Opinion ID: 2273820
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Exclusion of Grand Jury Transcript

Text: Appellant also challenges the trial court's denial of the deliberating jury's request to see the transcript of Lewis's testimony before the grand jury. After closing arguments, the parties and the trial court discussed what portions of Lewis's grand jury testimony should be admitted as evidence. The trial court denied defense counsel's request to provide the jury with an excerpt of Lewis's grand jury testimony, and excluded the transcript of the testimony, reasoning: The fact that you have got a piece of paper doesn't really ... have anything to do with whether this evidence is before the jury or not. It's before the jury. They've heard it, they heard the context, they heard the debate, they heard the direct and cross-examination on the subject. So they've got that evidence. And putting a piece of paper in there doesn't change it. What it does is sort of elevate, contrary to all the other evidence we had.... I think we're better off just leaving [it] out. The following afternoon, after deliberations had begun, the jurors sent a note to the court that read, May we have [the] grand jury testimony for Jowuan Lewis[?] Relying on the rationale discussed during the bench conference, the trial court, over defense objection, refused the jury's request for the transcript of Lewis's grand jury testimony. Defense counsel persisted, and after the jury returned its verdict, counsel filed a motion for new trial based on the trial court's refusal to provide the jury with the transcript. The trial court denied the motion recognizing that exclusion of the transcript had been an error, but finding it harmless. The trial court reasoned that the jury saw that there was a statement, which counsel had in his hand and used to confront the witness. The trial court also noted that Lewis was not the only witness to the shooting and that the verdict reflected that the jury had parse[d] out the case[] rather carefully. For the reasons that follow, we agree with the trial judge's assessment. The Supreme Court has established, as both parties agree (and as the trial court recognized in considering the motion for new trial), that the grand jury transcript should have been admitted into evidence and made available to the jury: The elementary wisdom of the best evidence rule rests on the fact that the document is a more reliable, complete and accurate source of information as to its contents and meaning than anyone's description and this is no less true as to the extent and circumstances of a contradiction. We hold that the accused is entitled to the application of the rule, not merely because it will emphasize the contradiction to the jury, but because it will best inform them as to the document's impeaching weight and significance. Gordon v. United States, 344 U.S. 414, 421, 73 S.Ct. 369, 97 L.Ed. 447 (1953). [8] Our review therefore centers on whether the trial court's error in withholding the transcript from the jury was harmless. This analysis depends on the importance of the witness in the context of the case and on whether the jury was able fully to assess the credibility of the witness without the transcript. See Reed v. United States, 403 A.2d 725, 729 (D.C. 1979). If, for example, the witness's testimony was not particularly damaging to the defendant, ( Abraham) Williams v. United States, 131 U.S.App.D.C. 153, 156, 403 F.2d 176, 178 (1968), or if the improperly excluded evidence was sufficiently placed before the jury and it was well aware of the existence and content of the prior statement, reversal is unwarranted. Jefferson v. United States, 328 A.2d 85, 86 (D.C.1974). But where the trial testimony and prior inconsistent statements were of a key witness, reversal is warranted if the jury was deprived of the ability to decide for itself how much `impeaching weight and significance' to give to [the prior] statements. ( Sean) Williams v. United States, 686 A.2d 552, 556 (D.C.1996) (quoting Gordon, 344 U.S. at 421, 73 S.Ct. 369). There can be no question that Lewis was an important witness. He was at the scene of the shooting and was the only person who directly identified appellant as the shooter. Moreover, he was called by the defense, which argued that it was Lewis who had the motivation to shoot Gabriel and actually did so. We explore the evidence challenging the credibility of Lewis, and whether the jury was made sufficiently aware during in-court examination of the inconsistent statements Lewis made during his grand jury testimony. See Jefferson, 328 A.2d at 86. On direct examination, Lewis testified that appellant pulled out a gun from his waistband and shot Gabriel. Defense counsel confronted Lewis with his grand jury testimony, in which he stated, No, not untillike, I didn'tI really didn't even see the gun the night of the murder. I just heard the shots. Lewis acknowledged that his testimony before the grand jury was a true statement, but explained it was made in response to a different question than the question asked of him at trial. [9] Defense counsel also impeached Lewis with four other statements he had made before the grand jury. The first involved his description of Gabriel's actions before he was killed. Before the grand jury, Lewis testified that Gabriel was being berserk, but at trial he testified that he did not know what the word berserk means. The second statement related to whether Lewis had reached for the gun once he saw it in appellant's hand. At trial, he first denied reaching for the gun, but later on, after defense counsel directed him to the page in the grand jury transcript where he testified that he had reached for the gun in appellant's hand, he acknowledged that he had tried to take the gun from appellant. The third statement referred to what Lewis meant when he testified before the grand jury that after appellant pulled out the gun, he said to appellant, [T]hat's my coat. Why would you shoot him? ... Give me the coat-I mean give me the gun and I'll shoot him instead of you shooting him. At trial, Lewis admitted that he had made the statement, but denied that he intended to shoot Gabriel when he reached for the gun appellant held. Rather, he had only wanted to scare Gabriel into returning his coat. Finally, at trial Lewis initially denied that he had told Thomas, who had also been accused by Gabriel of stealing his marijuana, that he would protect her from Gabriel. [10] When defense counsel referred him to his grand jury testimony, however, Lewis acknowledged that his testimony there had been that he told Thomas, Ain't nothing going to happen to you while I'm out here. In considering whether the erroneous exclusion of the transcript of Lewis's inconsistent statements before the grand jury was harmless because the jury was otherwise fully able to assess the credibility of the witness, we have concluded that the trial court's error is harmless, if the prior inconsistent statement had been read in full by the witness to the jury and was used extensively by defense counsel in ... cross-examination. Jefferson, 328 A.2d at 86. [11] In this case, unlike in Jefferson, the transcript of Lewis's testimony before the grand jury was not read in full at the trial; rather, defense counsel would impeach aspects of Lewis's trial testimony by referring him to a specific page of the grand jury transcript and reading the specific statement that was inconsistent with Lewis's trial testimony. In each of five instances, counsel established that Lewis had said something different before the grand and petit juries in the case. In United States v. Smith, 172 U.S.App. D.C. 297, 521 F.2d 957 (1975), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that the trial court erred in refusing to admit the written report of the police officer who received the complaint of a robbery and the transcript of that officer's subsequent radio broadcasts because the trial court, as here, did not recognize that the evidence was admissible. 172 U.S.App.D.C. at 310, 521 F.2d at 969-70. There, the defendant tried to highlight inconsistencies between the complaining witness's trial testimony and the police broadcast and report concerning the circumstances surrounding the robbery (when the robbery occurred and where the complaining witness first saw the defendant; whether the defendant had taken money from the complaining witness; and the robber's attire, appearance, and skin color). 172 U.S.App.D.C. at 300, 521 F.2d at 960. The court in Smith noted that the report was directly relevant to the credibility of the only witness in the case. See id. Although the court recognized that the inconsistencies between the witness's testimony and the prior statements had been fully aired when the witness was questioned at trial, it placed special importance on the jury's request to see the police report, stating: [T]he jury's subsequent request for [the] Officer['s] ... report changes the complexion of the issue in this case.... [I]t is the jury, and not this court, that is the trier of fact, and the jury thought the... [report] was of sufficient importance to ask to see it. We cannot say that visual examination of ... [such report] by the jury would not have affected its verdict. 172 U.S.App.D.C. at 310, 521 F.2d at 970. [12] We also have recognized the significance of the fact that the jurors requested to see the transcript, because withholding the transcript might have impeded their ability to perform the task assigned to them, even if the content of the document was presented during trial. ( Sean) Williams, 686 A.2d at 556. In (Sean) Williams, we noted, in particular, that both the prosecutor and defense counsel had urged the jury to evaluate the importance (or lack thereof) of the statements. Id. The witness's testimony bore directly on the critical issue of whether the defendant was in a position to commit the alleged crime, [13] and the jury specifically asked to see the transcripts of the witness's testimony at the defendant's first trial (which resulted in a mistrial). See id. at 555. The importance of Lewis's testimony and the jury's request to see the transcript of his grand jury testimony make this a very close case. Nonetheless, considering the case as a whole and the jury's verdict, we are convinced that the error in not providing the grand jury transcript did not influence the verdict. See Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946) (noting that appellate judgment must be rendered in view of the jury's decision). In appellant's trial, many of the facts leading up to the shooting were undisputed: Lewis and Thomas got into an altercation with Gabriel over his weed, and Gabriel took Lewis's coat; Lewis then called appellant for help several times and appellant responded by coming to Lewis's assistance. At some point, Gabriel was shot. Lewis and appellant disagreed on the source of the gun and on who did the shooting. Appellant said he brought the bag Lewis had given him for safekeeping, but denied that he knew there was a gun in the bag. Lewis denied that he had given a bag to appellant and said that appellant had the gun tucked in his pants. Thomas corroborated Lewis, saying she had not seen a bag. Crucially, appellant and Lewis accused each other of having fired the gun to shoot Gabriel. The question for the jury was who, as between the two of them, was telling the truth. They both testified before the jury, and both had given contradictory statements in the past: Lewis in his grand jury testimony and appellant when he confessed to the police that he had shot Gabriel in self-defense. Defense counsel in closing argument pointed out two specific inconsistencies between Lewis's trial and grand jury testimony, [14] and at least some jurors apparently thought the grand jury testimony was important enough as to request to see the grand jury transcript for themselves after deliberations started. Moreover, as in (Sean) Williams, Lewis's grand jury testimony was significant because it not only impeached Lewis's credibility at trial, but it also cast substantive light on his ability and disposition to shoot Gabriel. [15] See D.C.Code § 14-102(b) (2001) (prior statement admissible as substantive evidence if declarant is available for cross-examination and statement was made under oath subject to penalty of perjury). Lewis's grand jury testimony that he told appellant I'll shoot him [Gabriel], his offer to protect Thomas from Gabriel, and his admission that he tried to grab the gun from appellant, reflect that he had the motive, intent and means to shoot Gabriel. Therefore, the substance of Lewis's grand jury testimony went to the core of appellant's defense that it was Lewis who shot Gabriel. On the other hand, appellant fled from the shooting, and the next day he attempted to escape from the police officers who tried to stop him and then chased him in their vehicles. However, appellant testified that some of these officersat least the ones who initiated the chasewere not wearing police uniforms and were driving unmarked police cars and that he thought it was Lewis who was after him. Appellant gave three different accounts: in his first encounter with the police, he denied any knowledge of the shooting; less than twenty-four hours later he confessed but said he shot Gabriel in self-defense; ultimately he recanted his confession, saying he had confessed out of fear, because Lewis had threatened to kill his girlfriend. Unlike in (Sean) Williams and Smith, however, where the evidence withheld from the jury impeached the only witness to the crime, here, there were two other witnesses (Thomas and Mitchell) whose descriptions of the events and the shooter pointed to appellant, albeit indirectly, as between the only two possibilities: Lewis or appellant. Mitchell testified that she was positive Lewis was not the shooter because the man who shot Gabriel was smaller than Lewis, who was heavy in build, whereas appellant was slender. Thomas similarly testified that she saw Lewis leaving the scene, while another man, who was tall[er] and slim[mer] than Lewis, struggled to stuff something in his coat pocket before he fled. Although Thomas was impeachedshe had been drinking and smoking PCP and marijuana, and was Lewis's friendMitchell had no apparent reason to lie about what she saw, and it is established that the physical differences between appellant and Lewis were remarkable. The jury's verdict is critical in our analysis. By acquitting appellant of second-degree murder, the jury obviously rejected Lewis's accusation that appellant was the shooter, and was not sufficiently assured by Mitchell's and Thomas's accountsnor by appellant's confession, later recantedthat appellant was the tall slim shooter. But by convicting appellant of ADW (and the related weapon offenses) the jurors must have found either that appellant himself threatened Gabriel with the gun before Lewis took it from him and shot Gabriel, ormore likely in light of the defense closing and the prosecutor's rebuttalthat appellant aided Lewis in the assault by knowingly bringing a gun to Lewis. It was undisputed that appellant had responded to Lewis's call for help, and although appellant testified that Lewis had not told him on the phone that he was having a fight with Gabriel, Mitchell testified that she overheard Lewis say on the phone that he was asking for assistance because he had a beef on 13th [Street]. Appellant testified that in response to the call he brought Lewis's black bag, from which (according to appellant) Lewis took the gun to shoot Gabriel. The inconsistencies between Lewis's testimony before the grand jury and trial did not go to these facts, however, but undermined Lewis's account that appellant shot Gabriel and, at a minimum, created a doubt in the jury's mind that perhaps Lewis was the shooter. In this, the acquittal of second-degree murder shows that the defense successfully impeached Lewis's trial testimony. The jury verdict reveals that jurors dismissed Lewis's testimony that appellant was the shooter, but did not believe appellant's account that he came unarmed to assist Lewis in his confrontation with Gabriel. [16] Considering the evidence, the inconsistencies between Lewis's testimony at trial and before the grand jury were relatively inconsequential to the jury's ultimate verdict that appellant was guilty of ADW, PFCV and CPWL. We, therefore, are able to conclude with fair assurance that the trial court's error in not providing a transcript of Lewis's grand jury testimony to the jury did not sway the verdict. Cf. Gordon, 344 U.S. at 423, 73 S.Ct. 369. For the foregoing reasons, appellant's convictions for ADW, PFCV, and CPWL are Affirmed.