some connection may be made to the case at hand.” Detective Horne averred that, “[t]o [her] knowledge, no such evidence existed at the time” of appellant‟s trial. (Although her affidavit did not mention it, the parties appear to agree that Detective Horne had worked on appellant‟s case.) The detective also stated that “[d]uring the course of the investigation of the 18th & D Crew we learned from cooperating witnesses and informants that[] firearms utilized by the crew members change[d] hands constantly” in an effort “to foil law enforcement efforts to arrest the armed subjects.” 15 AUSAs Anderson and Lucas each averred that they had no knowledge of any ballistics comparison of the guns used in the shootings of Jackson and Rivers and no reason to request such a comparison. The “mere fact” that another shooting occurred in the same area six weeks later would not have prompted them to ask for a ballistics comparison, they explained, given the high incidence of gun-related violence in the neighborhood of 18th and D Streets Northeast. At a status hearing on appellant‟s motion, the government‟s counsel represented that he personally had gone through the government‟s files in appellant‟s case and in the Andrews and Mack case, and that no comparative ballistics testing had been done. In a subsequent supplemental pleading, appellant acknowledged that he had “no reason to doubt” that the prosecutors were not aware of any comparative ballistics testing or of information that, “in their minds,” would have linked the Jackson and Rivers shootings. Nonetheless, appellant argued, that did not dispose of his Brady claim, because the law enforcement officials investigating the two shootings “had every reason to suspect a connection between the two events and to pursue those connections.” (Emphasis by appellant.) While appellant admittedly could not yet “pinpoint specific exculpatory information contained in police files,” he requested leave of court to propound “targeted discovery requests” to ascertain whether such information existed. Specifically, 16 appellant asked that the government be required to disclose all “reports, notes, and other materials prepared, requested, or obtained in connection with” the investigations of the two shootings; the memorandum of understanding between the FBI and the Metropolitan Police Department regarding their joint investigation of the 18th and D Street Crew; all police protocols relating to the handling of firearms evidence, firearms examination and ballistics testing, the conduct of joint law enforcement operations and of homicide and assault with intent to kill investigations; and the names of all law enforcement personnel who were involved in investigating the crew, criminal activity in the area of 18th and D Streets, Northeast, the Jackson shooting, or the Rivers homicide.