Opinion ID: 772859
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Prosecutor's Use of Post-Arrest Silence

Text: 67 In addition to its references to Ms. Ouska's pre-arrest silence, the State also made reference to Ms. Ouska's post-arrest, post-Miranda silence by noting her failure to claim that it was Martinez, and not her, who had murdered Te. In its consideration of this issue, the Illinois Appellate Court relied upon the doctrine of waiver because there had been no objection to these prosecutorial statements at trial. Ms. Ouska must therefore show cause and prejudice before we can consider the merits of this contention. See Jenkins v. Nelson, 157 F.3d 485, 491 (7th Cir. 1998) (If a state court does not reach a federal issue because of a state procedural bar, that issue cannot be raised in a writ of habeas corpus to a federal court without a showing of cause and prejudice.) (citing Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 90-91 (1977)). Ms. Ouska maintains that the ineffective assistance of her trial counsel in failing to object to the use of the post-arrest silence satisfies the standard for cause and prejudice. See Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488 (1986). 68 The Supreme Court has explained that to demonstrate prejudice under the cause and prejudice standard, a defendant must shoulder the burden of showing, not merely that the errors at his trial created a possibility of prejudice, but that they worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting his entire trial with error of constitutional dimensions. United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 170 (1982) (emphasis in original). 13 69 We believe that Ms. Ouska has not demonstrated prejudice from any improper use of her post- arrest silence in light of the very substantial other evidence of her guilt. As an initial matter, the evidence demonstrated that Ms. Ouska had the opportunity to commit the murder on the morning of May 7, 1992, and that she was at the murder scene at the time of Te's death. Fontenot, Ms. Ouska's former foster mother, testified that, on the night before and the morning of the murder, she had been arguing with Ms. Ouska about money that Ms. Ouska had borrowed from Te. Fontenot maintained that, on the morning of the murder, Ms. Ouska left home in order to obtain money so that this debt could be repaid. Ms. Ouska left that morning at approximately 9:20 a.m. and returned, bloodied from a wound to her leg, at 10:00 a.m.; testimony established that Te was killed between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Ms. Ouska herself also admits that she was at Te's store, located only two or three minutes from the Fontenot home where Ms. Ouska lived, at the time of the murder. She contends, however, that, when she arrived at the scene, she saw Martinez repeatedly stabbing the victim. 70 Additionally, significant physical evidence linked Ms. Ouska to the crime scene and the murder. A knife was found under Ms. Ouska's mattress on the day after the murder; the knife contained blood later found to be consistent with Te's blood type and silicon later determined to be consistent with the silicon gel implants that Te wore in her prosthesis. Fontenot testified that only three weeks before, she had seen the same knife in Ms. Ouska's room and that Ms. Ouska explained to Fontenot at that time that she had found the knife in the basement of the house. Fontenot also said that, on the afternoon of the murder, she and her daughter found blood-stained money and a printout of winning lottery numbers from a previous date on Ms. Ouska's dresser. 14 The blood on those two one-dollar bills was later found to be consistent with Te's blood enzyme and protein type. Additionally, blood consistent with Ms. Ouska's blood type was found in the front room of Te's store, and blood consistent with Ms. Ouska's blood enzyme and protein type was found on a rag recovered from the bathroom sink in the rear of the store. 71 Other evidence found in Ms. Ouska's possession casts doubt on the credibility of her version of events. When the police arrived at the store after Te's murder, the store's cash register was found open and emptied of money. Among Ms. Ouska's personal items, which the police had inventoried after she accompanied Detective Shields to the station on the day after the murder, the police found a blood-stained jacket. The blood on the jacket was later found to be consistent with Te's blood. In the pocket of that jacket was a medal depicting Saint Benedict. 15 Teodora Kwong, Te's sister, testified that the medal was the same one that she had purchased in the Phillippines and given as a gift to Te and that Te kept the medal in her cash register at the store. The police also found a small green pencil in the jacket, later identified by Arthur Kwong, Te's brother-in-law, as one similar to the pencils that Te kept in her store for customers to use in filling out lottery slips. 16 Lastly, the police discovered $87 in one-and five-dollar bills in the jacket, despite the fact that Fontenot had testified that Ms. Ouska left the house on the morning of the murder to look for money. 72 Additional evidence also provided reason for the jury to doubt the credibility of Ms. Ouska's testimony. On the morning of the murder, Ms. Ouska was ultimately taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center to receive treatment for her wounds, and she stayed there until the next day, May 8, 1992. While there, she made repeated phone calls to the apartment of a friend, Lenoir Sanchez, who lived in the building next to the Fontenot home. Sanchez testified that Ms. Ouska asked her to go next door and to obtain something from under [Ms. Ouska's] mattress, but when Sanchez asked what the item was, Ms. Ouska would not tell her. R.7-4 at 255C. Both Sanchez and her boyfriend Tommy Gonzalez each made separate attempts to get this unknown item from the Fontenot home. However, earlier that morning, under the same mattress, Rutledge had found the blood-stained knife used in the murder. As a result, Rutledge would not let Sanchez or Gonzalez in, and the police were called soon thereafter. Ms. Ouska subsequently testified that she kept her HMO card and paperwork under the mattress, materials that she needed due to her hospital stay, and that she asked Sanchez to retrieve that information. Ms. Ouska also claimed that she did not place the knife under the mattress; she explained that she had left the knife on top of the bed, in the pocket of the sweatshirt she had been wearing that morning, before she left for the hospital. Despite this alternate explanation, Ms. Ouska's phone calls to Sanchez and her request that Sanchez retrieve something from under Ms. Ouska's mattress, the same mattress under which the knife had been found earlier that morning, could have given the jury additional license to question Ms. Ouska's credibility. 73 Moreover, Ms. Ouska testified that at no point did she enter the rear portion of the convenience store, where Te was stabbed and where Te's body was found. Blood consistent with Te's blood, however, was later found on Ms. Ouska's jacket. Additionally, blood consistent with Ms. Ouska's blood enzyme and protein type was found on a rag recovered from the store's bathroom. The bathroom is located in the rear portion of the store. 74 Lastly, a number of other aspects of Ms. Ouska's testimony were inconsistent with her previous rendition of events. Between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. on the morning of the murder, Ms. Ouska went to the home of her neighbor, Erma Gonzalez, and told Gonzalez that a Mexican man had tried to rob her and had stabbed her with a screwdriver, causing the wound in her leg. Yet, Ms. Ouska later told Fontenot, Rutledge and the police officers who first spoke with her about her injuries that she had been stabbed with a knife, not a screwdriver. Then, at trial, Ms. Ouska claimed that it was Martinez who had stabbed her, not the Mexican man that she had earlier described. Additionally, when Ms. Ouska related her story of the stabbing by the Mexican man to Fontenot and Rutledge, she claimed that, at one point, she had possession of the knife used in the stabbing but had dropped it on the street; Ms. Ouska later testified that she was concealing the knife at that time in her jacket, and that same knife was later found under her mattress. 75 Ultimately, the evidence supporting Ms. Ouska's guilt in this case was substantial and multi- faceted. That evidence demonstrated that she had the opportunity to kill Te on the morning of May 7, 1992, and that she was at the crime scene when the murder occurred. A number of items that appear to have come from the store, and more particularly its cash register, were found later in Ms. Ouska's clothing, and Ms. Ouska cannot explain how they came to be there. Blood consistent with Te's blood was found on Ms. Ouska's jacket, on money found in Ms. Ouska's room and, most importantly, on the knife found under Ms. Ouska's mattress. Testimony linked Ms. Ouska to the murder weapon and suggested that she attempted to hide that weapon before others could discover it. Moreover, Ms. Ouska's explanation of the events surrounding Te's death were inconsistent, casting further doubt on her credibility. Lastly, as the district court noted, there is no evidence that corroborates [Ms. Ouska's] story about Martinez being the one who attacked the victim. R.18 at 13. 76 Given this evidence, we do not believe that Ms. Ouska can establish that she suffered prejudice by the prosecutor's remarks about her post-arrest silence.