Opinion ID: 2329080
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Delay in the Recovery of the Bullet

Text: Appellant asserts that his counsel was ineffective because he failed to realize that the bullet introduced at trial had not been recovered from Mr. Funnyre's van on the date of the shooting, as Officer Hyatt had testified. Appellant contends that the lapse of timethe bullet was not discovered until February 1997, almost three months after the shootingcreated a breach in the chain of custody that gave counsel sufficient cause to attempt to exclude both the pistol and the bullet. Additionally, appellant argues that counsel should have impeached Investigator Paredes and Officer Hyatt with this discrepancy in their testimony. He reasons that if counsel had done all these things, the jury would have viewed the evidence differently. Appellant's contention misses the mark, however, because the delayed discovery of the bullet did not affect the chain of custody. Under a proper chain-of-custody analysis, the government was required to prove only that the bullet recovered from the van was the same bullet analyzed by Officer Curtis. See Turney v. United States, 626 A.2d 872, 873 (D.C. 1993); Tompkins v. United States, 272 A.2d 100, 103 (D.C.1970). Appellant's argument attempts to graft a heightened requirement of authenticity onto a standard that requires the government to prove only that the evidence analyzed by the police is the evidence that was actually seized. In addition, the delay in finding the bullet would have had no effect on the admissibility of the gun, which was found in the trunk of McCraney's car along with a certificate bearing appellant's name (establishing a connection between appellant and the gun). The bullet, in turn, was sufficiently linked to the gun by Officer Curtis' testimony to make it admissible, notwithstanding the delay. As the government points out in its brief, regardless of how or when the bullet ended up in the engine compartment of the van, there still would have been a sufficient link between appellant and the pistoland thus the bulletfor both the bullet and the pistol to have been admissible. Thus it comes as no surprise that Mr. Birdsong testified at the hearing that, as a tactical matter, he did not challenge Officer Hyatt's testimony because doing so would have drawn more attention to the bullet. Instead, his theory of defense was limited to the argument that the police could not definitively conclude that the spent bullet came from the recovered gun or caused the hole in the van's front bumper. On this record, appellant cannot establish that, but for counsel's allegedly deficient performance, the outcome of the trial would have been different. Finally, appellant asserts that the government engaged in misconduct by failing to recognize and correct the mistake in the police testimony regarding the actual date of the bullet's recovery. It is well settled that a prosecutor may not knowingly present false evidence or permit the introduction of evidence known to be false. See, e.g., Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 153, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972). Nor may the government, although not soliciting false evidence, knowingly allow[ ] it to go uncorrected when it appears. Id. (quoting Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 269, 79 S.Ct. 1173, 3 L.Ed.2d 1217 (1959)). At the § 23-110 hearing, the prosecutor acknowledged his mistake and assured the court that his asking a question that incorrectly referred to finding the bullet in November 1996, rather than the correct date of February 1997, was a completely inadvertent oversight. There was no contrary evidence. Nothing in the record indicates that the prosecutor's error, regrettable as it was, involved deliberate deception or the intentional solicitation of perjured testimony.