Opinion ID: 1907814
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: References to Other Crimes Evidence at Trial

Text: At trial before Judge McIntyre, Johnson did not ask the court to reconsider Judge Eilperin's ruling on the pretrial motion to bar the government from using the evidence of the killings and other activity in Maryland shortly after Carrington's murder, and evidence relating to Johnson's possession of handguns before and after that murder. Although the government abandoned all three killings as overt acts of the alleged drug distribution conspiracy, Johnson did not then ask the trial judge to reconsider the pretrial ruling that evidence of the Maryland killings was admissible as direct proof of Johnson's guilt of the murder of Carrington. Indeed, the trial judge essentially stated in colloquy over a limiting instruction that the use of the same weapon was direct proof of guilt. In reviewing what transpired at trial, we will consider whether the manner in which the government used that evidence at trial was unfairly prejudicial, as Johnson's counsel asserted at oral argument. [20] Ultimately, on the assumption (fully borne out at trial) that the trial judge recognized the danger that relevant evidence might assume unfairly prejudicial form, our inquiry is whether the trial judge abused his discretion in failing to control the development and use of the evidence at trial. At trial, Johnson's trial counsel did not object to the manner in which the prosecutor used the evidence of the Maryland occurrences in conducting the examination of witnesses or making opening and closing statements. Nevertheless, the trial judge played a commendable role in keeping control of the presentation and thus minimizing any unfair prejudice that this evidence might have produced. The prosecution undertook to prove by circumstantial evidence that Johnson and his severed accomplice, Void, had killed Carrington. Virtually unassailable was the proof that Johnson, Void, and Carrington were partners in the sale of narcotics, and that Johnson was riding with Carrington, immediately followed by Void, a few minutes prior to Carrington's death. While the foregoing alone powerfully indicated that Johnson had a hand in killing Carrington, reasonable minds could find doubt as to the charge of murder if that were the only evidence supporting that charge. By showing that what occurred after the murder of Carrington was in all likelihood committed by persons who both knew the inner workings of the drug operation, and had a special reason to kill the boys, the prosecution sought to prove convincingly that Johnson killed Carrington. [21] In its opening statement, the prosecution did not suggest that the Maryland killings demonstrated appellant's propensity to commit the charged offense. The statement contained only three significant mentions of the Maryland killings. The first two were references to the fact of the shootings and the familial relationship of the two boys and a description of the Maryland murder scene. They were relatively brief, and were dry rather than dramatic. Perhaps the most vivid language employed by the prosecution was a reference to all three shootings on the night in question as a terrible thing. The third statement, which came as the prosecutor explained the reaction of Brown as she came home to find the two boys shot, warrants a closer look: And in her apartment, I believe her testimony is, she heard a moaning sound, she discovered that the two boys were shot... her boyfriend's son and her little brother. She went into her room and she found everything pulled out of her closet. And the police's [sic] testimony and her testimony will show you it was pulled out down to a spot and laying there was the papers for the gun. The gun was gone and the papers were there. While the use of the word moaning was unnecessary, we note that it was one isolated word in the course of a detailed statement. Further, trial counsel did not object to this reference, either during the opening statement or later at the bench. We are satisfied from our reading of the record that there was nothing significantly objectionable or inflammatory about the opening statement's treatment of the Maryland killings. Nor did the prosecutor focus unduly on the evidence of the Maryland murders during the presentation of its case, which included the testimony of twenty-eight witnesses. It is true that the prosecutor did elicit the fact of the Maryland killings from its first witness. But that witness, Brown, testified over two days and laid out in critical detail the background of the narcotics conspiracy, which was essential to understanding both that charge and linkages between Johnson and Carrington's murder. As part of Brown's chronological relation of events, as she described how she arrived home to discover the door to her apartment unlocked, she stated matter-of-factly that when she looked in the boys' room she found that each had been shot in the head. Surely, this testimony had some impact, but we note that Brown's answers appear to reflect, if anything, a cautious word from the prosecutor to avoid being too emotional. We cannot find that the foregoing was unfairly inflammatory. And while the questioning returned briefly to the deaths of the boys at the close of Brown's direct testimony, those questions were simple and did not produce emotional answers. As to references to the Maryland killings by other witnesses, we note that they too were purely factual and do not appear to have been fashioned to suggest propensity. A person who lived next to the Maryland apartment related in a straightforward manner what he heard through the wall (shots and later screams), and crucially related the timing of these events. The testimony of the Maryland detective, who might have been asked to describe a grisly scene, focused largely on the bedroom closet that had been ransacked (presumably by Carrington's killers) and the identity of the nine millimeter pistol that was inferably stolen from the apartment and later found in Johnson's possession. Her testimony as to the death of the two boys was dryly factual, and consumed only a page of transcript. Indeed, the killings were not even mentioned during redirect examination of this witness. Nor was unduly graphic testimony provided by those charged with gathering evidence and photographing the scene. In contrast to the prosecution's caution, we note that defense counsel waded right into the evidence of the Maryland killings. Of course, that Johnson chose to use this evidence did not amount to a waiver of his earlier objection to the admission of any other crimes evidence. ( Charles) Jones v. United States, 385 A.2d 750, 752 (D.C.1978). Nonetheless, Johnson's use of this evidence goes directly to whether reversal is required by the manner in which the evidence was presented. See Miles, supra, 374 A.2d at 283 (no error where the defense made a conscious tactical decision to air fully the evidence); see also Parker v. United States, 586 A.2d 720, 725 (D.C.1991). An early example of the defense's use of this evidence came during the cross examination of the Maryland detective who described the scene in the apartment. Defense counsel questioned her concerning signs of rigor mortis in one of the boy's bodies, including signs of rigidity in the face. And, when the deputy medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Carrington's body testified, defense counsel did not hesitate to engage him in an anatomically detailed discussion of the paths of the bullets and just which part of the head braked a particular bullet. When cross-examining yet another evidence technician, defense counsel focused on the question of just how much blood was on the bullet that passed through the brain of one of the boys, and the question of whether it had been cleaned. Defense counsel's lack of squeamishness was also exhibited by three questions he put to a ballistics expert in near-succession: Q. Now, if it was a .45 caliber weapon and I was shot [in the head from a short distance away], how far would the bullet travel after it had gone through my head?       Q. Okay. Well, let me ask you this. Do you know this. Do you know if a bullet goes through somebody's head, does it generally have blood on it when it comes out the other side?       Q. So would it also be beyond your expertise to say whether a bullet that goes through somebody's head and through the portion of the head where the brain is located, would [it] also be beyond your expertise to say whether you would expect to find brain tissue on that bullet; is that correct? The defense also declined to enter stipulations that might have kept some of the more clinical testimony from coming before the jury. See, IMWINKELREID, supra, §§ 8:11-12 (defense can limit, or even exclude other crimes evidence by entering stipulations admitting the fact on which the evidence would be admissible); CHRISTOPHER MUELLER & LAIRD KIRKPATRICK, MODERN EVIDENCE § 4.4 at 262 (1995). For example, defense counsel declined to stipulate to chain of custody, with the result that the testimony of the medical examiner who removed the bullet from one of the bodies was then made necessary. The trial court tried to encourage the stipulation, telling defense counsel, [O]nce you bring in a doctor who's going to testify about two killings out there in Maryland, that's going to have certainly some [e]ffect on the jury. Similarly, when the prosecutor proposed a stipulation to the effect that the Maryland bullets were found in and around the boys' bodies, defense counsel noted in refusing: Your Honor, it occurs to me that we can establish all of that through testimony. I mean, it doesn't really seem necessary to stipulate to it really. I mean, there are going to be Maryland police officers who were on the scene. They can talk about that and I'm not going to seriously question it, but I don't think that we need to actually stipulate to it. Some of the colloquy between court and counsel illustrates the court's appropriately active effort to reduce the potential impact that any possibly inflammatory material would have on the jury sitting in judgment of Johnson. [22] The only potentially inflammatory photograph the court allowed before the jury was one that included the hall entranceway to the bedroom, but not the apparently bloodied room itself. The court rejected a request that an autopsy photo be shown to the jury. It expressly did not allow the prosecution to play the audiotape of the call Brown placed to 911 immediately after she discovered the bodies, again showing sensitivity to the potentially inflammatory nature of the evidence. Further, at the start of trial, the court granted a defense request to question potential jurors during voir dire concerning whether they would be improperly influenced concerning the District charges by the Maryland homicides, thereby both screening and desensitizing the panel. The prosecutor touched on the Maryland killings in his summation, saying at one point: Then you can conclude one of the boys woke up, and the two boys were executed. They would have recognized [appellant and Void], wouldn't they? Yes. Yes. The same.45 that shot the second bullet into Tyrone Carrington put three bullets in the boys. That's the point of all that evidence about the three shell casings there lying around the boys, one bullet in the floor where one boy had been, one bullet out of one boy's ear, one bullet out of one boy. The one who had the one in his ear, another bullet dug out of him in the autopsy in Maryland. Referring to the execution of the two boys may have been unduly dramatic. See Sellars v. United States, 401 A.2d 974, 977-78 (D.C.1979) (describing shooting as execution). Similarly, noting that one bullet came from one boy's ear and that another bullet was dug out of him in the autopsy in Maryland, was unnecessarily graphic. Mills v. United States, 599 A.2d 775, 787 (D.C.1991) (pool of blood and suffering of victims). Yet we find that these isolated comments do not warrant reversal, especially in light of the fact that defense counsel had so dwelled upon bullets and body parts during the presentation of evidence that the prosecutor's comments injected little new into the proceedings. Further, in his summation, defense counsel freely discussed the matters of brain tissue and autopsies, again rendering the prosecutor's argument unstartling. And the prosecutor's only comment on rebuttal concerning brain tissue was obviously in direct response to the argument defense counsel made concerning the very same material. We are not suggesting that defense counsel was ineffective in conducting a defense that focused in part on some of the more disturbing evidence. Rather, we point out defense counsel's questions and summation to show that this material was important and could be handled in a responsible manner. And we can summarize our review of the manner in which evidence of the Maryland killings was used at trial by saying that, in light of all the considerations we have discussed, we are satisfied that Johnson was not unfairly prejudiced. [23] We certainly could not conclude that the trial judge abused his discretion in his exercise of control over the development and use of that evidence.