Opinion ID: 2558735
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Disputed Evidentiary Facts

Text: Having concluded that the emails that were sent to the trial judge provided her with personal knowledge regarding I.W.'s recantation, we must determine whether the knowledge related to a disputed evidentiary fact[ ]. Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 3(E)(1)(a); Model Judicial Code, Rule 2.11(A)(1). The District asserts that the emails did not concern a disputed evidentiary fact because the question in these proceedings was whether M.C. was involved in the charged crimes beyond a reasonable doubt, not whether there had been a later altercation between I.W. and M.C. The District concludes, therefore, that [t]he parties ... did not need to dispute ... whether there had been an altercation between appellant and the recanting I.W. in the Superior Court cell block. We disagree with this characterization of the factual issues before the trial judge. In this trial, where there was no physical evidence linking the defendant to the shootings, the government's case was dependent upon the testimony of the two eyewitnesses, I.W. and N.W., who identified appellant. Therefore, the credibility of I.W.'s identification of M.C. as the shooter was an evidentiary fact that went directly to M.C.'s guilt. I.W.'s in-court testimony contradicted his identification of M.C. on the night of the shooting. As we have explained previously, when a witness recants, the trier of fact must decide whether to accept as true the witness's original testimony or revised testimony. Payne v. United States, 516 A.2d 484, 493 (D.C.1986) (per curiam) ([C]onflicts created by a witness' recantation, like other internal inconsistencies within a witness' testimony, are factual questions for the jury to resolve.). Here, the decision of the trial judge, as fact-finder, to accept or reject I.W.'s trial testimony was inextricably linked to her assessment of why I.W. decided to recant his previous identification. The government tried and failed to elicit from I.W. at trial that the reason for his recantation had to do with a confrontation he had with M.C., but I.W. denied it. The information contained in the emails the trial judge receivedthat I.W. had been in a physical altercation with M.C. that resulted in his being separated from [M.C.] in the cellblock [15] provided the very information that the District had been unable to elicit from I.W. at trial. The email's information that the physical altercation had taken place in the courthouse cell block also conveyed that it had been close in time and place to I.W.'s testimony, adding crucial context with which to question I.W.'s recantation, and thus tended to strengthen the government's case. This case is distinguishable from Plechner v. Widener College, Inc., 569 F.2d 1250 (3d Cir.1977), on which the District relies. In Plechner, the court held that a judge's acquaintance with a witness whom he had met through the American Bar Association in the normal practice of law did not amount to personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts within the scope of 28 U.S.C. § 455(b)(1), the federal corollary to Canon 3(E)(1)(a). [16] Id. at 1262-63. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit explained: The disqualification provision is directed toward knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts, that is, matters underlying the cause of action. We do not understand the statutory language to be directed toward routine judgments of credibility. Such an interpretation would require all the judges in many districts to be disqualified in the most pedestrian of cases if they had some previous contact with a witness. Plechner, 569 F.2d at 1263; see also Parrish v. Board of Comm'rs of Alabama State Bar, 524 F.2d 98, 104 (5th Cir.1975) (commenting that under § 455(b)(1), [c]redibility choices are not disputed facts). Here, in contrast to Plechner, the extrajudicial information that the trial judge received about the witness did not relate solely to a routine judgment[ ] of credibility, Plechner, 569 F.2d at 1263, nor was this a situation in which the trial judge had [m]ere prior knowledge of some facts concerning a witness's behavior and demeanor from a previous hearing. United States v. Seiffert, 501 F.2d 974, 978 (5th Cir.1974) (holding that intangible impressions of a party's demeanor and candor that the judge might have obtained at a previous meeting did not constitute a connection or relationship to a party sufficient to make it improper to sit at the trial on the merits). Although we agree with the court's observation in Plechner that judges should not be required to disqualify themselves in the most pedestrian of cases merely as a result of some previous contact with a witness, 569 F.2d at 1263, the record before us indicates not that the judge had overall impression of a witness from some previous ordinary contact, but that during the course of trial the judge received important information relating to a specific incident between the witness and the defendant that might explain why the witness recanted his prior identification of the defendant. The witness's recantation of his prior identification went to a central issue in the government's case against M.C.the identity of the shootermaking I.W.'s trial recantation a disputed evidentiary fact. Code of Judicial conduct, Canon 3(E)(1)(a); Model Judicial Code, Rule 2.11(A)(1). The District raises the concern that requiring the trial judge to recuse herself here will require disqualification every time a judge has some personal knowledge that bears in some fashion upon a proceeding. We think that is a Chicken Little overstatement. As our prior cases make clear, a judge's decision to recuse herself or her refusal to do sois highly fact-specific, and we have reached our conclusion in this case only after careful examination of the record, in particular the factual issues that were presented to the trial judge for decision and the nature and content of the information that she received. It is of particular importance to this case that the trial judge was the fact finder, and that it was her role to evaluate I.W.'s recantation at trial concerning the central issue in the case: who fired the shots? The District's case was predicated on the testimony of two eyewitness: I.W., who at trial recanted his prior identification of appellant; and N.W., who repeatedly and positively identified appellant as the shooter, but gave inconsistent (and ultimately disproven) accounts of the circumstances surrounding the shooting, which raised questions about his credibility. [17] I.W.'s trial recantation, if credited by the trial judge, might therefore have created a reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of N.W.'s identification of M.C. as the shooter. The trial judge dispelled doubts raised by N.W.'s inconsistent statement and appears to have easily discounted I.W.'s trial recantation (she did not mention it), relying on N.W.'s identification, which she considered corroborated by I.W.an obvious reference to the prior identification that I.W. recanted at trial. The emails to the trial judge, which contained facts that were highly relevant to the judge's assessment of the veracity of I.W.'s trial recantation, thus bore directly on the merits of the prosecution's case and cannot be dismissed as tangential or merely related in some fashion to the proceedings as the government asserts; or simply as some previous contact with a witness, Plechner, 569 F.2d at 1263. It is unlikely that similar circumstances will often be replicated, but where a judge does come to haveno matter howextrajudicial personal knowledge of a disputed evidentiary fact[], as we conclude was the case here, the trial judge is required to recuse herself under subsection (a) of Canon 3(E)(1); Model Judicial Code, Rule 2.11(A)(1). See York v. United States, 785 A.2d 651, 656 (D.C.2001) (The Code of Judicial Conduct requires recusal when `the judge has ... personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding.' (quoting Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 3(E)(1)(a))); see also United States v. Alabama, 828 F.2d 1532, 1545 (11th Cir.1987) (per curiam) ([A] judge cannot be, or cannot appear to be, impartial if he has personal knowledge of evidentiary facts that are in dispute. (quoting E. Wayne Thode, Reporter's Notes to Code of Judicial Conduct 62 (1973))). We want to make clear that appellant did not suggest at trial and does not contend before this court that there was any bias or improper motive on the part of either the trial judge or the judge who sent the email communications. [18] Nor do we doubt that the trial judge in good faith believed herself capable of compartmentalizing the information she learned through extrajudicial means. But this introspective analysis is largely irrelevant under Canon 3(E)(1), which examines whether a judge's impartiality reasonably might be questioned from the perspective of an objective observer. [19] Moreover, subsection (a) of Canon 3(E)(1) mandates that once a judge has personal knowledge of a disputed evidentiary fact[ ], she shall recuse herself. Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 3(E)(1)(a) (The Judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding... where the judge has ... personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding. (emphasis added)); Model Judicial Code Rule 2.11(A)(1). Thus, recusal is required where the judge's impartiality would reasonably be questioned, including in the specific instance identified in subsection (a). [20]