Opinion ID: 2553473
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Remedies in Mitigation

Text: Having concluded that defense counsel relied, and reasonably so, on the prosecutor's opening statement, the question is what remedies should have been employed to mitigate the inevitable prejudice that resulted from the prosecutor's change of course following the trial judge's ruling. Defense counsel moved for mistrial three times. The first was during the government's case, as soon as it became clear that the government would not be introducing appellant's statement to the police. In this regard, this case is not like Salmon v. United States , quoted by the majority, see ante at 12, where the entire case had been presented and the jury had already retired to deliberate. 719 A.2d 949, 956 (D.C.1997). A mistrial always will incur some cost to the system. Nonetheless, mistrial must be granted, and those costs borne, when the danger of prejudice has undermined the reliability of the proceedings to such a measure that the drastic remedy of mistrial is necessary. Anthony, 935 A.2d at 287. [8] There was a much less-drastic remedy available here. Defense counsel requested a curative instruction that tells the jury that only the Government can introduce the defendant's statement. And if they have any questions about that, that they may infer that that evidence would have been harmful to the Government along the lines of . . . the missing evidence instruction. To the trial court's first reaction, I hear very few new things nowadays. But this is the first time that I have ever heard this argument, defense counsel responded that this is a rare situation, Your Honor. The prosecutor objected to the curative instruction, focusing exclusively on the terms of the traditional missing evidence instruction (No. 2.41 in the Redbook). The trial judge denied the request for a curative instruction because the missing evidence instruction does not apply to the statements of the defendant in the possession of the Government that are exculpatory in nature; and, even if it did, the instruction was inapplicable because the evidence with respect to the [defendant's] statement was [not] peculiarly within the possession of the government. As is clear from the explanation of its ruling denying the requested instruction, the trial court misapprehended defense counsel's request. The two elements that defense counsel requested in an instruction were: (1) that only the government could introduce appellant's statement to the police, not that only the government possessed the evidence, and (2) that along the lines of a missing evidence instruction, the jury could consider that if the government had decided not to introduce relevant evidence that it solely had the means to introduce (as the defense did not), it may infer that the government thought it would be harmful to its case. Both elements of what defense counsel requested were true in this case. Because the government could present appellant's out-of-court statement to the police, as an admission, and the government had said it would object, on hearsay grounds, if the defendant tried to introduce the out-of-court statement, only the prosecutor could introduce appellant's statement to the police. Moreover, by his mid-trial change of course when the trial court determined that the rule of completeness required that the exculpatory portion of appellant's statement would have to be presented along with the inculpatory part that the prosecutor had hope to present alone, the prosecutor demonstrated that the inference the instruction would have permitted (not compelled) the jury to make was eminently reasonable. The trial judge, however, seized upon the missing evidence analogy and erroneously ruled that no curative instruction should be given because a missing evidence instruction did not apply to the defendant's exculpatory statement and was not peculiarly within the possession of the government. Here, although both parties had the evidence, only the government had the means to introduce it to the jury. [9] In a very real sense, therefore, it was peculiarly within the control of the government. The trial court also should have taken into account that the instruction was not being requested in a vacuum, but in order to mitigate the prejudice to the defense from its inability to fulfill its promise to the jury that had been frustrated by the prosecutor's change of trial strategy. In discussing the requested instruction, the majority speaks generally about the costs and dangers of the missing evidence instruction, which permits the jury to create[] evidence from nonevidence, Dent v. United States, 404 A.2d 165, 170-71 (D.C. 1979), and represents a radical departure from the principle that the jury should decide the case by evaluating the evidence before it. Tyer v. United States, 912 A.2d 1150, 1164 (D.C.2006). See ante at 12. None of these dangers was present here, however, where the substance of the evidence was known there was a video of appellant's statements at the police stationand was available for the court's review to determine whether it would be likely to elucidate the [matter] at issue and, thus, whether an inference against the government if it withheld the evidence from the jury would be reasonable and fair. Tyer, 912 A.2d at 1164 (quoting Hinnant v. United States, 520 A.2d 292, 294 (D.C.1987)). Moreover, defense counsel's request for a curative instruction along the lines of a missing evidence instruction signaled that he was not seeking a traditional missing evidence instruction per se, but one tailored to the rare situation that had presented itself in the case. In his motions for mistrial, defense counsel repeatedly made clear to the judge that what concerned him was that the defense had been rendered unable to introduce the statement made by appellant to the police, as counsel had promised at the outset of the trial based on the prosecutor's prior representation. [10] The defense's inability to fulfill its promise, counsel was arguing, should not be held against the defense, but against the government which had thwarted the defense's opening promise. Defense counsel's request described precisely what had happened in this trial and the court should have taken steps to present defense counsel's conundrum to the jury so as to mitigate any negative inference that the jury might unfairly draw against appellant's claim of self-defense. In this situation, the generic instruction that arguments of counsel are not evidence did not begin to address the prejudice that concerned the defense. Cf. Anthony, 935 A.2d at 284 (We have not regarded the standard judicial caution that the jury's recollection controls as a cure-all . . . . (quoting Gaither, 134 U.S.App.D.C. at 172, 413 F.2d at 1079)). An instruction tailored to the circumstances was called for, but the trial court's ruling about the inapplicability of the missing evidence instruction cut off any further discussion to formulate an appropriate instruction.